 This episode of the podcast is supported by Bentley Lewis, an award-winning executive search firm. Hey, folks, welcome to the podcast. We are proud to be official media partners of DiveIn Festival this year, which is really cool and we're doing a series of podcasts for the festival. And if you don't know, DiveIn Festival is a global movement in the insurance sector, which is supporting the development of inclusive workplace cultures. So really, really cool work. They're in about 33 countries now, so they do these really cool events, panel discussions all over the world, really helping to promote diversity and inclusion, which is very cool. I hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Amazing, I'm alive and thank you very much for joining me, everyone. This is our third podcast in a special series for the DiveIn Festival. If you don't know, DiveIn is promoting inclusive workplace cultures. It's a completely global festival and it's great. It's all virtual now and it's been really nice to do a series of podcasts for them. And for this one, Jane Peterson has joined us. She is the chief underwriting officer for Mark Health Specialty. Jane, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's great to be joining you today. Been looking forward to this conversation. Oh, thank you. Whereabouts are you? I am in Falmouth, but not the Falmouth that you know. Falmouth on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. So a small town in Massachusetts. Ah, OK. And have you been, you're still locked down or what's the situation? I haven't left Massachusetts. If you leave now, you have to do a quarantine when you come back. So we've been pretty much hunkered down, although the cases in Massachusetts have really been well managed. It's been fairly low, but it's because we've been tied on the lockdown. Right. And then kind of office wise, is your office open? Or are you all still working virtually? I'm still working virtually. I split my time between the Cape and Richmond, Virginia. And my main office is in Richmond, Virginia. So I haven't been there yet. I'm actually traveling there shortly. And so I'll be in there. It's open, but a very small percentage of the population can be in. And it's masks. There's all kinds of protocols. And so we're slowly opening up offices, but we won't be at full capacity for the foreseeable future. Yeah. Say crazy. I mean, I'm in central London. So I'm looking at your London office right now, which is in the Walkie Talkie building. And usually at this time of day, the streets are really busy. The coffee shops are full. But they're completely quiet at the moment. A lot of buildings are shut still. So it's very interesting. I was saying to you before we started, I thought this would have been opened by May. I just got the year wrong. 2021 is looking like when it will all blow over maybe. So it's crazy. But I think for diversity and inclusion, which is really what I want to speak to you about, I think with everyone virtual now, pretty much, I think we really still need to keep the conversation going. And I was interested to know, you're based in the US. My view of the world, although global, I'm living in London. And you get submersed in your own little world. But are you finding that the diversity initiatives are working from your perspective? You know, they are. Are we where we want to be? Absolutely not. But are things working? I think things really are working. And it's interesting. I actually was in London last year for Di-Van. I attended the London Festival. And there are, you know, there's a lot of similarities around the globe. Obviously, it wouldn't be a global event if we didn't have this need to have this conversation and to advance equality for women throughout the world. So I think there are some good, we've made some good strides in the US, but there's still work to be done. I mean, I'm sure that's what you hear from your colleagues there. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of work to be done. And there is a lot of work being done, you know, it feels like. But then, you look at some of the stats and certainly here, it feels like if you're talking about women on boards, there seems to be more non-exec directors who are female. And the dial on female execs doesn't seem like it's moved a huge amount. You know, I think that's true in the US as well. And there's been so many studies on this, right? In terms of diverse boards and diversity throughout an organization, Catalyst Group has done some tremendous work. McKinsey has done great work. A lot of companies have done really great studies, which really do prove that if you have diversity starting at your board and throughout your organization, you'll have a better top line and a better bottom line. So it really makes a ton of sense. So I think it's an important initiative that is getting board level attention now because there's this better understanding. You know, when I started, there was this sort of, in the business, there was sort of a thing that it would be nice to do, right? It's a nice thing to do, the right thing to do. But nobody thought about it as a business imperative. And I think people are really coming around and seeing it slowly as a business imperative. And that's very much how I think the organization I'm with views it now very much. It's a shame that, and you see it all the time, you know, the business case in inverted commas for diversity where, you know, it's just good for society, right? To be fair. I mean, so it's a bit sad, you know, it's sad when you hear people using, you know, they've got to make a business case for it, or they feel like, you know. Because if you think about this, and my background's a little bit different. I grew up in a family of five girls. So no brothers. So when I grew up, there was never any sense that there were limitations. My mother was a professor, university professor. So I grew up assuming that, you know, I could do what I wanted to do. And so the idea of it having to make a case for it, you know, kind of set me back a bit. For that reason, it's such a, to me it just makes so much sense. And today, especially