.jpg)
Kathleen Savio, the newly minted CEO of Zurich North America, has had a front-row seat to Zurich’s evolution as a global insurer. Savio has been part of the company for 27 years and has done everything from writing technical manuals – her first-ever position at Zurich – to managing corporate communications, marketing functions and strategic initiatives.
“From my perspective, it’s been a tremendous experience to be with one organization,” she says. “The organization itself has changed in multiple ways … and being able to be a part of that in all different kinds of roles – and, as I spent more time and gained more experience with the organization, being in positions to help shape that – has been a very enriching way to spend a career.”
Savio was the chief administrative officer for North American commercial operations for five years, a role she affectionately refers to as “chief of all other,” where she was responsible for communications, human resources, community investments, risk and audit.
“Having a vantage point to the organization through multiple lenses was a great learning experience and something that I’ve been able to carry with me into the role I had just previous to this one, which was president of our alternative markets business,” she says.
Savio headed up the alternative markets unit from 2012 to 2017, and she looks back at one acquisition in particular as an important moment in her career. At the end of 2015, Zurich acquired Rural Community Insurance Services [RCIS], the second largest crop insurer in the US.
Savio was a key member of the acquisition team and oversaw the integration of the business into Zurich’s North American platforms, which took place in under a year. The business has since thrived as part of Zurich, though the process wasn’t without its challenges. “We knew this business because we had had a relationship with [RCIS] for many years and always were interested in it, if the opportunity came up, for an acquisition,” Savio says. “But both the challenge and opportunity was getting to dig in even deeper to understand the business itself. I love to learn, so this was a chance for me to learn even more about this business, learn about the management team and be a bridge to bringing these pieces together in a way that added up to something even more.”
A new path
Education has been a big part of Savio’s most recent career move. She refers to a phrase she borrowed from a friend to explain how the year has been since she took on the role of North American CEO in January.
“I’m still in this transition, in the ‘year of firsts,’” she says. “My emphasis is on what’s most important out of the gate [and] where I want to focus my time and energy.”
Savio goes back to Zurich Group’s strategy, which is laser-focused on customers, simplification and innovation. “I’m driving to bring that strategy to life here in North America in the fastest, most efficient and most effective ways, always on behalf of our customers,” she says.
Zurich’s Idea Center platform, which was launched in May, exemplifies these principles by allowing employees to share ideas about the best way to serve clients and bring to light new concepts about how business can be done. Zurich’s North American arm also plans to launch an innovation lab to encourage collaboration, ideation, problem-solving, and agile testing and piloting. The lab is meant to not only bring together Zurich’s people to tackle challenges and find new opportunities, but also to engage customers and key distributors in the process of innovation.
“We have a great advantage here in North America of being part of the Zurich Group because the group itself is heavily focused on innovation, and we’re making really interesting acquisitions and forming partnerships that we can then leverage here in the United States,” Savio says. “Where do we see opportunities, and what can we do to innovate, whether it’s through technology, processes, products or services?”
Workplace innovation
The backbone of any company is its customers and its employees. While some insurers are struggling to recruit fresh and diverse faces, Zurich is already ahead on that front. It was recently named of one of 2018’s Top Companies for Executive Women by the National Association for Female Executives.
Savio says being recognized with an award that reflects the values of the organization is particularly gratifying – after all, Zurich’s strategy can’t be fulfilled without its people. However, the company doesn’t just focus on promoting the advancement of a single group.
“Being honored for things like supporting women in the workplace is powerful for us, but we’ve spanned even beyond that to look at opportunities for other groups of people as well,” Savio says. Zurich has a number of employee resource groups, and while the largest one is for women, there are also groups focusing on veterans, African Americans and young professionals.
In addition, Zurich has adopted a flexible work policy to support its employees, recognizing that they have responsibilities outside of the office.
“We want to provide an environment for them where they can figure out ways to optimize how they work so that they know they are contributing, they know they are delivering, and they know they are adding value,” Savio says.
It’s about helping employees achieve work-life balance, but also navigate a career and be successful when implementing Zurich’s customer-focused strategy.
“These are truly exciting and interesting times, and for us here, never losing sight of that focus on our customer and what their needs are – that’s where we start and end,” Savio says. “Using this idea of being able to simplify what we do on behalf of the customer, and frankly, on behalf of our people, and then investing our energy in the right kinds of innovations that will propel us forward and that will continuously provide solutions for our customers – that’s just [what] I wake up every morning thinking about.”
