Women are under-represented in leadership positions in the insurance industry. Consequently, San Diego-based Barney & Barney LLC has launched a women’s initiative — B&B G.R.O.W., which stands for Growth in Relationships and Opportunities for Women — to attract women to and advance them within the 100-year-old firm.
“Historically, insurance has been a more conservative field. More men have gone into insurance brokering, and more men have been promoted into leadership roles. However, female leaders bring different perspectives and solutions to business challenges. This, in turn, ultimately benefits our clients,” said Paul Hering, managing principal and CEO of Barney & Barney. “Our organization would greatly benefit from more women in management and leadership roles, and we understand that we need to make a concerted effort to mentor and promote our women more aggressively.”
Trindl Reeves, a principal at Barney & Barney and the founding chair of B&B G.R.O.W., said more than half of the company’s employee base is female, and many of the top-selling brokers are women, yet women are under-represented at the leadership level. “We wanted to create a forum to cultivate and promote women in our workforce. We will begin by hosting a number of educational and social events in an effort to address issues relating to women in the workplace.”
B&B G.R.O.W. kicked off a series of initiatives with a keynote event featuring Dr. Bethami Dobkin, provost and vice president of academic affairs at St. Mary’s College of California, who addressed communication and gender issues within both a corporate and social context. Future initiatives include a comprehensive mentoring program, ongoing educational symposiums highlighting issues important to professional women and social events aimed at raising awareness on behalf of local women’s charities and nonprofit organizations.
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