Kiran Sihra | AXA Insurance
I am a Senior Underwriter for professional indemnity insurance, assessing and pricing insurance cover for individuals or firms providing advice in their professional capacity.
I joined the industry 15 years ago as a HNW & Fine Art Trainee Underwriter with Hiscox and have been working in the London insurance market for over 10 years as a professional indemnity underwriter. I have been fortunate to gain experience underwriting some of the more niche areas too, such as Celebrity Death & Disgrace, Advertising Agents, Event Cancellation, and media risks such as Film, Television and Authors. I was born in Kenya and moved to the UK when I was 8 years old. I chose to do a degree in International Relations with Political Science, and followed that with a postgraduate in International Diplomacy, specialising in laws of war and conflict resolution, with aspirations to work in this field. My father passed away from a sudden stroke when I was 22, and I decided to change career paths, and moved into the insurance sector intrigued by Lloyd’s of London, the history of insurance and the career opportunities available in the industry. I have never looked back and gain true job satisfaction and enjoyment in my career. I am passionate about attracting and retaining talent in an evolving and exciting industry, that impacts our lives in hundreds of ways, every day.
I became involved with initiatives to support new talent to the sector in 2012, through the CII (Chartered Insurance Institute) 'Discover Risk' programme, speaking at events for school leavers and graduate events encouraging them to consider a career in insurance. In 2015, I was the multicultural lead for Dive In, the global festival for diversity and inclusion in insurance, a role I was invited to reprise in 2017. This year I am the co-chair for the Dive In London Steering Committee, a fantastic opportunity to showcase what the sector has achieved over the last 5 years as well as the areas we as an industry need to continue to drive forward making our sector truly inclusive and a desirable industry in which to build a rewarding career, for not only new talent but people already in the sector. I also sit on the Insurance Institute of London's (IIL)Representatives Committee, and was a founding member of their Diversity & Inclusion Committee. In 2016, I was selected by BITC (Business In The Community) as one of twenty women to participate in the #samebutdifferent campaign - a touring photographic exhibition on intersectionality and challenging female gender stereotypes. I was the co-founder for the Insurance Cultural Awareness Network (iCAN) in 2017, which aims to promote multicultural inclusion and progression in the insurance sector and working with allies to celebrate the benefits of diversity. Through iCAN, I launched a successful mentoring initiative that has become a key offering of the network going forward; having benefited from mentoring and as a current mentor, this is an area I am passionate about and believe can bring positive change with tangible results for both individuals and organisations. I have been invited to participate on panel and round table discussions on multicultural and gender inclusion in the sector. I contribute to the AXA UK BAME employee resource taskforce, and earlier this year was delighted to come on board as a London Insurance Life Ambassador - an initiative of the London Market Group (LMG) to attract new talent to the London insurance market.
Natalia Zurowski | Synechron
I was born in Germany to middle class Polish parents, grew up in Canada, went to university in Singapore, lived in China and moved to the UK two years ago.
I guess you could say I am a global citizen. My previous role was heading up marketing for a premium finance company where I helped create and execute marketing plans and strategies that led to multiple award nominations (including one win!), generated leads to the sales team worth over £200M, as well as helping to establish and position the brand as the most innovative company in the premium finance and insurance industries.
I also spearheaded the Company's Diversity & Inclusion initiative and initiated external partnerships with the Insurance Cultural Awareness Network ("iCAN") and Insurtech UK, to promote insurance innovation within the UK.
In roughly two years time, I made it from the bottom of the career ladder as a Marketing Assistant at a 40-odd person firm (solely based out of the UK) working my way up to become the Marketing Lead for Synechron, one of the leading, digital, business consulting, and technology firms in the world with 8000 people worldwide in 18 global locations.
As the Marketing Lead for Synechron, I have also been tasked with opening up our insurance channel to market into the UK (delighted is an understatement).
Two years prior to all this, I was travelling as a fashion model and would not have been able to tell you what premium finance was or how insurance worked, let alone explain to you how robotic processing automation (RPA) can benefit your business. I believe it's not about your background that makes you a success: It's your aptitude, attitude and willingness to learn that will help determine your path.
Jasmine Shell | r10 Consulting
After graduating from the University of Kent, where she studied International Business and Italian, Jasmine accidentally discovered the London insurance market joining as a marketing professional in 2013.
