By Loretta Worters, Vice President – Media Relations, Triple-I
Throughout Ladies’s Historical past Month, the insurance coverage trade celebrates leaders who’re shaping its future. One such chief is Kristen Martin, President and CEO of Utica Nationwide Insurance coverage Group, whose path to the highest displays each dedication and the ability of group help.
Martin grew to become CEO in 2024, following the retirement of Richard Creedon. For her, the function is deeply private. Rising up close to Utica Nationwide’s headquarters, she handed it nearly every single day and even visited as a center schooler for a Authorized Eagles program.
“Main the group at present feels surreal,” Martin stated. “It’s a full-circle second that underscores my connection to Central New York and the individuals who have helped form my profession.”
She credit mentors, colleagues, household – together with her husband, sister, and sister-in-law – and shut buddies, for supporting her ambitions whereas elevating a household. Elevating two sons with a accomplice who shares tasks has given them a wholesome view of teamwork and respect. Martin hopes they proceed to embody values she sees in them already: kindness, accountability, and the significance of exhibiting up for others.
“You generally is a devoted mother or father, accomplice, {and professional} concurrently,” she stated. “Main Utica Nationwide reveals the ability of help, illustration, and group, and motivates me to assist others really feel the identical sense of chance.”
Martin’s profession started at Utica Nationwide in 2001 as an examiner after working as a trial lawyer. Claims work, she explains, is likely one of the greatest methods to know the insurance coverage enterprise, providing perception into distribution, underwriting, threat administration, and buyer affect. These early experiences formed her management philosophy: ask considerate questions, keep curious, and take into account the real-world penalties of each choice.
Over time, Martin held roles throughout underwriting operations, governance, and government management. Serving as President and COO beginning in 2019 offered useful preparation for the CEO function. Positions resembling Company Secretary to the Board and Common Auditor broadened her understanding of governance, threat, and operational mechanics. Mixed together with her authorized coaching at Albany Regulation Faculty, Martin developed a disciplined method to decision-making, emphasizing readability, state of affairs planning, and evaluating affect.
Regardless of progress, ladies presently maintain solely about 22 p.c of C-suite positions in insurance coverage. Martin believes progress requires three key shifts: overtly discussing resilience, letting go of perfectionism, and being clear about profession targets.
“Construct a help system, deal with your self, and ask for what you need,” she stated. “None of us succeeds by ourselves.”
Addressing the trade’s expertise hole is one other precedence. Martin emphasizes early publicity by way of internships, which permit early-career employees to attach with trade professionals and discover a number of profession paths. “Management isn’t the one path to a significant profession. Particular person contributor roles are equally useful. Mentorship can be essential, serving to younger professionals develop whereas staying genuine.”
For younger ladies contemplating insurance coverage, Martin advises them to “encompass your self with various views, step exterior your consolation zone, continue learning, and don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. Persistence and authenticity are important.”
Martin is optimistic concerning the subsequent technology. By way of internships, she sees younger ladies arriving assured, curious, and desperate to find out about management and profession paths.
“As I meet our interns and see the arrogance and curiosity they bring about, it makes me extremely constructive concerning the future,” she stated. “After I take into consideration the place they’ll be in 15 or 20 years, I see a technology of girls who will proceed to develop alternatives and form the way forward for this trade.”
