Tamanna Advani | Senior Associate | PwC
I completed my undergraduate degree in Commerce and Finance in Dubai, and moved to London in 2018 to pursue my Masters degree in Accounting, Accountability & Financial Management from King’s College London.
This fuelled my desire to learn more about London’s financial services industry and the booming insurance sector, and I therefore joined PwC in 2019 within the Insurance Risk practice. I am also currently pursuing my ACCA qualification which I will further leverage to provide my clients with effective solutions.
Over the past three and a half years, I have worked with a number of general insurance and life insurers, including Lloyd’s of London Syndicates, and have helped them navigate through change driven by regulatory, technological and operational factors. I have led multiple workstreams on complex financial and operational transformation programmes with a focus on high quality delivery and value creation. My agility and flexibility enables me to deliver over a vast number of demanding engagements including, process and control remediation programmes, UK SOx readiness assessments and cost savings identification and recommendations.
Having grown up in three countries and being influenced by a variety of cultures has helped me understand the importance of welcoming different perspectives of people from different walks of life. This, coupled with the encouragement I have received from strong female role models has led me to mentor female students from ethnic minorities and underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds. I am a certified Mental Health First Aider, and organise insightful events at PwC focused on inclusion, diversity and wellbeing.
Sophie Robson | Claims Advocate | Marsh
Sophie is a Claims Advocate in the Management Liability Claims Team at Marsh, her work ensures that any contentious or complex claims are dealt with as smoothly as possible.
She has strong relationships with insurer claims teams, having had experience at insurers and as a former private practice coverage and defence lawyer, which she is able to leverage in her role as Claims Advocate advocating for global clients.
Sophie began working in the insurance industry in 2007. She is a qualified solicitor who trained in-house at US insurer HCC International, now Tokio Marine HCC, where she also sat on the wordings committee. Sophie also spent three years at insurance law firm Kennedys and was seconded to the AIG Complex Claims Team for almost a year.
Sophie has specialised in complex and high value financial and professional claims with her practice, involving both coverage and defence work. Sophie is involved in scoring insurer tenders for Marsh proprietary wordings and facilities and sits on the Carrier Engagement and ESG Claims Groups at Marsh. She was also selected for the Lloyd's of London Advance Programme which aims to develop those identified as future female leaders.
Shaunna Bell | Senior Vice President / UK Management Liability Placement Leader | Marsh
In 2012 I had to choose between a summer working in the Olympic Park or a summer internship at in construction insurance broking.
Despite only being 21, I chose the sensible option and opted to kickstart my career in insurance. I went on to complete the Aon graduate scheme, powering through my ACII exams whilst also throwing myself in to all the networking events I could find. I spent 2 years on the board of NGIN during its formative years, and learned so much about the importance of owning your career.
I have now been at Marsh for over 5 years, where I initially led a team of international wholesale brokers during the toughest D&O market seen for decades. Now I am the UK Placement Leader for the Management Liability practice in FINPRO. This basically means I am our face to the market, managing our placement strategy, insurer relationships and overall market interaction. I am the person people call when things don't go to plan! I like to solve problems, and love working within a big, high energy team.
Sam Robinson | Protection Specialist | HSBC UK
I have worked for HSBC from the age of 16, working my way through a variety of roles over the last 32 years, taking on financial advising roles, and then moving into leadership in a regulated role.
I am from Birmingham, and recently moved to Cornwall as my role as a Protection Specialist allows me to deliver coaching, training and support to Mortgage Advisers on a remote basis.
I moved into the Protection Specialist Role in 2018, and have worked alongside Mortgage Advisers and Wealth Advisers during that time, helping support their training, building confidence in conversations and building advice capability, which in turn means customers receive comprehensive protection advice.
Maisie Ward | Audit Manager | PwC
Hi, my name is Maisie Ward. I grew up in Colliers Wood, attending school and sixth form at a local comprehensive until I was 18.
I went on to study Biology at the University of Bath which included a year’s placement in industry. I applied for an executive assistant (EA) role at a market research company which I absolutely loved. It was my first experience working in that kind of environment, coaching people and spending time with inspiring execs. I learnt a lot, not only that EA’s know everything about anything (!) but more importantly that I wanted a career that encompassed the management skills I’d developed as well as one that allowed me to work with a range of different people and challenged me on a daily basis. This led me to the PwC Audit graduate scheme in 2017. I joined the insurance practice which initially I found quite daunting, there were so many different people, words (and acronyms!) to get my head around, alongside the extremely technical areas that come with accounting for insurance companies. But that’s exactly what I’ve grown to love – complex areas and intelligent people that challenge me on a daily basis. I worked my way through the ACA qualification and became a manager in January 2022. I work primarily with London Market clients and hold a role on our First Five Year’s committee, allowing me to support and develop our junior staff members.
Laura Barrett | Project Manager Commercial Strategy Initiatives | Lloyd's of London
Enabling the achievement of strategic delivery through comprehensive project management & purpose-led leadership.