She very quickly found herself falling in love with the industry – a market ready for change, she realised there were many opportunities to make a difference.
Jasmine has a passion for people and change, and believes that for change to be successful, people need to be at the centre of the journey. For that reason, she joined r10 Consultancy as a consultant, an organisation that is committed to transforming the insurance industry. As a consultant, Jasmine is committedd to delivering value for her clients and building trust and relationships.
As part of her interest in change, she joined DXC Digital Minds as a delegate in 2017; a cross-market programme that drives positive change in the insurance market. Jasmine is now part of the team that runs the 2019 programme with over 75 delegates, from more than 50 organisations, all working together make a difference in the London market.
Jasmine enjoys volunteering and is the Brand Officer for the Next Generation Insurance Network (NGIN), a young professional group that aims to empower young professionals to shape the world they live in. She also mentors university students who aspire to join the insurance industry and graduates.
Diversity has long been a challenge in the insurance industry and Jasmine volunteers with the LMG acting as a London Is a London Insurance Life ambassador, regularly speaking about and showcasing the insurance industry as an exciting and rewarding career at schools, universities and exhibitions. She is passionate about sharing the often-misunderstood industry with the next generation.
Outside of work, Jasmine is passionate about providing opportunities to young girls. She runs a Brownie unit in her local area for girls aged seven to ten helping girls to build their confidence and skills, inspire them to try new things and support them as they discover who they want to be.
Emilia Gibson | Marsh
Emilia moved to London from British Columbia, Canada in 2013 to complete a BA in International Relations at King's College London.
During her studies, Emilia specialised in the South Asia region, as well as spending two years as President of the Women's Football Club.
She joined the Marsh Graduate Program from university in 2016, where she was placed in Marsh Risk Consulting as a Junior Consultant.
In the two and a half years working in risk consulting, Emilia has been promoted to Senior Consultant which is her current role. She currently specialises in cyber risk, project management, strategic insurance alignment, and financial advisory services with a focus on energy claims.
Emma Thomson | British Friendly
I've worked in the Protection Insurance market for over twenty years and am a passionate advocate for the social good our industry does.
I began my career within the underwriting team at Unum, before moving to LifeSearch in 2000 which at the time was a small protection advisory firm. For eighteen years I helped LifeSearch grow and become the leading protection specialist distributor in the UK. For over ten years I managed our insurer relationships, working with insurers to improve our market for the benefit of consumers; helping all the leading protection insurers develop their systems and processes, in addition to providing consultancy on new product developments and providing insight to assist four insurers launch into the market.
I've been a long-time member of industry lobby groups such as the Income Protection Task Force and the Finance & Technology Research Centre's Protection Forum. I've written regular articles on protection for trade publications such as Money Marketing for many years, helping to raise awareness of the value of protection and campaign for change. I work with journalists to help them write features on protection, and have been quoted many times on protection related matters such as product changes, access to insurance and consumer financial resilience. I've also been a speaker at several industry conferences.
In 2016 I became the inaugural Chair of the consumer-focused Protection Distributors Group, a role I held until October 2018. During that time I led our group in launching our successful Funeral Payment Pledge and Claims Charter campaigns, initiatives which have improved outcomes for consumers at time of claim.
I'm Chair of the Women in Protection Network which I founded in 2017. I was concerned about the lack of female representation in senior roles and as influencers, so wanted to create a group whereby women in our profession could work together to provide not only a support framework for themselves, but help to improve the gender balance and encourage female career development. I also wanted the group to focus on how we can encourage more women to buy insurers as too few women have the insurance they need. We have members from across the industry including reinsurers, insurers, distributors, the CII and portals, working together to help improve outcomes for women, and raise awareness of the need for our industry to be more inclusive across all social groups to better represent the society we serve.
In October 2018 I joined British Friendly as Product Strategist, expanding our award winning proposition even further. British Friendly has a very consumer-focused culture with a clear purpose to put its members first, and it's exciting to be part of the team.
Cherry Cheung | PwC
There is one thing I bring to everything I do in life, and that is enthusiasm.
My enthusiasm to succeed started from a young age.
