“The 2026 Elite Girls are powerhouses; they’re adaptable, they’ve been round, and so they have grown up within the {industry},” says Handel.
Aarons-Martin cited NAAIA’s analysis on the well-publicized underrepresentation in administration and govt roles. “It underscores what many ladies already know from lived expertise: expertise alone doesn’t assure development. What makes a measurable distinction is intentional sponsorship by {industry} management, not simply at their current group, and rising visibility as a topic knowledgeable and thought chief as a speaker at conferences or serving on boards.”
Various IBA’s Elite Girls 2026 have taken on this mantle, not solely by excelling in their very own roles, but in addition by opening doorways, forming ERGs, and mentoring others to stand up by way of the {industry}.
Girls within the Office 2025 report by McKinsey & Firm states, “Many years of analysis present that ERGs – historically organized round shared identities – play a strong position in serving to workers really feel related to their colleagues and their firm. Since ladies are inclined to have much less entry to senior-level networks and supervisor profession help, the profession recommendation and sensible help provided by ERGs may help to degree the taking part in discipline.”
Senior Vice President, Advertising and marketing
Admiral Insurance coverage Group
Strategic imaginative and prescient, creativity, and a deep dedication to individuals
On the core of her management philosophy is connection: Charlene Goodwin sees profitable advertising not as a numbers sport however as creating a real emotional bond between a company and its audiences. Her give attention to recruitment advertising is about truthfully speaking tradition and values.
Nowhere is that this clearer than in Admiral’s Wild Aspect marketing campaign, which she describes as one of the vital thrilling tasks her staff has undertaken. Designed towards the backdrop of an growing older insurance coverage workforce, the marketing campaign targets early-career expertise and goals to utterly upend drained perceptions of the sector.
By leveraging daring, ENS-inspired visuals and the invitation to “come work on the wild aspect with us,” Goodwin reframes insurance coverage as modern, difficult, and creatively rewarding. The tangible payoff is already evident in elevated curiosity and lead quantity flowing to recruitment groups, proving the facility of a differentiated employer model.
Goodwin can also be a pioneer in utilizing know-how and information to serve each purchasers and the broader public. Earlier in her profession, she battled some resistance to utilizing social media for real-time disaster loss estimates, ultimately serving to place her agency as a go-to supply throughout occasions like Superstorm Sandy, with even New York State turning to them for perception.
“Proper now, we’re utilizing Instagram to get a way of who we’re for expertise that’s coming to us,” she says. “We use LinkedIn for product-related data and for recruitment. We’re capable of enhance posts or use some LinkedIn advertisements to get a broader attain. One of many issues that we’ll be specializing in extra in 2026 is getting that consciousness of the insurance coverage {industry} basically after which extra particularly for Admiral.”
Charlene GoodwinAdmiral Insurance coverage Group
Right this moment, Goodwin channels that very same forward-thinking mindset into refined advertising automation, constructing wealthy buyer profiles that help extremely focused, related communication moderately than generic mass e mail blasts.
She says, “It’s with the ability to construct out a buyer profile as you’ll in a CRM. If any individual is interacting with the web site, you may mark their curiosity primarily based on what they’re . You are able to do that as they’re registering for occasions or webinars or interacting together with your materials.”
And he or she provides, “I need to ship related content material as a result of there are such a lot of locations to tug data from, and we use that to offer a greater buyer expertise.”
Equally vital is how Goodwin makes it clear there isn’t any job she is unwilling to do alongside her staff, and he or she intentionally hires these with curiosity and problem-solving means moderately than slender {industry} expertise. She invests closely in mentoring youthful professionals and interns, serving to them navigate company life and discover the numerous profession paths insurance coverage can supply.
As a girl in a senior position, she is conscious about the significance of visibility and illustration. She leverages her affect to increase past her division by way of worker empowerment teams centered on recruitment, variety, inclusion, and belonging, and philanthropy – initiatives she says at the moment are deeply woven into firm tradition. A part of that is providing a platform for underrepresented voices to share their experiences with the corporate.
Goodwin says, “A number of what we attempt to do can also be construct within the team-building facet so we are able to work collectively and be taught from each other whereas we’re doing good for our native communities.”
