Women in Insurance Summit New York 2023

I was honored recently to be a panelist at the Women in Insurance Summit New York 2023.

The event was energizing and the various speakers were terrific, sharing insights and understandings on a great number of issues. Let me give you a brief rundown of the day:

Wendy Booker, a world class mountain climber, sportswoman and general adventurer (who happens to have multiple sclerosis) told her inspirational tale of grit and determination in literally achieving peaks in life along side daunting health challenges.

One specific quote is a beautiful take on any challenge we face in life: “A mountain always gives you more than you expected”. I suppose we all have our “mountains”, literal and metaphoric. How cool to have heard from Wendy how she has conquered hers.

Dr. Angela Grotto, Associate Professor, Management & Marketing Manhattan College provided insights on managing the ever blurring lines between work and personal life and the inherent challenges with the resulting fragmented nature of the day’s hours as we are yanked here and there. She reminded the audience how important it is we communicate our boundaries when it comes to work interruptions intruding into our personal lives and how important it is we ourselves avoid unnecessarily interrupting others.

Dr. Christine W. Thorpe, Chief Executive Officer of Stronger Tomorrow LLC addressed a number of health topics and related taboos which impact women in the workplace. She gave some excellent advice to companies and managers as to how to listen better and appropriately act to support women and women’s health in the workplace.

Pamela Wheeler, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at NFP gave excellent advice and ideas relevant to anyone who has ever wondered how to negotiate salary and gave strong encouragement on how to think about the value one creates in the workplace. Sometimes, to our detriment, we are too limited in our view of the value we create for our organizations.

There were also some panels. One on Market Trends and the future of insurance which touched on the emerging and ever changing world of digital disruption including AI as well as legal trends impacting the insurance business.

Another panel addressed career acceleration through skillset development and experiential learning (including taking on big roles in far places) and training (even in a hybrid environment).

I had the honor of being on a panel discussing Fighting Fatigue. We were ably led by our Moderator, Mariane Lee of HUB International and my fellow panelists were Laura Hoensch of One80 Intermediaries, Kelly Palmese of At-Bay and Alanna Schultz from Swiss Re.

We discussed the importance of setting boundaries as much as one can between work and personal life, even when that might mean missing some work related activities; getting additional resource at work to help manage challenges such as ADHD and, as a leader, focusing on leadership basics, including delegation & empowerment, so as to not take on too much ourselves and to give those working for us a chance to show what they can do.

I learned a ton from my co-panelists!

Throughout the day, the event Chair, Denise Campbell, a Senior Vice President–Client at Marsh kept things moving with a deft touch along with an insightful and humorous spirit. Eleanor Forthsyth and her team at Key Media did a terrific job managing the event.

It was also terrific to see some additional former Swiss Re colleagues at the event, including Danielle Larsen, Andriana Karamanlidis & Senan O’Loughlin: terrific to see you all happy and well.

The day for me was well spent with the chance to renew old acquaintances, meet new colleagues and learn from some terrific and inspirational leaders. Would that every day were so. #IBWomenInInsurance