Actuary of the year

Winner: Catrin Townsend, PriceWriters

The impact she has is industry-wide and reaches beyond the shores of the UK. She is sharing and lifting others up particularly women with her podcast, the industry events she organises, her volunteering with IFoA and through her publishing work. She holds an inspirational role to other budding actuaries.

Highly commended: Amerjit Grewal, Westfield Specialty International

Risk Professional of the Year

Winner: Karen Eckstein, Karen Eckstein Ltd

Karen is highly motivated in managing adversity and achieving success, bringing fantastic energy to her role. She is someone who shows ability to mix technical expertise, take risks and is proactive in facing every challenge.

Insurance Lawyer of the Year

Winner: Louise Trimble, DWF Law

Louise has had a powerful impact throughout her career and there is plenty of evidence to show how she also strives to make work better for women and the socially disadvantaged. Her focus on challenging structures and making culture more inclusive is commendable.

Highly commended: Brittany Boykin, Brit Insurance

Claims Professional of the Year

Winner: Tina Higgins, AXA Insurance

The judges were impressed with the innovative approach taken to training and development, the clear effectiveness of the training and the positive use of AI to train people rather than replace them.

Most Inspiring Returner

Winner: Joanna Fairbairn, CNA Hardy

A deeply moving and courageous returner story, demonstrating extraordinary resilience in the face of life-changing health challenges. Joanna’s ability to return to a leadership role saw her rebuild and bond a relatively new team, and create a culture of trust and autonomy, while managing ongoing treatment.

Marketer of the Year

Winner: Helen Andrews, Open GI

Helen plays a pivotal role at Open GI driving the communications channels with grace and skill. Her leadership inspires her colleagues, and the testimonials were authentic and heartfelt.

London Market Professional of the Year

Winner: Shelle Hobbs, TransEleven Claims Managers

Shelle’s journey from widowhood and sudden leadership to raising three children and running a company is inspiring. She has led TransEleven with significant growth and champions women in insurance with 70% of claims staff being female as well as staff retention.

Highly commended: Su Fen Lim, Tokio Marine Kiln

MGA Professional of the Year

Winner: Fiona Macrae, InsuranceWith

An outstanding example of positively impacting customers by having an unrelenting focus on their needs. Fiona has built a successful and growing business around those values. Strong on charity work and ensuring that people with cancer can get insurance cover.

Insurance Broker of the Year

Winner: Katie Maycock, Marsh

Katie does not sit still; she handles success and failure equally well. She shows solid, tangible evidence of her successes both internally and externally for Marsh, and personally with her masters and career progression/mentoring programme. She offers strong leadership skills through the mentoring of peers in high positions and always carries her team and colleagues with her.

Underwriting Professional of the Year

Winner: Chantal Abbot-Devaney, Axa UK

Chantal’s underwriting strategy and performance shines out. She achieves excellent results for Axa UK and her leadership is inspiring and impressive. A clear winner.

Highly commended: Louise Moran, Aviva

Digital Champion of the Year

Winne: Tanya Kukreja, Aventum Group

Tanya has delivered significant digital transformation through, generating measurable business impact). Her example of implementing a fully automated, end-to-end quote journey in under four weeks is concrete and innovative. She demonstrates strong leadership, technical expertise, and a commitment to mentoring and diversity.

Unsung Hero Award - Insurer/MGA

Winner: Dorothy Brown, Liberty International Insurance

Touching every part of the organisation from the C-suite down, Dorothy is the fabric of the organisation, lending a supportive ear and hand to everyone, despite the personal challenges that she has faced. What may be perceived as small acts are the constant that make a real difference to peoples’ days and if you multiply the positive effect of those actions, you end up with a significant contribution to the culture. The clear, unanimous and outstanding winner of this category, judges remarked that Dorothy represents perfectly the unsung hero.

Unsung Hero Award – Broker

Winner: Donna Walker, Howden

Donna’s strength shines through. She is determined and she knows she makes a difference, an unsung hero without a doubt. She worked her way up, is a role model for other women, sponsoring corporate and commercial women in leadership.

Unsung Hero Award - Service Provider

Winner: Laura Barrett, Deloitte

Laura has been instrumental in delivering significant market change. She is a dedicated mentor and working to address performance and pay gaps.

Young Insurance Woman of the Year Award (small to medium firms)

Winner: Georgie Simister, Artificial Labs

She has succeeded against a backdrop of neurodiversity, skilfully charting a career that plays to her strengths. Achieving commercially but also contributing to insurance knowledge and giving a platform to the voices of women in insurance through her podcast, showcasing role model and offering direct support for women and neurodiverse professionals.

Young Insurance Woman of the Year Award (large firms)

Winner: CJ de Guzman, Markel International

CJ shows impressive early engagement with D&I and clearly goes above and beyond to support colleagues and drive inclusion.

