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Lindsey Hall: I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of thought leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.   

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a senior writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership Team   

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, a podcast hosted by S&P Global, where we explore environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping investor activity and company strategy. 

Esther Whieldon: Over the past week, we’ve been rolling out a special podcast series focusing on women in leadership. This is a new approach for us at ESG Insider to celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, which is today, March 8th.  

In the sustainability world, diversity in leadership has gotten increasing attention from many stakeholders in recent years. This topic sits squarely in the social or ‘S’ bucket of environmental, social and governance factors, or ESG. We’ve seen investors calling for diversity on company boards and management teams. And in some parts of the world, that push for diversity has extended to laws and regulations.  

So there's an increasing focus on diversity, and gender diversity in particular. But the number of women in top roles remains low. Recent research from S&P Global found that women represented just 5.4% of CEOs in 2022, that's slightly up from 5% in 2021. That research found that women's CEOs displayed more diversity, empathy and adaptability in their leadership styles and will include a link to that research in our show notes.

 Lindsey Hall: We know what the numbers tell us. But in this series, we’re digging beyond the data to understand how the few women who make it to the C-suite actually get there. We’re speaking to women CEOs and executives from across industries and all around the globe. We’ve already heard from the CEO of European aluminum and energy producer Norsk Hydro, and from the CEO of household and personal care products company Seventh Generation.  

Today, we’re turning to a new industry and a different part of the world: US insurance company Horace Mann. For that interview, we’re bringing in our colleague Hailey Ross. Hailey is a reporter at S&P Global Market Intelligence, and she has been covering diversity in insurance for years. Hailey, welcome to the show! Tell us, who did you speak to?  

Hailey Ross: Hey Lindsey. So I spoke with Marita Zuraitis, the CEO of Horace Mann. Horace Mann is a financial services company that serves U.S. public educators. Marita has worked in insurance for a long time, and I started by asking her if the industry always felt like a welcoming place for a woman?

Marita Zuraitis: Haley, maybe I'm a little unique in this regard, but I think I would say yes. I would say growing up in this industry, I never really thought of myself as woman. And maybe that's my parents fault. They had 7 children and they were of modest lens. And the only thing that they required all of us to do was to go to college. Even and they said, even if you want to be the best plumber you can be, then do that, but everybody is going to college. And I think with that kind of a background, we all just throw ourselves at it, we worked hard. We had goals, and I think that started at the very beginning. 

And what I found at the insurance industry was an industry that had a lot of different types of careers and the ability to really quite frankly, throw your body at it. So growing up in the industry, I never really saw obstacles. 

What I did find though, as I advance through my career where I wanted to create an environment where maybe you didn't have to work twice as hard. Maybe you didn't have to outperform at every turn in order to get that next shot. So I would say that was probably the only thing I remember early in my career was always having to be that much better, work that many more hours, and kind of overprove myself if you will.

Hailey Ross: I also asked Marita, if there are any challenges she faced in her path to the CEO role.

Marita Zuraitis: Early in my career, I didn't see it. But as I advanced in my career, there were some things that always jumped out at me. And I use kind of an odd example, or I think most people would think it is an odd example. And I can't tell you how many times somebody handed me their coat. Now we call it unconscious bias, and we talk about making people aware of their unconscious biases. And I didn't have a label for it until a lot of the corporate social responsibility and ESG push that we see today.

But I found myself in many cases as I went through my career, first in my first branch management role when we had a large claim in a social club where the members were men, and we went to a meeting about the restoration of that club. And I was standing in the lobby waiting for my time to go up on the stage and let the members know where we were in the claims restoration. And many of the members assumed I was the coat-check person and handed me in their coats. And it was a moment of truth. I mean, do I say something, do I throw their coats back at them and say, obviously, you don't know who I am. I hung up their coats. 

Later on, I was at Lloyd's. Lloyd's of London had a large reinsurance program to discuss with a couple of the names at London standing in the conference room with my boss, a couple of the names walked in, handed me their coats. My boss looked at me and had that moment of truth. So I hung up their coats. 

And actually even recently went to an industry event, CEOs, a DD&I conference, ironically enough, standing probably in a black suit, admittedly, next to the co-check, waiting to figure out where the meeting room was. And a couple of the CEOs handed me their codes. Again, I gave the coats to the coat check. And in every single situation, what I chose to do was not make it my issue. Quite frankly, I let it be their issue. And I saw the embarrassment when they saw me up on that stage early on or I pitched that reinsurance program or I was in a breakout session with one of those CEOs in each of those situations. 

So I think I learned during my career that there are unconscious, maybe in some cases, conscious, I choose to assume the majority of it is unconscious — but there are some biases out there that we can all learn from. And at Horace Mann, we spent a lot of time early on with our DE&I efforts on unconscious bias treating and really making people aware of the fact that they might not even realize that they have some internal biases. 