When I was 10, I moved from Hong Kong to Anglesey. I was determined to beat the language barrier so I came up with innovative ways to improve my English. As a teenager, I balanced school with helping my parents working in their Chinese takeaway. I came up with ways to improve their business which was something I found interesting to do. These experiences have taught me the entrepreneurial determination and hard work required to achieve. After years of hard work, I was proud to be accepted by Cambridge University to study Natural Sciences, the only person in my year from my comprehensive school to achieve this.
I am enthusiastic about helping others. Prior to joining PwC, I worked as the East London Programme Manager for Cancerkin, a charity supporting cancer patients. I worked with the CEO to expand support services into East London and used my empathy and drive to lead on the successful Big Lottery Fund application. This was a great milestone that meant a lot to me, as the grant funded services for 3 years including the salary of the programme manager and therefore have helped many patients in need.
I also bring my enthusiasm to my career. I have been at PwC since 2012 and have enjoyed learning from a diverse range of engagements, to help insurance companies solve complex business and regulatory issues. These engagements helped the insurance companies increase efficiencies, overcome regulatory challenges and plan against various Brexit scenarios. Recently I have advised a large Insurtech and a number of start-ups to help them grow in the complex insurance market by identifying the regulatory implications of their business models and how to interact with the UK regulators. My determination to achieve success, coupled with my passion, creativity and empathy has meant I have a track record of developing great relationships, both internally with PwC and externally with clients. I am proud to be consistently highly rated and was selected in 2018 to take part in PwC’s board-sponsored Emerging Leaders Programme in recognition of my exceptional performance and as a future leader.
Without my enthusiasm and determination, it would have been impossible to get over the biggest challenge in my career to date. I have suffered from autoimmune health issues which has caused significant challenges in my work and my personal life. My approach of being positive and resilient has seen me through these challenges and I am proud that others seek my counsel on how I have overcome them.
I am known for my enthusiasm to develop others and have proactively created a number of initiatives at PwC. I recently focused on building diverse and effective teams by establishing a training programme focused on soft skills for the Regulatory team and launching a pilot to streamline working practices. My enthusiasm extends into employee wellbeing and recently I focussed on making an impact driving the UK firm-wide financial wellbeing initiative. I was instrumental in PwC participating in a UK-wide government event, Talk Money week, for the first time. I am proud that my vision and ability to bring people together engaged many through different events and channels, which successfully encouraged others to talk about money.
My experiences from a very young age have made be believe I could do anything if I put my mind to it, and this gives me the courage to venture out into new areas even though I have not done it before. This gave me the confidence to seek opportunities to develop my skills in technology outside of PwC and recently secured a place on the Women Founders Hack, with a brief to target problems women founders face. During the Hackathon, I led one of the final teams which build a prototype and pitch to a panel. I am excited about all the challenges and opportunities technology can bring to the Insurance industry.
I have developed a leadership style which is passionate, creative and empathetic. Taking this approach, along with my enthusiasm, I am determined to build on what I have overcome and achieved further into the future. Ultimately, I hope to be a role model for others and to inspire them by helping them see that you can be successful in Financial Services with a creative and empathetic personality, even with long term health issues, and no matter your gender, ethnicity or background.
Emily Luke | RBS
Emily is passionate about people!
No week is the same in her role as People & Capability Lead for the Digital & Engineering Services (DES) organisation in Royal Bank of Scotland's technology group.
She coaches line managers to deliver great employee experiences, partners with leadership teams to create and implement meaningful people and talent management strategies, supports software engineers and technologists with their career and capability development, and runs culture initiatives to improve wellbeing, engagement and workplace happiness. Emily is a strategic people partner sitting directly within the line of business, which has given her the opportunity to truly understand people needs and work directly with individuals and leaders across the UK and India to tailor initiatives that help make DES a great place to work.
Previously, Emily led the Performance Enablement practice at consulting firm North Highland, where she was accountable for the delivery of a complex, multi-year performance and talent management people transformation. She drove the design, change management, and embedding of new career path frameworks, competency models, and performance management processes across the global organisation. Emily was born and raised in America, where she received her Bachelor of Science in Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. She moved to London in 2010 and has been loving life on this side of the pond ever since!
Claire Farrow | Outsource UK
I am Outsource’s Inclusion and Diversity Client Partner, and I work with Clients to create an inclusive culture where all employees feel valued.