Senior Vice President and Head of Inland Marine
Amwins
Technical experience, entrepreneurial grit, and empathy
Finally, Heather Frain’s affect lies in her means to mix rigorous technical management with empathy, inclusion, and objective. From the outset of her profession, she has demonstrated a builder’s mindset. She has launched a number of applications from the bottom up, together with Amwins’ contractor’s gear Inland Marine program and a logistics program, approaching each with meticulous consideration to element.
She explains, “I’m very element oriented, and I imagine that everytime you’re placing something new collectively, you must have the fundamentals and the foundations to allow that program to achieve success.”
In constructing the Inland Marine program, Frain was intentional about incorporating value-added companies, which embody:
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a security companies staff that helps insureds determine and mitigate dangers whereas staying compliant with evolving regulatory necessities
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a particular investigations unit that protects insurers and insureds by way of proactive fraud detection and prevention
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a devoted claims staff that gives 24/7 help to resolve claims rapidly and pretty
These assist insureds turn into stronger, safer companies moderately than merely policyholders. In a crowded Inland Marine market the place everybody needs to jot down, Frain ensures Amwins delivers high-quality service by embedding help, perception, and partnership into this system. “I actually really feel that by providing value-added merchandise to our insureds, that’s how we are able to actually stand out,” she says.
Heather FrainAmwins
She focuses not simply on product design but in addition on creating sustainable constructions that can help long-term development and stability, an indicator of a strategic chief. What units her aside is her insistence that insurance coverage applications ship greater than capability and value.
Frain’s management is equally evident in how she manages danger and alter. She is proactive in recognizing protection gaps and figuring out rising points akin to quickly rising gear values and the affect of tariffs. Reasonably than penalizing insureds when circumstances shift, she works carefully with capability companions to make sure purchasers are protected, demonstrating a robust advocacy orientation and a dedication to doing insurance coverage the appropriate method.
She additionally retains a eager eye on the {industry}. “I like to take a look at my rivals’ types, to be trustworthy, to see what they’re providing and see what they’re doing,” Frain says.
Her affect, nonetheless, extends past underwriting. As each an alumna and a steering committee member of the Amwins Girls’s Management Program, Frain invests closely in cultivating the subsequent technology of ladies leaders. Drawing on her personal expertise founding an MGA whereas elevating younger youngsters, typically closing large offers together with her oldest daughter (now in regulation faculty) sitting on the desk in a highchair, she fashions what it means to pursue ambition with out sacrificing authenticity or household. Her core message to rising leaders is grounded and trendy: settle for that stability is never 50–50, and lead with out ego as a part of a real staff.
Frain is keen about serving to insured corporations turn into higher and, in flip, making the {industry} higher for everybody who works in it.
Government Vice President and Chief Working Officer
Fortegra
Imaginative and prescient, operational tenacity, and future-focused
Abbie Taylor’s position spans greater than 500 associates throughout a number of international locations, with a transparent mandate to place operations as an enabler of underwriting and development. Her management is rooted in listening to govt friends, direct reviews, and frontline groups in workplaces – and utilizing these insights to determine and take away limitations so others can succeed.
“I’m there to ensure they will give attention to underwriting the enterprise and rising the enterprise profitably. After I take into consideration the collaboration, it’s how do I make it possible for we’re doing the entire operations successfully,” she says.
With a management philosophy pushed by values and integrity, Taylor believes in aligning her private values with these of the group and factors to Fortegra’s emphasis on “unwavering integrity” as foundational. From there, she prizes disciplined execution and deep technical experience in a single’s craft, recognizing that insurance coverage is advanced and calls for rigorous, detail-driven professionals.
She says, “I’m all the time attempting to have lunches with broader teams and to have one-on-ones with a wider vary of individuals, as a result of it’s by way of these avenues that you simply perceive the place the challenges are.”
Taylor can also be a extremely collaborative downside solver who operates comfortably throughout capabilities and geographies. She lately led a cross-functional, worldwide initiative to optimize Fortegra’s UK and European operations, bringing collectively stakeholders from operations, compliance, finance, underwriting, and know-how to align processes finish to finish – from underwriting by way of to the monetary ledger.
Abbie Taylor Fortegra
This structured collaboration, rooted in respect for native regulatory nuance and knowledgeable by US greatest practices, illustrates her means to translate technique into tangible operational enhancements.