So that would be one thing that I would say along the way that I didn't have a label for it until now, but I certainly noticed that there were instances where there were assumptions made because of gender that maybe shouldn't have been made. But I never saw it, or let it be a barrier or a block to what I wanted or to what I wanted to do, maybe too long of a story, but I think that kind of paints the picture for you.

Hailey Ross: No, not at all. Thank you for sharing that. What is your best advice to others who are maybe thrown into similar situations working in the financial industry?

Marita Zuraitis: Yes, I think I'd say it very simply: hang up the coat. Meaning, I can't tell folks what the best situation is for them or the best reaction for them in any given situation. But I think the best advice is don't make it your issue. Put your head down, work hard, reach for that goal or that ambition that you have and don't let someone else affect your ability to reach your full potential.

Lindsey Hall: Hailey, I just have to jump in here and say that coat anecdote. That was kind of hard to hear. 

Hailey Ross: It really was, I was kind of had a loss for words, which she shared that. 

Lindsey Hall: that actually made me think of something that happened to me recently, I attended a conference at my alma matter where I was a delegate speaking alongside all these executives I really admired from across the sustainability world. And at the end of this full day taking part in this conference as a speaker, a fellow delegate approached me and said, "Oh, are you a student?" I was like, "No, what are you talking about? I've been here all day. I've been participating alongside you." 

But it really kind of maybe take a step back and it kind of impacted my confidence. So it was really interesting to hear Marita's approach to this. The situation she described with the coat check, is just so unfair. It's also really difficult to hear the advice that you should just get on with your work and not address the bias directly. So there's a lot to unpack in here. But what about you Hailey? Have you ever encountered anything like this? 

Hailey Ross: Nothing that extreme, but I can definitely relate in smaller ways through my own experiences covering the financial world.

Lindsey Hall: Yes, I can imagine. So what else did Marita have to say?

Hailey Ross: Yes. On the flip side, I also asked Marita what has been most helpful in advancing her career. Here she is again.

Marita Zuraitis: When you think about career advancement, it really is all about mentors. It's all about you can work really hard, but somebody has got to notice it. You can work really hard and do great work, but somebody's got to care. And I think along the way, having those mentors, quite frankly, both female and male who have the right mindset, who were about the right things. 

I sought career opportunities, lateral moves so that I could work with people and for people that value productivity, that valued hard work, that valued ambition. And I avoided those situations where that didn't matter. 

And I think that particularly made all the difference. And I think when we have unconscious bias training, when we have opportunities to have these conversations, when we have an open environment where folks can work together, get to know each other gravitate towards people that you feel create that type of environment and that type of climate.

I think in this world today, employees are seeking out a flexible environment. They're seeking out what we're talking about. And they're going to find those companies that create an environment where they can reach their full potential. And they're probably going to avoid those environments where they don't think that's the case. People have a choice, and they're going to go to work for a company where they feel they have the opportunity to do good work and to reach their full potential and to enjoy what they're doing. 

When you think about our mission as an organization, we help educators protect what they have today and secure their long-term financial future. 75% of our customer base is female, 75% of the K-12 public educators in this country are female, yet only 25% are superintendents of districts. 

So we see that and we work really hard to support our very heavily concentrated female customer base. We tailor a lot of our services and a lot of our products to that customer base. For example, one of the things we know is that females in our customer base are often the head of household, often working on and controlling the finances in the household. And many of those people are women of color. So concentrating our efforts on financial wellness and financial planning for our sector was something that we thought we could do to get right to the issue of helping females protect what they have today and secure their long-term financial future.

Hailey Ross: Yes. You touched on this a little, but how do you look at diversity, equity and inclusion at Horse Man? And is there anything that you're doing to foster greater diversity?

Marita Zuraitis: Yes. I mean I think I just said it, Hailey. I mean, I think because of who we are, because of our customer base, because of many of our leaders are also female, we really did concentrate on education. We concentrated on significant unconscious bias training. We have a diversity, equity and inclusion counsel. We have booked studies. We read, we talk. This is something that fierce conversations, having these conversations out in the open in a public company can somtimes be difficult. 

We've engaged our Board in these conversations. We've engaged our senior management in these conversations and our employees know who we are. They know that we care. And we embrace these hard conversations also pretty tough topics. 

So I really think as a company, I've said it publicly before, but we did ESG before it was cool, especially the 'S'. And I think that came from the need that especially when you think about gender, when 75% of K-12 public educators are female, they're your customers. These are the issues that they care about. These are the issues that they ask about. And I think they gravitate to a company that also brings them front and center and cares about those issues. 

One of the things that I found really interesting about the S&P research is the word empathy. I mean when you think about the word empathy to me, its about understanding, right? It's about living those issues. And for us, we really do have empathy because we understand. Many of us is women ourselves seeing our children seeing the diversity in the classroom, seeing the diversity in the teachers that are teaching our kids, and we certainly have empathy for gender diversity in our customer base.

