2011 Women in Insurance Leadership
Meet the notable achievers and honorees recognized at this year's Women in Insurance Leadership Awards, and see the results of INN's own survey of professional women.
Insurance Networking News, October 1, 2011
The following highlights 10 of the most influential women in insurance. The six Honorees and four Notable Achievers featured were selected based on their job complexities, leadership and management skills, their involvement in corporate governance and ethics and their contributions to their institution's bottom lines. Nominations were vetted by INN editors and then judged by five of last year's Women in Insurance Leadership Honorees: Sallie Graves, ING U.S. Insurance; Susan Gueli, Nationwide Financial; Sandra Parrillo, Providence Mutual Fire Insurance Co.; Pat Rayl, Aflac; and Angelyn Scardino Treutel, SouthGroup Insurance-Gulf Coast. Thank you to our judges for their critical role in this program. To view the slide show, click here.
2011 WIL Notable Achievers
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Denise Blankinship - VP of Information & Data Support, Church Pension Group
As the VP of Information and Data Support for the Church Pension Group (CPG), a group health, group/individual term life and annuities provider, Denise Blankinship has her hands full keeping everybody on the same page. Geography presents one challenge, as CPG is based in New York but reliant on a network built between four offices and 26 additional telecommuting employees. Another challenge: formulating and translating business tactics into IT strategy for each business unit before carrying out that strategy across the branches.
At CPG, Blankinship helped create an all-encompassing, self-serving and online plan administration system. The system automates and centralizes processes for group enrollment, policy maintenance, billing, collections and accounting. What was once manual and paper-based is now automated, generating and managing out-bound and in-bound documents.
Blankinship has proven a master of connecting CPG's business goals with technology means, serving as an ambassador between business ambition and technological pragmatism. - Nominated by Oracle Insurance
Yvette Gonzales - CIO, VP of Information Services, Shelter Mutual Insurance Company
Yvette Gonzales claims responsibility for numerous enterprisewide projects involving IT and business operations, combined with day-to-day maintenance and production support for a company maintaining nearly 2 million policies and 20 locations nationwide. As the main planner and executor, Gonzales spearheads the project-based reform approach that Shelter boasts to foster harmony between business and technology.
Overhauls to Shelter's system under Gonzales' direction include extending Shelter's First Notice of Loss directly to agents, customers and vendors, which reduced customer service call volume by 35 percent. These changes take business requirements and apply the serious technological innovations required to make them a reality.
Other such accomplishments under her tenure include implementation of paperless claims administration, in-house development of a policy platform, marriage of marketing and business through social media, and adoption of an IT Infrastructure Library and Project Management Office into the Information services department. -Nominated by StoneRiver Inc.
Cyndy Smith - VP and Director of Technology, Haylor, Freyer & Coon
When Cyndy Smith began with Haylor, Freyer & Coon (HFC) as a claims representative nearly 30 years ago, it was a fledgling company of 35 employees. HFC now employs 200 and boasts $230 million in revenue. Although her impact on the company's increased success-including staking claim to her current position as VP and director of technology-is not directly quantifiable through her various positions, it quickly becomes self-evident when adding up her accrued duties.
As head of IT tool implementation for all divisions of HFC-including acquisition, implementation, maintenance and training-Smith identifies worthwhile industry trends, understands how to implement them vertically and horizontally, and communicates to and trains employees on new processes.
It's difficult to measure someone's success when their efforts glean abstract yields, such as effective, happy and efficient employees assisting happy, informed and appeased customers. But, HFC's overall company growth and trajectory proves Smith's success. -Nominated by Vertafore
Belen Tokarski - AVP Technology and Agency Solutions, CNA
Belen Tokarski's charge to grow CNA's business unit by being the most technologically advanced small business carrier is a relatively direct proposition. Nonetheless, reconciling this mission with clients of varying sizes and technological inclinations requires a business person with an innate eye for managing technology.
Boasting an MBA in e-commerce and an open managerial style, Tokarski has promoted use of social media within the company as a means to not only provide customer service and feedback, but also to elicit feedback from agents on how technology and basic relations can be improved. To keep CNA's small business unit at the forefront of technology integration, Tokarski moved her unit's commercial lines to an online self-service model. She was responsible for bringing in vendors as well as meeting with several teams and individuals to coordinate an effective transition.
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