in the insurance industry, we're really competing for talent. And we're competing with a lot of different industries. And we need people who bring all these different skills, right? Obviously you have trained things like actuaries, but beyond that, we train our people. And so you need people with really diverse backgrounds who bring different ways of thinking because our customer base has changed. And so if our population doesn't match our customer base, there's a mismatch there, right? So it doesn't make sense. It just, you know, you don't need a whole business case to understand this one. No, I'd love to see more insurance companies higher from outside the industry. But all too often, you know, people go for a safe hire, you know, they've come from one of my competitors. And I think a big thing, you know, you speak to, you know, if you ask a middle manager, let's say, to hire someone and let's say, I don't know, it's a marketing role or an HR role or a technology role where you don't have to have the technical experience like an actuary. People are quite scared to make what could be perceived to be a bad hire because of the current environment. And, you know, they almost need the ball to say, you know what, like go and take a risk on someone from outside the industry, you know, get us some diverse talent. I think that's true. One of the things that I do is that for any opening that I have, I insist on having a diverse slate of candidates. And that doesn't necessarily mean people outside the industry, you know, for some roles that we have, it makes sense that, you know, if they're underwriters and we need somebody with a lot of experience, we're gonna hire somebody in the industry with product knowledge. But I do require that we have a diverse slate of candidates. And what's interesting is, once you say that and you start to think, okay, so if I have to have a diverse slate of candidates, where will I find them? How will I do that? And once you put your mind to it, it's sort of like any puzzle that we need to solve, you figure out ways to do it. So, you know, I think there are things like that that we're doing in the industry that makes sense. But I agree. I love when we hire someone from outside. I actually started my career in claims and I made the jump from insurance claims to underwriting. And I think it's so great when you see people do that. I love hiring people that have a different background because in very way, they'll bring ideas. Yeah, it's nice to be able to, it's good to try different things, like it's not a linear path, your career. It's okay to take different steps and stuff. And I think more and more people now are learning to accept that. It's nice to do. I had a talk last week with some of our associates and I talked about that whole concept that you just raised about taking different tasks because the reality is when you compete for jobs, you're gonna tell your story. And you want your story to be broader and more interesting than anyone else's. And that's really what it comes down to. It's your contributions and the level of knowledge you have and expertise and experience. And so if you have a broader background, you're going to bring more of that. It's such a good way to think about it. 100%. I actually had a friend of mine, he was applying for an underwriting job. He remained nameless. And he said, do you mind checking my CV? And I said, absolutely no problem. And that was the gap. I don't know, maybe it was five years or something at the beginning of his career from university to his first insurance job. And I said, what happened? What were you doing in those five years? Why did you leave off your CV? And he said, well, it's not relevant. It was an insurance. I don't think it's relevant and stuff. And I said, personally I thought, and I asked him to tell me what he was doing. And there were different jobs, but the learning experience, the story, it could set you apart from someone else. And I think never be embarrassed or hide your path. It's unique to you. And as you said, it's your personal story, which people like to hear. Absolutely. And also it gives you another opportunity to connect with an interviewer. Because there may be something, they may have started their path in a similar way or something completely different. And suddenly you have this thing to talk about, which is so important. I love it. One thing that I really like, I'm getting to like it more now, but in the US and in most states, and you might correct me if I'm wrong, but it's illegal for a prospective employer to ask a prospective candidate what their current salary and remuneration is. We don't ask that. You're not allowed to ask that. In the UK, and in most countries in Europe, you're allowed to ask. And in fact, if you're a candidate and you don't disclose, it's unusual. It's very unusual. Like the companies want to know what people are earning. And we have an office in the US and we do work there. And I think it's very interesting. You say to candidates, this is what the job pays. You could be earning less or in fact more because it's okay if you want to take a pay cut for a job you might want to do. How do you find that in reality when you're hiring people? I think that's a really healthy thing. And particularly for diversity. So in many industries, women are paid, and I'm gonna speak for the states now, women are paid less than men. And there's a lot of data and statistics on this. So if you think about it, if it's based on what the job pays, not what you make, that gives women and others an opportunity to be paid at the same level. So I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense and it also gives a lot more transparency to the organization. So if you see a job is advertised very often in the states, it will say what the pay range is. And that gives transparency internally and externally. And I think that's a healthy thing. Yeah, and I think it's very interesting. Because you see also, and I speak from the UK perspective, you see people that they come into the UK market without UK, let's say insurance experience. And you always find that there