KATHERINE TKAC

Katherine Tkac of Smithsonian Institution is part of Insurance Business America Leading Risk Mangers 2017

KATHERINE TKAC
https://global.si.edu
Risk manager
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC

After accepting a position managing the fine art insurance program at the Smithsonian, Katherine Tkac fell in love with reviewing risks and developing methods to mitigate or reduce them. From that point, Tkac took on more responsibility and eventually became risk manager, charged with protecting the assets at the Smithsonian Institution, which is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex.

“The Smithsonian has grown by several museums in the last 20 years, and so have our risks,” Tkac says. “The Smithsonian is continually updating our standards on protection for our collection. With each museum, we have seen risk issues that we had not imagined 20 years ago.”


Maintaining and protecting the ever-growing Smithsonian collection is Tkac’s top risk priority for 2017. To do that, she works with insurers and brokers who are “willing to learn the uniqueness of the Smithsonian and work with this knowledge to provide the utmost protection to our assets. Once I have the underwriter understanding the complexity of the Smithsonian, the goal is to have coverage obtained at a reasonable cost.”
 

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