“Once you get into the insurance sector, you actually start to understand the essential work that it does, because it’s really all about protecting society… I think the insurance industry does fantastic work, but I think we don’t do a good enough job of explaining to the outside world what insurance is about and how diverse and exciting this industry can be.”
Looking back on her journey into the re/insurance sector, Carmen Powell (pictured) who was recently named interim MD of the ISC Group, noted during her first interview for a role with an insurer, she was asked, ‘What attracted you to insurance which has such a reputation for being grey and boring?’ Her response was, “Well, I’m neither of those two things!” which she noted just underscores the gulf that still exists between how insurance is viewed – and even how it often views itself – and the essential work that it does.
Powell is a long-standing champion of advancing the professional development of women, a commitment that began when she started her career at BT – and advanced through roles at the World Bank, Hiscox and the CII. Back then it wasn’t known as diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I), she said, but her early experiences whetted her appetite for building stronger talent pipelines and being a champion for the empowerment of young women.
Now with over 20 years of senior marketing experience in financial services, Powell said, her time in the market has revealed what conversations about talent in re/insurance all too often don’t – there’s room for everybody.
“We don’t explain the need to have meteorologists and climate specialists and all kinds of experts so that you can measure any available risk,” she said. “I do think it’s an exciting industry but there still are issues with attracting and retaining diverse talent.
“It’s so important that we understand the need to help women from different levels to build out our talent pipeline by helping women from all across the professional world to enrich their knowledge and business networks to gain access to the vital peer-to-peer support needed to help them feel more emboldened and confident. That’s where Barbara [Schonhofer, ISC Group founder] has been fantastic from the beginning – at creating safe spaces for women to interact. And I think the fact that the 12 women who joined Barbara almost 20 years ago are now all in such high positions in the industry is a testament to what we have and can continue to achieve.”
All too often, DE&I and talent initiatives can find themselves targeting new talent or mature talent specifically, but the ISC Group is looking to make its mark on women operating at every level in their re/insurance businesses.
What has also been interesting to see, she said, is the increased recognition from businesses that if they’re going to create a stable pipeline of female talent, they need to concentrate on that middle level which ISC refers to as their ‘aspire membership”. A core area of focus for her in her role, is helping smaller companies that don't necessarily have access to high level DE&I expertise and are looking to support their talented women colleagues – sharing insights, best practices and success stories.
Powell noted that she first became familiar with the ISC Group upon crossing paths with several of the leading lights of the global not-for-profit membership organisation, among them Schonhofer and Sian Fisher. The more she heard about the group and its efforts to equip women with the skills and confidence required to have fruitful and fulfilling careers in re/insurance, the more impressed she became, she said, and she’s delighted to be joining at a time when it’s looking to rapidly scale-up where it already exists and expand into new territories.
Looking at her agenda for the year, she highlighted the recent addition of two new board members, and the next objective is to restructure its business plan to allow ISC to shout loud about the work it’s doing.
“The other is around developing new partnerships with corporates to support commitment to the advancement of women in the industry,” she said. “We already have a very good market penetration - what I want is to be able to engage and nurture those relationships and see how we can expand our existing corporate partnerships further while also building new relationships. Because to create an even stronger professional community and to create cultural change, we need to scale-up.”