are not sure too below what someone with the same level of experience would have if they've had UK experience. Interesting. Yeah, for no real reason, that maybe they were just earning a lot less in the country that they came from. And they wanna come to work in the UK insurance market so much that they're happy to take a drop. So I think what you're doing in the US is really interesting. And I think for diversity, I think it's a really good thing. I do too, I really do. Yeah, now, we were talking about this so fair, but, and this is, you know, it's an interesting topic. And do you think there's a backlash going on right now towards diversity and the various different initiatives? You know, I think that I think, I don't know if I'd use the word backlash, but what I would say is this, I start with this very basic premise for gender equality. And when you say gender equality, you're not saying gender equality for women, you're saying gender equality, that all people have the same rights, have the same opportunities. And that is a basic goal. And I think that it's hard to imagine a person arguing that that's not a good goal for us, right? So I think where people get worried, some people get worried and men might, is when we talk about equity and how do we get there and what are the steps to get there? And I don't think anyone should be worried about it because this isn't a zero-sum game. So if you think about this as, you know, if she gets it, then he doesn't. Then that's a zero-sum game and that's not how it works. Actually, what happens is, and we talked about the Mississippi outset, if companies have more diversity, they will perform better. That means there will be better growth and there will be better profits. And so it creates more opportunities. It doesn't limit you, it actually creates more opportunities. So I think what we need to do more of is have these kind of conversations where we talk about it and, you know, make sure people really understand, what is the goal here? What are we working towards? You know, it isn't, you know, anything against one group or another group. It's for all of us to have the same opportunities. And I think when you really explain that to people, they get it. Yeah, no, no, definitely. I, yeah, I agree. And I think I still, you still hear a lot and I hear it a lot given the job idea. And certainly from younger people. So especially young white males, maybe, you know, just starting their career or early on in their career and whether they're actually experiencing this or they just feel it from the media. But, you know, they're saying, you know, what, what chance do I have? You know, there's so much dialogue around hiring people that are not white and male. So diverse pool of candidates and stuff. And it just, and it feels like a lot of those types of people are feeling marginalized or there are, you know, maybe more obstacles. Are you seeing the same thing or? You know, I think with any kind of change, people are, people can be afraid. And so again, I think the best thing to do is to have conversations. One of the cool things that I've seen done is the women's network in the organization. I'm the executive sponsor of our women's network. And they did this brilliant thing and they started a book club. It is now a virtual book club, but it wasn't in the beginning. And they made it inclusive from day one. So men were invited and they invite someone to come in and sponsor a book and the person who leads the book discussion can pick any book they want. And they invited men. And in the very beginning, what was really, I thought so clever is they invited some very senior men in the organization to come and lead the book. So what happened is right from the get-go, you had men joining it. And so it was great. And we've done books at our novels. We've done books on business. We've done all kinds of a whole variety of things, which has been really cool. But I think the more we do that, the more we include everyone, that makes a difference. I think that's super important. I mean, the great thing for me about living and working in a place like London is it's such a diverse place. I think, I don't know. I think the stats are like, I'm not gonna get this right, but 55% of people that live here aren't born in the UK. It's a wonderful melting pot. And I guess you're blessed to work in London or somewhere like London where there is so much diversity and you get the opportunity to speak to different people and engage. I think you're right. It's important to engage with people, engage with different groups and whether it's through a book club or something like that. But I think now it's interesting because most things are virtual and a lot of people are at home and might be for the foreseeable future. And I think we need to work even harder now almost than we did before. I think we do need to work harder. I think we need to find more ways to reach out to people to connect with people. But I'm also finding, how do you find this? I'm finding people are doing very kind things. So I'll give you an example. A couple of weeks ago I was on a call and our actuaries were presenting some of the results and this Fairleigh Junior Actuary was presenting. And it's a big deal. And in the middle of his presentation in New Zealand, this toddler let out a scream that only a two-year-old can let out. And right before it, I could tell his voice was getting really tense and I was thinking, there's nothing in this that he's presenting that would lead to that. So long story short, so he said, I'm sorry, my daughter apparently doesn't like her lunch. And I'm picturing that he's probably in a small apartment somewhere and he just can't get away from the noise, right? So I sent him a note afterwards to say, hey, great presentation. And by the way, your daughter actually added some real levity for the rest of us on the call, probably not for you, but for us, thank you for that. And so this is the greatest thing. Two days later, three days later, I got an email from him and he said, hey, I was looking at this email and I saw you're not on the distribution and I think it might be