Below Taylor’s management, Fortegra has invested in trendy, configurable platforms to help the specialty enterprise globally, with one other platform launching to serve guarantee, embedded, and associated applications. She pairs these platforms with sturdy information engineering, making certain high-quality information and environment friendly processing, and a pointy give attention to information science to refine underwriting choices throughout greater than 100 applications, the place even small enhancements in mixed ratio translate into significant worth over hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of premium.
Maybe most notably, she places expertise and inclusion on the middle of Fortegra’s long-term success. She champions Fortegra Community of Girls (NOW), the corporate’s ladies’s ERG, as each a proper and casual mentorship engine that expands networks and fosters a tradition of belonging for ladies in insurance coverage.
“It’s a two-way road the place it’s ladies and leaders which can be being very intentional in reaching out and attempting to carry up future leaders,” says Taylor. “But it surely’s additionally people who’re extra junior being proactive in creating these alternatives. And that’s why one thing just like the NOW is so vital, as a result of it permits the 2 to return collectively.”
Company Supervisor
Comparion Insurance coverage Company
Efficiency rigor, cultural advocacy, and modern
Leaning closely into forming private connections, Luz Wolford invests within the particular person behind the producer, utilizing easy however significant gestures: birthday shoutouts, handwritten Christmas playing cards, staff lunches, and light-hearted video games that spotlight colleagues’ private tales, like guessing “who labored at McDonald’s after they have been 21?”
These practices decrease guards, foster belief, and remind brokers that they’re valued as individuals, not simply quota carriers. She says, “I need to make sure that my staff is aware of that I take care of them as people. For me, it’s placing individuals first.”
On the similar time, Wolford is very efficiency pushed and unafraid to guide from the entrance. Having spent virtually 15 years as a gross sales agent herself, she insists on being “knee to knee” together with her staff, keen to leap on calls, promote insurance policies, and safe referrals alongside them.
She says, “It’s ensuring that I do know what the job entails as a result of it’s exhausting for a frontrunner to guide a staff whenever you don’t know what the job actually is or what it takes.”
Luz WolfordComparion Insurance coverage Company
This credibility underpins a tradition of accountability and excessive requirements, the place success is well known publicly. Her adaptive mindset was examined and confirmed in the course of the pandemic. Promoted to supervisor, she was instructed to “rent and prepare” a discipline gross sales pressure completely nearly – one thing she had by no means achieved. She pivoted rapidly, shifting teaching to Groups and FaceTime, shifting periods into evenings to accommodate brokers’ childcare obligations, and relentlessly troubleshooting remote-work friction. This willingness to rethink schedules, codecs, and instruments saved manufacturing on observe and strengthened loyalty in a second of industry-wide disruption.
As a Spanish speaker, Wolford can also be a strong advocate for Hispanic prospects and bilingual expertise. When Liberty Mutual, house owners of Comparion, created their Amigos@Liberty + Allies program, Wolford was desperate to turn into a distinction maker by way of the brand new initiative. There, she earned helpful mentorship alternatives for her new management position whereas additionally mentoring Hispanic brokers herself.
This initiative has additionally seen important enterprise outcomes for Wolford and her staff. She says, “I keep in mind as an agent not having sufficient materials. I’m bilingual, so I knew numerous prospects, but it surely was exhausting for me to offer them paperwork when it was all in English. If we need to go after numerous Hispanic purchasers, we have now to have that help.”
Recognizing that “half of the inhabitants is Hispanic” in markets like Texas, she has highlighted the necessity for correct bilingual documentation and help so brokers can construct belief with loyal, underserved prospects.
“I needed to remind the brokers that even when it’s one thing small, you’re making a distinction throughout the firm. You won’t see it proper now, however I promise you, ultimately it’ll be so large that you would look again and say, I used to be a part of that change,” she says. “It took us a few 12 months and a half, and we have been capable of get numerous that materials that we have been engaged on on the market and authorized.”
Lastly, Wolford champions innovation, significantly round AI and social media. She understands that prospects more and more choose to textual content or purchase on-line and is coaching brokers to mix AI and native presence through the use of video, instructional content material, and digital channels to humanize themselves and attain trendy patrons.
