Most CIOs will tell you they go to industry events to share solutions. Kate Grasman (pictured) will tell you she goes to find better problems.
“I am thrilled to join InsuranceFest this July to meet other leaders in the insurance space and learn about business problems we are all trying to solve,” said Grasman, chief information officer at Heffins. “I look forward to the sessions to learn and connecting with everyone.”
That framing - learning, not just presenting - is more unusual than it sounds at the executive level. Grasman has spent her career at the intersection of insurance and technology, navigating the particular complexity of making systems actually work for the people who use them, not just the people who approved them. She knows that the most interesting problems in this industry aren’t always the ones that show up in the agenda.
Heffins is a West Coast brokerage with deep roots in the market and a reputation for doing thoughtful, relationship-driven work. Grasman brings that same orientation to technology: careful, considered, and built around what clients actually need. At InsuranceFest, she’ll be among peers who share that standard.
The Santa Monica Pier setting creates something that a hotel conference center can’t: a genuine reason to wander away from the agenda and have the conversation that wasn’t planned. For Grasman, who arrives genuinely curious about what other leaders are wrestling with, that’s not a bug - it’s the whole point.
If you’re working through a technology challenge and wondering what your counterparts across the industry are doing about it, she’s exactly the person to find.
Bring your hardest technology problems to the pier - register at InsuranceFest.com.