I consult businesses on where they can improve or change their attraction and hiring processes in order to widen their candidate pool and ensure everyone is invited to apply, regardless of sex, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion, race, disability, marital, and parents and carer status. This includes coaching the hiring community on their perceptions of the role, identifying where biases might be at play, and working with the business to identify the right solution for them, whether that’s reframing the problem, removing the role description or CV entirely, or using external interview panels, to give a few examples.
After a year of teaching English as a Foreign Language, I began my 10 year career in recruitment sourcing candidates for a number of Outsource’s financial services Clients. After 6 months in this role, I was quickly promoted to manage Outsource's two largest financial services Clients, Santander Technology and Nationwide Building Society, supporting with contingent, executive, graduate and permanent hiring strategies. In 2017, after a discussion around the lack of women entering and returning to the tech sector, I established the ‘Diversity Matters’ team within Outsource to highlight the lack of inclusion and diversity in Technology, Engineering and Logistics, with the aim of helping businesses to drive change in these areas.
In the last 2 years, along with the Diversity Matters team, I have delivered 4 successful knowledge sharing events to firstly inspire Women in Tech and latterly, Inclusion in the Workplace, welcoming over 180 Clients, and a wealth of speakers from diverse backgrounds sharing their lived experiences – from being one of the first female Chief Data Officers, the importance of male allies from a Director of the Tech Talent Charter, the problem solving skills picked up when living with a disability, and the importance of language when creating a culture of belonging from the perspective of a transgender awareness specialist, to name a few.
As a proud ally, I take 100% responsibility for empowering others, giving a voice to those not in the room, calling out prejudice, and supporting future talent. Driven by my passion, alongside my account management duties, and whilst also delivering Inclusion events, I designed and launched a full Inclusion and Diversity audit programme to support Clients with everything from consulting on job adverts, websites, and general brand perception, to educating the wider business, through carefully curated partnerships with experts in specific areas of Inclusion and Diversity, and designing and delivering bespoke assessment strategies.
With the full support of my CEO, I was appointed as Outsource’s Inclusion and Diversity Client Partner, and am now fully established as a subject matter expert in Inclusive Recruitment Strategies, delivering workshops and audits to external Clients UK wide, as well as consulting with Outsource’s internal exec team.
I am also an associate member of the Institute of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals and I recently co-founded The Swindon Inclusion and Diversity Network to offer peer to peer support to businesses in and around Wiltshire.
Sophie Theen | 11:FS
Sophie was described as a reformed engineer when she had her first taste of HR with IBM Australia.
She went on to pursuing a career in fixing problems in people, not machines. For 8 years, she had led recruitment projects with Ford, General Motors, IBM before moving to 11:FS (a Challenger Consultancy) to define their ultimate working culture via a series of employer branding efforts.
Her focus is aimed at cultural paradigms during hyper growth stages in a start-up and championing diversity and equality in a future focused way. She loves a challenge in solving people problems in organizations using structured, disruptive thinking. “People are your future”, she recites. New to Fintech, her contributions to the industry had gained her the Standout 35 in Women in Fintech Powerlist 2018, by Innovate Finance.
Stephanie Chant | ENGIE
After graduating from the University of Southampton with a BSc in Psychology, I began working for Thomson Reuters.
I learned quickly and within 6 months became responsible for coordinating the global business graduate scheme, delivering training workshops across Europe, the US and Asia. After a brief stint working for a law firm I joined Nomura, an international investment bank, where I was leading the team responsible for the corporate graduate recruitment and development function. It was in this role that I launched Nomura's first formal Apprenticeship scheme, growing and refining our early careers opportunities over time to reflect the changing approach apprenticeships with the introduction of the Levy.
More recently, after taking on an advisory role for Fidelity, I moved in to a permanent role at ENGIE, where I am now responsible for the UK's early careers schemes, managing the graduate leadership scheme and overseeing the company's strategy for our 350+ apprentices across the business.
For me, I do what I do because I find it greatly rewarding knowing that I have been able to help someone grow and develop during a hugely significant time in their life, in being able to see potential in a young person with very little experience, and being able to help them become a young professional in their chosen field. I am incredibly passionate about apprenticeships, and actively promote them as genuine alternatives to university. In my personal life, I have recently decided to start training as a counsellor, recently completing my Level 2 Counselling Skills qualification and progressing on to the Level 3 course.