Conclusion – what it takes to be an Elite Girl in 2026
Taken collectively, the tales of this 12 months’s honorees reveal a transparent profile of what it takes to be an Elite Girl in 2026:
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a people-first, relationship-driven chief who prioritizes real connection
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a deep dedication to growing others by way of mentoring, teaching, and sponsorship
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a sturdy advocate for inclusion, variety, and underrepresented voices in insurance coverage
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a hands-on, lead-from-the-front type grounded in actual technical and operational experience
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a future-focused innovator who makes use of know-how and information to enhance buyer and enterprise outcomes
Meet the judges
- Agnesa Bakhshyan
Chief Development Officer
The Buckner Firm - Alexis Faber
Chief Working Officer
WTW - Alka Manaktala
Managing Accomplice
Insurance coverage Workplace of America - Ashley Stivers
Director, Brokerage and Placement, Insurance coverage Providers
Franklin Road - Becca Faust
Government Vice President and Department Supervisor
USG Insurance coverage Providers - Berri Willis
Vice President
Burns & Wilcox - Beth Diamond
Group Chief Claims and Litigation Officer
Beazley - Chartenya Cleveland
Director of Underwriting Options
The Hanover Insurance coverage Group - Christina Colby
Chief Buyer Officer
Guidewire Software program - Christyn Yoast
President, USA
BOXX Insurance coverage - Concetta Barrineau
Company Proprietor
Sumter Insurance coverage Group - Cristina Varner
Government Vice President, and Life Sciences and Healthcare Observe Chief
CRC Group - Grace Hanson
Co-Founder and Chief Government Officer
Elysian - Holly Could
Workplace President and Dealer
CRC Group - Iliana Sadler
Vice President and Strategic Consumer Advisor
Lockton - Jenna Kirkpatrick Howard
Senior Vice President
Lockton - Jennifer Kessel
Chief Working Officer
USG Insurance coverage Providers - Karen Williams
Senior Managing Director
Danger Methods Firm - Kelly Bryant
Managing Director and Nationwide Tug and Barge Trade Chief
Aon - Kelly Stearns
Senior Vice President, Head of Major and Surplus Markets
HSB – Hartford Steam Boiler - Kimberly Hans
Government Vice President and Head of Distribution
Munich Re Specialty – North America - Mandi Constantino
Affiliate Vice President, Enterprise Improvement
AmTrust Monetary Providers - Marife Molina
Accomplice and Government Vice President of Income
C3 Danger & Insurance coverage Providers - Mary Keiser
Senior Vice President and Nationwide Meals and Beverage Observe Chief
HUB Worldwide - Melissa Hill
Head of Claims, North America
Allianz Business - Merial Brown
Assistant Vice President, Operations
Berkley Choose - Meryl Golden
Chief Government Officer and President
Kingstone Insurance coverage Firm - Monique Gilliam
Senior Supervisor, Claims Technique and Operations
DoorDash - Nancy Mellard
Government Vice President and Normal Counsel
CBIZ - Neha Thaker
Chief of Technique and Market Intelligence Officer
HSB – Hartford Steam Boiler - Rashmi Melgiri
Co-Founder/Chief Government Officer
Practical Finance - Raven James
Vice President – Human Sources and Director of Variety, Belonging and Inclusion
Brown & Brown - Rebekah Ratliff
Mediator/Arbitrator
JAMS - Reina Gregorio
Divisional President, Skilled Legal responsibility
Nice American Insurance coverage Firm - Rhonda Velez
Gross sales Government
CRC Group - Ria Lizuka
Underwriter II, Cyber and Know-how E&O
AXA XL - Sheila Shiny
Affiliate Director Coaching and Training, HIGG U
Higginbotham Insurance coverage - Shruti Engstrom
Managing Director – Cyber and E&O Product and Claims
Aon - Snejina Zacharia
Founder and Chief Government Officer
Insurify - Susan Combs
Chief Government Officer
Combs & Firm - Whitney Ross
Government Vice President and Chief Claims Officer – North America
HUB Worldwide
Insights
Insurance coverage Enterprise America invited {industry} professionals from throughout the US to appoint distinctive feminine leaders for the eleventh annual Elite Girls record. Nominators have been requested to supply particulars of their nominee’s achievements and initiatives over the previous 12 months, together with particular examples of their skilled accomplishments and contributions to the {industry} as a complete.
To pick the winners, the IBA staff relied on the assistance of an unbiased and esteemed panel of judges that included:
The judges and the IBA staff reviewed all nominations, inspecting how every particular person had made a significant contribution to the {industry}, to whittle down the record to the ultimate 73 Elite Girls. Self-voting and voting for family have been prohibited to keep away from conflicts of curiosity.
