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Women in IT

The insurance industry is an intricate machine of many cogs; underwriting, risk, operations, actuarial, people and finance, all crucial components for the whole to be a successful business. In the twenty-first century however, the success of the technology which enables all these functions can be even more critical, to retain control over profitability. Ensuring a company’s technology runs smoothly from the C-suite is a role which requires a lot of big-picture thinking, but also a deep and detailed understanding of the systems and architecture which support the business.

As Chief Information Officer at Chaucer, Linda Cooke’s role is exactly this - to make sure all of this background technology operates seamlessly, to the point that it goes largely unnoticed to the rest of the business. “I look after everybody’s technology; all the hardware and applications that we need to do business and create new ideas, without having to think about the how. The main principle in IT is that we have to keep everything working so well that you don’t notice it.

What does it take, though, to ensure that everyone in a complex business such as an insurance company is able to do their jobs as easily as possible and systems are integrated throughout?

“To be a Chief Information Officer, first and foremost you must understand IT supremely well. Then you get to know the business itself so that you can understand its language and needs, and how to navigate them.”

Linda says, having started her thirty-year career in banking, and moving across to insurance in 2013. Her role is one of balancing priorities however, because, as she explains, every function of the business has numerous aspects they want or need to improve, but it’s not all possible due to resources and time available. This means the skillset required to be part of the C-suite on this particular function is to be highly technical, but also able to step back and understand the bigger picture.

“We'll always have far more demand than we've got supply and capability”, she says. “I could triple the size of the IT in the organization to meet the demands of our ever-changing business world, but that drives an awful lot of cost. So, it's about business benefit and holding ourselves to account to deliver that benefit across the organization.”

Seemingly, it does require dealing with stakeholders at all levels of the business – whether it’s strategy level conversations on the Board or ensuring business-facing technology teams understand why they are doing certain projects and the importance they hold for the end users.

It seems there is a nurturing element to this; it’s important to Linda that her team are not isolated from the business but are connected and understand the outcomes they are working towards.

“I try to instil pride in our roles within my team – they need to know how they contribute to quite a complex overall organization.”

As a woman in her field, Linda is something of a minority. Certainly, when she started her career, she was in a very small minority, as the only woman in a team of 20 IT trainees at Lloyds Banking group which she joined as a graduate, somewhat inadvertently it transpires.

“The irony of having a career in IT is, although I've always been analytical and curious, I never studied computer science. I couldn't actually use the computer when I started out - I had to pay somebody to use the word processor to do my university dissertation!”

When joining the bank’s trainee scheme, she didn’t expect to be put into the IT team as a technology trainee, but took the opportunity, having left university with a Biological Sciences degree and spent a year working in odd jobs rather than settling into anything she describes as a “proper job”.

Joining the IT team, it seems, was something of a baptism of fire, and although unexpected, it’s turned out to be perfect for her. She started as an operator, working night shifts setting off batch jobs and backing up the systems.

“As the one female on a shift working 12-hour nights, 12-hour days, it was quite an alien environment. The culture was a little strange for me and I witnessed some unusual behaviours, but I never felt any different to them in terms of my abilities, and I was always appreciated for being good at my job. I learnt a huge amount by watching others, and applying what I saw, it really was that straightforward to start with.”

For Linda, her experience goes to show that, as many in insurance sector will testify, you have no idea where your career will end up and it may be unrelated to your degree.

How did her experience as a double minority – a woman in banking and a woman in IT in the nineties - prepare her for the reality of working in insurance?

“Of course, when I moved into insurance the culture in insurance wasn’t much different. Financial services are largely the same across the board, so it was another intense environment where I was in a minority. I’ve seen a massive improvement in how women are perceived and progressed over the years, but from a representation point of view, female CIOs are still only around 10 to 15%. So, we're still quite a minority.”

Her point about the C-suite is well known to be backed up by statistics. The number mooted last year was that just 7% of chief executives in insurance are women whilst the percentage of chief financial officers is 16%. Whilst representation of men and women is approximately equal at graduate level, female representation drops dramatically at a senior level. As an industry, insurance clearly still has a ‘leaky pipeline’ for female talent, losing a lot of women in their late 20s and 30s, with many different drivers for the changes.

What can be done to rectify this – and how can more women aspire to hold a senior role like Linda’s in future?

“Something that is very important to me is to make sure that the pipeline of females in the industry at all levels and in all disciplines including technology, is really, really strong to start with”, says Linda.

“People like me, and other very senior females have a duty of responsibility to pave the way. Whether that’s to be a coach, mentor or just a friendly person to talk to, we need to help other females navigate and breakthrough those stereotypes.”

Linda is keen to highlight that Chaucer has a very strong culture and hybrid working policy, one which provides opportunities for returners. Human Resources work with agencies which specialize in returners post-career break for example, and the company is deliberately creating opportunities for returners if they want to come.

Her final point is about non-gender-based diversity – something that is close to her heart. “I’m a white female, so I have a certain level of extreme privilege. But as a child when you have bright orange hair and freckles, you soon learn that you are different to other people and being treated differently, you soon learn to either shrink away from it or embrace it, and I chose the latter. Success should be about finding the skills you have and the niche you feel most comfortable in and playing to your strengths.”

Innovation at Chaucer

Published on 30.10.2024