Accomplished & driven professional, with experience in data migrations, product management, regulatory & digital change, within commercial & technical roles in Payments & Insurance sectors across the past 5.5 years.
Farirai Gora | Product Innovation | Mhururu neMuridzo Ltd
A biochemistry graduate by discipline I graduated in 2010.
Since then I’ve been able to carve out a career for myself in the insurance industry. I have over 12 years’ exclusive experience in the Lloyd’s and London insurance market. I help my clients exceed prior business performance and stay on the competitive edge of the global insurance market. I am a precise, strategic and qualified, product innovation and business change specialist.
I excel at driving forward business growth and regulatory agendas. I have worked with broking, underwriting, claims and operations teams. I lead my stakeholders in translating i) emerging risks and technology, ii) market trends, iii) UK FCA/PRA regulation into business and operational delivery goals. Achieving cutting-edge future proof change and technology outcomes compliant with the information security regulatory landscape.
I define and deliver project specific as well as long term outsourcing objectives with various partners.
I implicitly and explicitly lead teams across the full business change life cycle. I have strong stakeholder management skills used in scope definition, managing expectations and negotiating profitable outcomes. I have delivered operational transformation on large multi-million pound programs as well as stand-alone projects. Fondly called a ‘completer finisher’ I apply both a top-down and detailed perspective.
My expertise includes business continuity planning, scenario testing, front and middle office, HR, compliance, process re-engineering, scope definition and management, requirement elicitation, project reports, cost control, supplier management, team management, sprint planning, customer presentations, project close and adoption of large-scale business transformation and change.
Emy Passingham | Senior Audit Associate | PwC
My professional career began in March 2021, when I joined the PwC Audit graduate programme after studying BSc Geography at the University of Exeter.
My journey at PwC and passion for financial services began back in 2015 when I attended a Business Insight Week during my Sixth Form studies. This gave me the opportunity to experience a taster of working in Audit, as well as network and meet with some inspirational senior department leaders. Since joining permanently, I have remained in the same department, working alongside various female leaders who inspired me to join the firm six years ago. Seeing their enthusiasm and dedication to work, encouraged me to pursue this passion I had found, and overcome my battle with Imposter Syndrome that I had been struggling with.
For the past two years, in my role at PwC I have worked with a Lloyds of London Syndicate in between studying for the Chartered Accountancy qualification. Having started during the pandemic, it has not been plain sailing as the first few months of my career took place virtually. This provided an additional challenge to the already nerve-racking reality of starting a new job, requiring proactivity and assertiveness to learn quickly. As a result, in an attempt to give back, I took on a role to be a representative for my peer group (for new graduate intakes) through which I have prioritized smoothing their transition into the department.
Bethany Woolley | Insurance Broker | Marsh
I thought I would use 3 words people sum me up by, positive, loyal and friendly.
If you know of me, I am seldom down and pride myself on positive attitude and a smile; I am friendly and approachable so people feel at ease and know I am willing to help them, which is commended. Loyal, once I have faith and trust in someone or something I am committed to it – like progressing in the same organisation, despite the norm in our industry to move around regularly. I think these traits are key to finding my feet and establishing myself as a women in insurance. So where did it start? Straight from graduating University with a first class Business degree, I returned to my previous employment at Boots in a consulting role. However, within a few months, I wanted a challenge and I applied for a broker role at Marsh. I have been in Marsh Finpro Management Liability practice since 2016 and have experienced working in Norwich and London – both great exposure. My role goes between insuring the client gets the best T&C's by maintaining relationships with underwriters and then presenting and building a rapport with the client to provide updates (good or bad). I have been promoted twice in my career, now VP; I have actively taken up development opportunities whilst still providing assistance to grow the team and help new colleagues conduct the role - when I started the team was 4 individuals, now it is 17.
Alessandra Wood | Senior Web Data Analyst | DirectLine Group
I'm Italian and migrated to the UK when i was 18 with only £150 in my pocket and a one way ticket.
I've built myself up from nothing. After a few years gaining working experience and confidence with my English, I started working at eFinancialCareers as a Marketeer in the Recruitment, Banking and Finance sector. After a few years, I fell in love with Web Analytics and quickly succeeded in many projects, including migrating from Adobe Analytics to Google Analytics and leading a team of 4 across Sales, Marketing and Product Development and really transforming the company to a data driven organisation. After having my 2 beautiful children I decided to leave and found a job at DirectLine in September 2016 as an Senior Digital Analyst in the Marketing Effectiveness team. There, I've looked after Motor, Home, Rescue across both Direct and PCW channels, mainly serving the Marketing floor for digital effectiveness but also during econometrics led tests and studies. After a few years, I have moved to the Digital Department and started working for the PCW hub as an analyst in a Agile space which i have really enjoyed. I am now a Senior Data Analyst for the Pet, Travel and Private products and i am also volunteering as an Agile Advocates for the entire Data, Pet, Travel and Private communities, to help our teams adopt Agile behaviours to achieve effectiveness and efficiency, raising the whole departments as a result. I love my job.