of interest to you. And I was thinking, wow, what a nice thing for him to do. He didn't need to do that. And so I am finding people are reaching out and doing kind of connecting in different ways. Yeah, I think right now it's so important. I've spoken quite a lot about it. Hiring for kindness is such a great thing. You know, like if you kind of circle back to hiring and you find a lot of people that are hiring for certain technical skills rather than some attributes like kindness and imagine a company full of kind people it'd be a pretty cool place to work. Your customers would absolutely love you. So, and you're right, you know, like right now appreciating as you did that, you know, your colleague was, you know, struggling or they might have been in this more flat and the daughter and, you know, I think this has all made everyone a bit more human. Yes, yes, the whole thing of, you know, you're seeing my house right now, right? Yeah, yeah. We know things about each other and in the beginning, did you find this like we would get on Zoom calls or webcasts and you'd be a little distracted because you'd be thinking, ooh, that's so interesting. I didn't know they, you know, like I love their artwork or this or that. It's just, it's so fascinating. I was giving a presentation one day and I had said to my husband, I'm gonna be on a webcast. So, you know, and I move around my house. I have an office upstairs, and I move around depending on the sun and the day. So he said, okay, no problem. So there I was presenting. Actually, I was sitting right here and all of a sudden my husband went and put flowers in the empty vases behind me. And people on the call were just dying laughing. And I said afterwards, and I could see it on the screen. I didn't realize he was here. And all of a sudden I'm thinking, oh my gosh. And people say afterwards, okay, that was the best thing. Thank you for that. And I'm thinking it wasn't playing. It's nice. I had my two young daughters, like video bombing me every single video call. And you know, once she decided to dress up in her swim costume and put her swimming goggles on. And you know, she'd come in and be like, hey, and you know, you don't want to be that guy who's like, aggressively trying to get their kid out of here. That's the thing. And then suddenly I just, it took me a while but then I just thought, hey, do you know what? That's life. They've been to it and people love it. And you know, that's been one of the things that I'm finding with men and women. It's been a fit of an equalizer in this in a big way. Because traditionally women have, you know, carried more of the responsibility often. And this has been one thing, you know, you have no more control or less control than your wife, right? And so we're all in this together. So. Yeah, 100%. It's been, it's weird. I mean, my wife's been working in intensive care through COVID with COVID patients and stuff. So she's been out at work the whole way through. And then I've been, so my role changed. You know, I'm used to, my role before was, I mean, I helped out a lot of course, but I would be in my office five days a week. And you know, but now when COVID started, you know, I would take both kids to school because my wife was a key worker, the schools in the UK would take your children. So I'd be taking them, I'd be doing some work in the day, then I'd pick them up, then I'd make them dinner, then my wife gets home, and then I switch, I do a little bit more work. So my whole working routine, like everyone's, of course, completely shifted. And you just, I don't know what it is, like you call it an equalizer, which yeah, it's true it is. And you just appreciate, you know, those different things, I think that go on, I mean. You do, and I think that, I think that makes you a better colleague, right? Because now you're doing, your life has completely changed. And so you think about, you will think about things, even when the world, you know, goes back to whatever our new normal is going to be, you'll remember this time. And it will change us. There'll be things that stick with us that I think are great. Yeah, well, we've done, we've done, which I think is awesome. We've done a half an hour video call with our team, we've got a little global team. And then I think before lockdown, we didn't used to do it so much. You know, it would be once in a while. Whereas now, you know, for example, my colleague in America, my colleague in Spain, my colleagues here, we're so much closer now than we were pre-lockdown because we're sharing personal experiences. We've seen each other's cats and children and whatever, you know, like it's been, so I think everyone feels more included if we circle it back to inclusion, you know, everyone's sharing more personal stories, everyone's being kind to people, coming across as like real human beings, rather than the kind of facade you put on when you put your suit and your tie on, you know, and you come in and everything's very... No, you know, it's funny, we started because we're all on these calls and they get exhausted, right? You have, you know, like what we would call the Brady Bunch, the nine boxes across the screen. And so one of the people in my team had this great idea and we start our calls with some kind of an icebreaker, which we don't meet because we know each other, but it breaks up the, you know, jumping right into it. So the last one was if your life was a reality TV show, what would the theme song be? And it was great. People came in with all different ideas. It was, you know, one person was texting me the night before, I'm working really hard. I can't find a song, I can't figure this out. And I was like, you know what, go with anything. We will not hold this, you know, this is a moment in time. But even that was really fun, like planning. And so it's a way to connect. And also we, you know, some of the people came in with really deep answers. Some were really funny. And it was all over the place, which is good. You need that kind of connection. Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's been almost a jolt for inclusivity, I think. And, you know, a lot of people speak about social media and technology in a negative connotation. But I think if you look at what it's enabled during this pandemic, I mean, you know, with the video and stuff, we've always been connected. I've got closer to my teammates and customers than I was before perhaps, because I've spoken to them more often. It's kept people who are very isolated, connected to the world. So I think it's, you know, I think we're lucky this has happened now rather than say 10, 15 years ago. It would have been completely different. I think we would have felt so isolated. And I do think we've been able to connect in a really healthy way. It's hard though, you know, it's hard. I do find I miss the actual interaction with people, but we're getting more creative, right? I have two people that now I do walking meetings. We both, you know, it's on the phone, obviously not a video, that would be weird. So, but you know, we agree, we'll both walk. And she's in Texas and one of the people's in Texas. And so I was joking with her that, you know, she's going to be able to do the walking more happily than I will in a couple of months when, you know, when there's snow in New England, it's going to be a different story. She'll be down in Texas. It'll still be a, but it's a good thing because it also gets us both moving. And, you know, getting out is a good thing. Changing your environment. No, that's why I've enjoyed, I've been coming into my office the last few months because I quite enjoy like getting my, you know, getting up, doing my exercise, getting dressed, coming into work. I feel like I've, you know, I've done a good day's work and then I can come home and I spent time with my kids and stuff. Because I found that, I don't know about you, but you know, there was a big dialogue about working from home and flexibility. And certainly in the insurance sector, you know, there was a bit of a fight against it, it felt like. Whereas now obviously we're all submersed, but it's, I think the new buzzword for me is work from anywhere. You know, like work from home if you want, work from the local coffee shop, come into our office. You know, I think hopefully the good thing is options. You know, like your team has options now. And I think more and more companies are going to start to go down that route. I think so and I think the smart companies have been surveying their people and really understanding what people want. And I think, you know, by and large, the people I talked to, you know, want a hybrid environment long-term. They do want to be in the office at times, meeting with their colleagues. They do obviously want to spend time with customers. We spent a lot of time with our customers and our people are really missing that. I'm really missing that. And so they want that, but they also do want, you know, days where they work from home and we're finding, you know, some people have been incredibly productive. Because people aren't jumping on planes, you're able to sort of sit and focus on something. So there have been some really good aspects to it. Yeah, I think one thing I'd like just to end with is something again around young people, because a lot of feedback I've had from people is, I know about you, I learned so much from sitting next to my managers and learning, just hearing what they were saying, how they interact, behave, dress, you know, just all of those things. And now obviously, you know, most people aren't going in. A lot of senior people I speak to, have they, you know, they say, you know, I can do my job pretty well from home. I'm not really going to go in. And then you speak to like their team members and they're like, oh, my manager's not going in. So, you know, what advice would you give to people that are kind of on the outset of their career, trying to, you know, try to find the place, trying to learn, get along? I think that's great, a great question. So, two really practical things that we've implemented. One is the point that you just made about how you learn from your manager and things that you pick up when you're sitting near someone that you don't even realize in the moment, you know, they may not even know they're teaching you, they're just doing their job and you're thinking, oh, that's a good way to do it. So, one of the things we've done is we've actually created online roundtables. So, a product manager could say Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 to 12, the line is open. It's a video call, people can call in and you can call in with a risk you want to discuss because you need authority or you want to figure out how to set terms and conditions, but others can call in and hear the discussion. So, it's like they're together and they're getting that roundtable so you don't have to have an account to discuss most people bring one, but you get to hear how other people think about it. So then when you get that same kind of an opportunity, you think, oh, I know how to do this. So, I think that's really working well. And one of the things I'm doing, I used to travel a lot and one of my favorite things was to sit with the frontline underwriters and support people and talk about what's working, what's not and travel with them to customers. And so, one of the things that I just, I'm just starting this month actually is small group conversations like this online. And I'll be on a call with five people so there'll be six of us in total. It's voluntary, so we can just chat about anything. We can talk about careers, we can talk about trends in the industry, we can talk about anything that's on people's minds. Yeah, I think that's brilliant, brilliant. Really nice, two really nice things. And I think, yeah, hopefully more companies will do that and just think about how to include everyone from the organization, which is great. Jane, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. I hope we get to meet in person one day soon. That would be wonderful. Whether it's in London or in the US. But thank you so much and hope you stay safe and healthy. You too, I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you, see you later. Bye-bye.