Highly commended: Flora Strachan, Axa XL

Team Leader of the Year - Insurer/MGA

Winner: Louise Sharifi, Aviva

She leads from the front by going the extra mile to ensure her teams meet their objectives. Louise often has an innovative approach to motivating her team which must make working for her great fun at times. Every member of her team is genuinely treated as an individual.

Team Leader of the Year – Broker

Winner: Victoria Sutton, Howden

Victoria has demonstrated her leadership skills, how she has driven change, results and team inclusion and engagement. Well, done to Victoria for succeeding with a strong team. She's committed to leading well and to standing up for what is right.

Team Leader of the Year - Service Provider

Winner: Nicola Garcia, DWF Law

Nicola has created a career path over 20 years, from the bottom up to be leading a very large team which would be challenging in her sector. There is significant evidence of how she has grown the team and increased revenue including geographic expansion, new client wins and driving continuous improvement in her team.

Trailblazer Award

Winner: Katherine Bryant, The Progress Partnership

Katherine demonstrates exceptional leadership in founding initiatives such as the Insurance Breakfast Club and Progressive Panels, both of which have delivered measurable outcomes and addressed critical barriers for women in the insurance industry. Judges were particularly impressed with the focus on equipping other women with the skills they need to help close the gender gap in insurance and backed up with truly impressive testimonials from across the market.

Mentor of the Year

Winner: Carol McIntosh, Marsh

Carol brings a lot of experience to the table, both professional and life experience which is very useful in a mentorship. The work she is doing with the CII stood out, helping people within the industry to progress with professional qualifications.

Rising Star Award

Winner: Rhiannon Pook, Acrisure London Wholesale

Rhiannon’s passion shines through in the entry, with a great commitment to the industry and a collaborative approach that delivers growth. She is vocal about overcoming challenges and sharing her own story with others to promote their insurance careers.

Highly commended: Bamishe Alao, Aon

Role Model of the Year - Insurer/MGA

Winner: Kirat Kaur Nandra, Travelers

Kirat is a carer who changed careers and is now a recognised industry role model and speaker driving inclusion across insurance. Her leadership in mentoring, co-chairing the Insurance Families Network, and advocacy at events like Dive In has made her a catalyst for change and a beacon for underrepresented groups

Role Model of the Year – Broker

Winner: Emily Kenna, Sense Risk Solutions

Emily has a passion for the client. She is professionally excellent, works with the CII and a champion of inclusion and diversity. Starting her own community broker in the face of such practical challenges surely makes her a true role model for other spiring female brokers.

Highly commended: Elle Day, Price Forbes

Role Model of the Year - Service Provider

Winner: Louise Butcher, McLarens

Louise combines technical excellence with a clear passion for inclusion and leadership. Her presidency of the London Business Interruption Association and outreach in Saudi Arabia show her commitment to empowering women globally. She balances a demanding career with family life and advocates for cultural change in the industry. A bold and visionary role model.

Gender Inclusion Network of the Year 

Winner: Aviva Balance

There is no resting on laurels for Aviva Balance. The network continues to press ahead with a wide range of initiatives but never loses sight of the need to demonstrate and measure their impact.

Contribution to Gender Inclusion Award

Winner: 100 Women in Insurance

100 Women in Insurance was created in late 2023 to showcase women in insurance and amplify their voices. In just 2 years it’s clear that the initiative achieved its ambitions with an enviable number of women showcased on its platforms and celebrated by the wider industry.

Contribution to Inclusion Award

Winner: Intact Group, formerly RSA

The Intact (formerly RSA) Forces Family Members policy is a targeted, unique, high-impact initiative for a marginalised group. It’s backed by emotional testimony and impressive recognition and feature some superb, DE&I focused ideas.

Insurance Woman of the Year (small to medium firms)

Winner: Jacqui Ferrier, Carbon Underwriting

This entry truly grabbed our attention. Jacqui has demonstrated a deeply gutsy approach and embodies the phrase ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Her personal resilience and industry impact make this a standout entry.

Insurance Woman of the Year (large firms)

Winner: Sarah Stanford, Aspen Insurance Group

To win these awards, it’s important that you are both successful in the industry but also active and visible in helping women achieve the same success. Sarah does this in a way that is head and shoulders above the rest. In addition, she has taken an underperforming business and transformed it into one of the best in the Lloyd’s market.

Outstanding Achievement Award

Winner: Caroline Wagstaff

Keeping the London market at the heart of the insurance industry is vital for the continued success of the City of London and for UK plc. Championing that market is demanding and requires many skills.

Caroline shows how bringing those many skills to bear can make a difference. She led the lobbying that ensured regulators are more nimble, more measured and more proportionate, establishing a secondary objective for growth and competitiveness for them. Her work as CEO of the London Market Group has also laid the foundations for the creation of a viable captive insurance regime for London.

She is also passionate about bringing young talent into the market and has been part of the many initiatives to raise the industry’s profile as a great place to work and build a career.