Amanda Rudnicki, risk management segment leader, Marsh Canada
For Amanda Rudnicki, Marsh Canada’s risk management segment leader, support for women in Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry has come a long way from when she first started in the business two decades ago.
“I have been with Marsh in Canada for my entire career,” Rudnicki tells Canadian Underwriter in an interview leading up to International Women’s Day on Mar. 8. “I joined 22 years ago…and I’ve had the benefit of really seeing dramatic change over the course of 22 years, not only at Marsh, but in the industry broadly.”
For example, hybrid work is now a widely accepted practice that helps women who are balancing their careers and raising a family, she notes. Also, colleague resource groups have shifted scope from supporting individual women in the company to driving success for the business as a whole.
Hybrid work, in which people work from home for some part of the five-day work week, gained a foothold after the COVID pandemic in 2020-23, when public health orders called on employees in non-essential services to work from home to avoid the spread of the deadly virus.
Rudnicki worked from home for one day a week before that, she recalls. And she says attitudes about working from home have vastly shifted over the past couple of years.
About 10 to 15 years ago, she says, “I remember I was probably one of the few within my organization to have a work-from-home day,” she recalls. In organizing that, “it was challenging at the time to demystify what that meant for my colleagues.
“While I only worked in the office four days a week, I had to continuously tell colleagues, ‘I’m not off, I’m just working from a different location.’ But it’s just a completely world, obviously, today.”
Supports for women
Rudnicki has also watched the scope of colleague resource groups shift over the past two decades.
“It’s almost table stakes at this stage,” she observes of colleague resource groups. “They’re a baseline needed for colleagues to thrive and organizations to excel. Colleague resource groups have existed for some time, and they’ve really been internally focused in terms helping women develop skill sets, get access to mentorship, and think about career paths.”
But now, Rudnicki says, colleague resource groups have shifted from driving better outcomes not just for the individuals participating in the groups but also for the business as a whole.
“It has created a new avenue for women for networking and collaboration [with the broader industry] and [introducing] new perspectives and insights, which is really fundamental to what this industry is all about,” as she explains. “It has transitioned to be more about driving positive business outcomes and generating positive financial results which is fantastic to see.”
To advance women into senior leadership roles, Rudnicki recommends several things. First, leaders should consider providing more insight into the requirements of certain leadership roles, since there can be misconceptions about what the roles actually entail and the potential implications to work-life balance.
“In my experience, many women are less inclined to consider a role unless they meet all the explicit requirements,” she says. “Organizations should proactively encourage qualified female candidates to take that leap of faith and stretch themselves.”
The industry is also better at hosting events and networking opportunities that appeal to a broader audience, in terms of interest and focus, she observes.
“For example, it’s not just golf tournaments and cocktail parties anymore,” she says. “While we have made progress in this area, we need to be intentional around the timing of these events as well – such as hosting luncheons or other events during the workday.
“This may seem like a minor detail, but these types of events have allowed me to more successfully manage both my professional and personal priorities.”
