By Loretta Worters, Vice President – Media Relations, Triple-I
Throughout Girls’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 facility of group assist.
Martin turned 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 virtually each day and even visited as a center schooler for a Authorized Eagles program.
“Main the group at this time feels surreal,” Martin mentioned. “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 mates, for supporting her ambitions whereas elevating a household. Elevating two sons with a associate who shares duties 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 guardian, associate, {and professional} concurrently,” she mentioned. “Main Utica Nationwide reveals the facility of assist, illustration, and group, and motivates me to assist others really feel the identical sense of risk.”
Martin’s profession started at Utica Nationwide in 2001 as an examiner after working as a trial lawyer. Claims work, she explains, is among the finest methods to grasp the insurance coverage enterprise, providing perception into distribution, underwriting, threat administration, and buyer influence. These early experiences formed her management philosophy: ask considerate questions, keep curious, and contemplate the real-world penalties of each determination.
Over time, Martin held roles throughout underwriting operations, governance, and govt management. Serving as President and COO beginning in 2019 supplied precious preparation for the CEO function. Positions reminiscent of Company Secretary to the Board and Basic Auditor broadened her understanding of governance, threat, and operational mechanics. Mixed together with her authorized coaching at Albany Legislation College, Martin developed a disciplined strategy to decision-making, emphasizing readability, state of affairs planning, and evaluating influence.
Regardless of progress, girls at present 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 assist system, maintain your self, and ask for what you need,” she mentioned. “None of us succeeds by ourselves.”
Addressing the trade’s expertise hole is one other precedence. Martin emphasizes early publicity by internships, which permit early-career staff 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 precious. Mentorship can also be crucial, serving to younger professionals develop whereas staying genuine.”
For younger girls contemplating insurance coverage, Martin advises them to “encompass your self with various views, step exterior your consolation zone, continue to learn, and don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. Persistence and authenticity are important.”
Martin is optimistic concerning the subsequent technology. By internships, she sees younger girls arriving assured, curious, and wanting to find out about management and profession paths.
“As I meet our interns and see the boldness and curiosity they convey, it makes me extremely constructive concerning the future,” she mentioned. “Once 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.”