On Wednesday 10th March, Markel International hosted its first Inclusion Network event in support of International Women’s Day (IWD). The virtual event shined the spotlight on several of our female leaders, who discussed the challenges they’ve faced in their careers, as well as the steps they’ve taken to progress into senior leadership.
Kate Gardner, co-lead of the Inclusion Network and communication and engagement Specialist for the Wholesale business, kicked-off the proceedings by providing a background of the organisation’s Network and the key issues its members are planning to address in 2021. “This year, we want to raise awareness of key topics and areas of focus for diversity and inclusion,” said Kate. “Gender is one of the biggest topics in D&I and one that we talk about often, so we wanted to mark the occasion of International Women’s Day by talking about women in leadership and hearing from our female leaders at Markel International.”
Joining the virtual panel was Juliet Redfern, divisional managing director of equine and livestock within the wholesale business, Nicola Sumner, operations director for national markets UK, Jo Browning, Markel International’s HR and communications director and Jennifer Devereaux, senior vice president of underwriting for Markel in Canada.
Alongside Kate, Trevor Gandy, managing director of diversity and inclusion, helped to facilitate the event by asking the female leaders a series of questions, starting with a brief overview of their road to leadership and what they’ve learned over the course of their careers.
“I started on Willis’ graduate scheme in equine and livestock, where I had a very motivational boss.” Juliet remarked. “His passion and drive for the business rubbed off on me straight away. However, it took me around five years to get recognised and feel valued, before ending up at Markel 12 years ago, where I was hired as UK Divisional Managing Director for Equine and Livestock.”
She added: “We can’t all be CEOs of the world; you just have to be the best that you can be and that’s how you’ll add value.”
Responding to the same question, Jennifer explained that she found it hard to articulate the end goal at the beginning of her career; “I was just glad to have a job in the recession after I finished school.” she explained: “My insurance career began when I was introduced to a manager who worked for an insurance firm. "At the time, it was an unexpected fork in the road because I had no understanding of the insurance sector but an eagerness to learn and I was coachable. That hiring manager believed I could do it without actually having done it before.“
The next question aimed to find out who has been inspirational during their road to leadership, to which Joanna replied: “I remember my first job working for a law firm in Leeds. I was inspired by my female boss because she had made a successful career for herself in a ‘male-orientated‘ firm.” She elaborated: “The lesson I learned from her was that it’s about finding a style that’s comfortable for you and identifying those people who are door openers which is key. My previous boss at the law firm took a big chance on me and I’ll be forever grateful.”
In the next segment, the group talked about how they’ve changed since the coronavirus pandemic began. Most of the panel agreed that juggling childcare/parenting, mental health/wellbeing and working remotely were some of the main issues they faced. However, they said they were able to overcome those challenges effectively by identifying opportunities to improve productivity within their teams, while demonstrating strong leadership during these adverse times.
Sharing her story, Nicola said: “During the pandemic, I learned about the importance of mental health and wellbeing, and the impact it can have on peoples’ lives. To look after people’s wellbeing, we changed the ways we engaged with people to replace those informal connections that come from being in the office.” She continued. “Moving to video has been a massive game changer for how we engage with people working remotely. As we move into a more hybrid way of working, the key is being really thoughtful about how you keep the team connected.”
Adding to her sentiment, Jennifer said that “when it comes to supporting each other personally, this is something that you can’t track easily on a spreadsheet. My first thought when Covid began was the impact that it would have on our teams/families and how I could help them. To do this, I made sure that I was there offering my full support and working with them side by side. In challenging times, you have to be ready to pivot and that’s what the key focus was in 2020,” she explained.
The final part of the session involved answering several questions sent in by some of Markel International’s employees. One that struck a number of responses was: what can Markel do to continue progressing talented women in the organisation and support young mothers? Joanna responded: “It’s about making fair decisions every time, being open, and having transparent and clear processes. We must all have access to the same programmes, jobs and promotions. In HR, we have a big focus on recruitment and ensuring there’s a turning point to become more flexible, especially for co-parenting.”
Nicola agreed: “The key for me is definitely around flexibility and giving people choices about how, when and where they work to balance their home and work life. I also recommend people take the opportunity to get involved with our Style in Action initiatives. We will be launching the Recognition Pillar soon and I have the honour of being the sponsor for that. I’m really keen to get a diverse group of people involved.”
Juliet concluded: “It’s sad that Covid-19 has created the flexibility which should have been introduced 15 years ago. However, it’s great to see that Markel has been at the forefront, ensuring we don’t slip back into the old ways of working.”
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