Julia-Graham

Senior female risk managers must acknowledge their “special place” in the industry and use this to make a difference to the current gender imbalance of risk managers, says FERMA president Julia Graham.

Speaking to a full-house at the ladies’ networking lunch on Monday, Graham said: “Gender diversity is about celebrating the difference and converting this into business opportunities.

Graham said as FERMA president she will be promoting gender parity and asked women in the industry to join her to make a difference.

She said: “The leadership of FERMA and the ‘special place’ this gave me, to go ‘MAD and Make A Difference’, is one my key objectives.

“FERMA is focusing its energy and resources on where we can make a sustainable difference and extract the most value.

“We have a cross-border team of people in the profession who will act as diversity champions. This includes risk managers, insurance managers, brokers, regulators and academics, Airmic members, brokers and insurance partners.

“We have some great role models in our profession at all stages of their careers. We’ll be profiling them and celebrating their success and lessons learned.”

Finally, Graham advised women to grab opportunity, “dare to be different” and to “kiss a lot of frogs before you pick your employer or boss.”

She added: “This is personal, this is emotional but this is not a fad or a quick fix. It’s a journey towards diversity with an objective for diversity to become a mainstream management issue.

“Women Make a Difference - go MAD with me!”