Hailey Ross: The number of women in senior leadership positions and CEO roles has remained low across insurance and the financial services industry more broadly in recent decades. I ask Marita to her view on why that is, are women given opportunities to succeed in the industry? Do companies have room for improvement?

Marita Zuraitis: That's a really good question. I see it myself, and I ask myself that question why? And I don't know whether it is what women chose to do. I don't know if it had to do with recruiting efforts.

But I can tell you that it is an industry that over time, I see it changing. It was very, very often early in my career that I was the only woman in the room. And I remember early on when folks would want to put together a women panel. We have a panel of women that we want you to sit on. And I remember saying to myself, I really don't want to do that. Call me when you want the panel of reinsurance experts tell me when you want the panel of underwriting expertise on a given subject and trust me, they'll recognize that I'm a woman on the stage. 

Because I thought that was a better way to break out of the -- "we will have a women panel or will have a way in which we can say, yes, we really do have women in leadership positions" when we really didn't, and we really weren't diverse. So I really tried to reject it. 

Now I understand that by promoting women and by having conversations like this about gender diversity and having the straight conversations, it is very helpful. But I will tell you that I'm not the only woman in the room anymore. I think over time, and it did take some time, maybe I was the only underwriter in a particular unit. Maybe I was the only female director. Maybe I was the only female branch manager, but I'm not the only woman in the room anymore. And when I looked at the diversity stats at Horace Mann, I'm really proud of the fact that when I look at my direct reports, I have 3 women who report to me at the C-suite. And my last job was the only woman in the C-suite. And I think that really is starting to change and maybe some of it is time, but I think some of it is attention and some of it is conversations like this.

Hailey Ross: You just Marita say she's no longer the only woman in the room. I asked what other kinds of changes she has seen and how the insurance industry is approaching diversity? How is the industry progressing on this front?

Marita Zuraitis: Yes. I don't think that there are many different ways of doing this. And when you think about quotas and mandates, whether it's a number of women that have to be on public boards, whether it's requiring women to be on a candidate slate, I do think the push towards mandating that people try, mandating that this is an issue, this is important that investors care about it, that stat show that companies perform better when they have diversity and not just gender diversity but across the board, the intention to push is all very important. 

But for me, the companies that are going to win are the companies that actually embrace this. I went to an industry conference that had experts on the stage. And the first expert walked up on day 1 and talked when we were talking about the war for talent, and he stood up and said, there was a war for talent and the talent won. 

And I see in the S&P research the word adaptability and how that is moving up the chain and it's going to need to because companies are going to have to adapt to people, to their needs, what they want, what motivates them. 

The next day, the expert, a different expert got up on the stage, and she said, there was a war for talent and management won. Everybody is getting to the back to the office, this is going to change. We're going to be very close to where we were before the pandemic, et cetera, et cetera. 

And I sat there and I said, exactly, meaning if you're really smart, the companies that will win will understand that both are important, a diverse group of strong people working together to move the company forward with flexibility on one side, but the need to be together and have good teamwork and to have a cohesive relationship and learning and I think both are very important. 

And I think adaptable companies that realize a flexible environment that creates culture is going to be key. And I really think the culture word is really important, an overuse phrase that culture eats strategy for lunch, is I don't know if it eats it for lunch, but it certainly has to be on the plate for our company to be successful. And I think those companies that have a strong inclusive culture where every individual in that company has the ability to reach its full potential and that who you are and what you look like doesn't matter. I think are the companies that are going to succeed. And that's the type of company that we're trying to create. 

So when I hear the word empathy and I hear the words adaptability, I really think that that nails it because I think those are the companies that will be successful and certainly what we're trying to create at Horace Mann.

Hailey Ross: Lastly, I wanted to know what Marita sees on the horizon. How will diversity efforts evolve in the future?

Marita Zuraitis: We're not going to go back. I mean, I think the genie is out of the bottle. This is not a fad. This is not an issue that is going to go away. I think that we have slowly and steadily moved the ball forward. And this is a much bigger leap. I think in the last 3 years, we probably progressed more than we did in maybe the 10 or 15 years before that. So when I look to the future, I think the future is pretty bright. When I look to the future, I'm not the only woman in the room anymore. I'm not on a female panel. I'm on a CEO panel. And I think the more that we look up and we define leadership extremely diverse because those are the people that are in the leadership positions. It's not about promoting women. It's about promoting good smart people who should be in the job and the appropriate percentage of them are women. So I think the future is pretty bright.

Lindsey Hall: That's a really positive note to end on. There are challenges, but there's also progress.  And I really like what Marita had to say about the importance of company culture. This is something I'm increasingly hearing about in conversations across the sustainability world. Haley, thank you for joining us today.

Hailey Ross: Thank you both for having me.

Esther Whieldon: And to our listeners, please stay tuned as we continue to bring you interviews with women CEOs and executives for our special women in leadership series.

Lindsey Hall: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider and a special thanks to our producer, Kyle Cangialosi. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast and sign up for our weekly newsletter, ESG Insider. See you next time.   

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