In a challenging environment where markets are increasingly unpredictable, ‘cut-throat’ is the perfect word to describe the insurance industry today. Although growth is probable and expansion is expected to be sustained by 2019, incumbent insurers nonetheless face existential pressures.
The insurance industry has been male-dominated from its earliest days. Some consider it a profession that has minimal place for women.
However, in the recent 2016 Women in Insurance Conference Series, a conference spearheaded by the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation in Los Angeles, women were identified as having made great strides in achieving equality in the industry on an international scale. Survey results showed that 86 percent of insurance professionals believe that the industry is making progress towards gender equality.
In the Philippines, a woman stands out as she maneuvers her company’s success in the local insurance market. Karen Batungbacal-De Venecia, executive general manager of QBE Group Shared Services, knows the real deal and continues to dominate the Philippine insurance scene.
Starting operations in the Philippines in 2013, the largest global insurer in Australia, the QBE Insurance Group, aggressively penetrated the Philippine insurance arena since its establishment. Karen is instrumental to the success of the QBE Insurance Group both internationally and locally.
As she builds the QBE name in the Philippines, Karen works in tandem with Joli Wu, another woman leader who stands as the president and chief executive of QBE Seaboard.
QBE Seaboard Insurance Philippines is an insurance company that combines the operations of QBE Insurance (Philippines) and the portfolio of Seaboard Eastern Insurance Company. It helps corporations and professionals to minimize and mitigate risk by providing a wide range of cover against legal liabilities.
Karen leads the QBE Group Shared Services Center, the strategic hub of QBE’s global business and processes. She is a pioneer in the business process off-shoring and shared services space, having built and led companies in this sector since 2000. She co-founded and was the first president of IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines and continues to be a senior advisor to the Board of Trustees of the association.
Now, leading the full operations of QBE-GSSC, she is faced with a greater role that makes her responsible for removing roadblocks and making multi-million peso contracts that fuel the company’s fire.
As a female leader, Karen believes that a woman’s intuition is an asset in a society that correlates rational thinking to decision making. “A woman’s touch in leadership puts in a unique perspective in terms of management style. A femaIe leader brings intuitiveness to the table in a business culture where we are engrossed with rational thinking. Although this is a tried-and-tested trait, sometimes, we also need to take a step back and consider our instinct towards something,” she shared.
As a woman who calls the shots in the organization, Karen admitted that she still has to contend in a field dominated by men. In the business scene where success stories of businessmen tend to attract the limelight, Karen attests that it is challenging for women leaders to stand out.
“My dynamics change when I am around a group of businessmen. It’s a whole new playing field when you’re in a room full of assertive personalities. But I always keep in mind what I am capable of as a woman leader. Besides, I know women like me in the workplace have the DNA for leadership, at par or even greater than the opposite gender,” she said.
Being a female leader in a male-dominated business culture, Karen is a representation of major advances for women in the workplace. The Philippines, ranking 4th among ten of the countries with the highest percentage of women leaders, is a living proof of how Filipinas are starting to be at par with men in running the business scene.
“It’s great to see women out there who are successful. I thank them, all of these trailblazers, who made it easier for all of us to aim high in our respective industries. To see that there are already women associations like the Filipina CEO Circle, a circle of Philippine women corporate leaders that I am also a part of, is proof that we are indeed moving forward,” she said.
As an advocate for women, Karen encourages all to continue celebrating and embracing who they are and what they are capable of as females. “I believe it’s the woman in me that helped me make those “leaps of faith” into the many adventures in my life. Many of my life and career choices weren’t logical. Most of it was based on what I felt I should be doing, a gut-feel, and I trusted that gut-feel,” she said.
A bright future for QBE and the industry as a whole is what Karen strives for as a woman leader. She prides herself in leading a winning team whose members promise to walk with her hand-in-hand towards success.
She continues to propel over 3,000 employees from Manila and Cebu and promises to lead in ways she does best—providing a corporate culture that emphasizes diversity and inclusion, and empowering Filipino women to become industry leaders themselves.