How has the profile of women in insurance changed since Clare Lebecq joined the profession some three decades ago? In a recent IB Talk podcast, Lebecq, chief operating officer at Specialist Risk Group (SGR) and vice president of the insurance institute of London Clare Lebecq shared top tips, advice and takeaways from her longstanding insurance career.
“When I joined, there were very female figureheads in the market,” she said. “So as a young, very ambitious individual, it was really difficult for me to find a good senior female role model. There were a couple of outstanding women account executives that I worked with in my early career.
“And on reflection now I realise how fortunate I was because, in those days when I was working at R K Carvill in the 90s, the team I worked with was actually really well balanced from a gender perspective [which] really helped me. Fast forward 30 years and obviously the picture has changed. There are many more senior female role models in the market and a really great set of networking organisations to help you access them.”
Platforms like LinkedIn are making it easier than ever for young women to find contacts and build networks, she said, while podcasts – including IB Talk – are making sharing your stories and insights more accessible. That for Lebecq is the standout change - the number of female senior leaders in the market to help young, female, ambitious individuals coming into the market to find somebody to role model.
Lebecq noted that it's clear that structured DE&I-focused policies and programmes – alongside shifts in how we work today, including the move to hybrid working – have moved the dial on creating a more inclusive insurance profession.
“Obviously, we can never sit back on our laurels because there's always more that we can do,” she said. “[…] We need to still keep the dial moving on and I think there's much work to still do.
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