An interview by Dr. Robin Kiera on our YouTube channel together with Jennifer Byrne the Co-Founder and President of Quesnay Inc. (@QuesnayInc) who organized Female Founders Forum and had a pitch in this years #ITC.
The objectives were not only to connect female founders with senior leaders of insurance carriers who helped bring to market solutions.
They saw the pattern of running innovation around the world and did not see enough women who applied over the last 6 years in which they recognized that there is a lack of representation in finance and insurance industries.
Jennifer shared that 60% of the employees in the insurance industry were female and only 11% are at senior or C-level, so this made us also realized this can be the results of forbidding opportunities against women to excel in the #insurtech and #fintech industries.
On their program, positive results were manifested – 119 registrants from 20 countries participated.
Their program was known with actively participating sponsors. Jennifer mentioned that their sponsors were actively providing financial commitments for their program. Their sponsors also much involved as judges, mentors, founders, and partners supporting the program. They asked their sponsors to nominate certain individuals with a variety of expertise to evaluate and judge 5 #startup finalists.
On their mentorship phase, they assessed the skill set of these nominated individuals and mapped them on the different needs of their identified finalists that ensured the right amount of coaching and mentorship were provided.
We totally agree with her that the shared approach was a fun and great learning experience for both sponsors and startups that made strong advisory relationships.
Dr. Kiera asked a hard question about the current “outdated” practice in Central Europe in which the insurance and the finance industries were being dominated by men but Jennifer answered with the aspirations of their program, to build the confidence and provide support that will help women to build startups, move ahead, and to excel to any organization – and hopefully help to change for gender equality as moving forward.
As per Jenny, only 8% of the insurance companies who has the programs, tools, support and leadership programs for women and she’s optimistic with the opportunities to alter the situations.
Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel here!
Thank you Jenny (@JbyrneQuesnay) for sharing your great insights and enlightenment of making the playing fields flat for women.
content by: Raul Tolentino Jr.
