Conducting a LinkedIn search and seeing someone who looked like her and held a key leadership role in the protection sector was a source of inspiration for Nina Brown, protection and mortgage adviser at Pam Brown Mortgages.
Taking part in a panel session at the Women In Protection Network Conference, Brown (pictured left) told delegates that role models were key to getting more young women into the protection sector.
Brown explained she had been fortunate enough to see her mother Pam, owner of Pam Brown Mortgages, balance being a mother with being a successful businesswoman but added she was not just a woman but also a young black woman – a group that is not represented across the industry as much as anyone would like.
She recalled conducting a LinkedIn search to familiarise herself with people working across the sector upon events resuming after lockdown and then happening upon the face of Lloyd Banking’s protection director Rose St Louis.
“I remember thinking, she’s not just a woman – she’s a black woman in this industry and I can remember going to my mum and saying, ‘There is a black woman who is a protection director at Lloyds Banking Group’,” Brown said.
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing but I was a little bit shocked that she was a woman and she was black and it was absolutely fantastic.
“But for me, if I wasn’t already in this industry that would have made me want to come into this industry because I think it’s so important to have people you can relate to and to think in five, 10 or 15 years time that could be me.”
Fellow panellist Louise Colley, director of retail protection at Zurich, echoed the importance of women in the protection industry understanding the need to be role models.
Colley (pictured right) told delegates that women in the sector needed to show their experiences and achievements, as she had not believed it would be possible to reach the levels she has when first starting her career.
“I was probably forced into the situation to take my first executive job because I always said, ‘I can’t do this job’,” Colley said. “‘I’m not good enough’ and actually when you’re in the role, you think why haven’t I been doing this 15 or 20 years beforehand?
“For us as role models, it’s how can we get the talent that we have within the sector stepping up sooner so they’ve got that self belief because they can do it and I think that’s the biggest challenge.”