Influential Women in Captive Insurance: Suzanne Sadlier
Suzanne Sadlier, EVP, captive management North America, Artex Risk Solutions
Suzanne Sadlier oversees all client services for North America, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands at Artex Risk Solutions. This encompasses single parent captives, cell companies, group captives, risk pooling schemes and commercial re/insurance.
She joined Artex in June 2022 as managing director of the Cayman Islands office and has more than 16 years of financial services experience, predominantly in reinsurance and regulation.
Sadlier spent her early career with Mitsui Sumitomo and Central Bank of Ireland before moving to the Cayman Islands in 2015 to join the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) as its first reinsurance specialist. Subsequent promotions included her appointment as deputy head of the Insurance Division and later as head of onsite inspections for all CIMA-regulated financial services in Cayman.
She holds a BA in international insurance from the University of Limerick, Ireland, and is a chartered insurer (ACII) and certified catastrophe modeller. She is a faculty member of the International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE) where she lectures on “Reinsurance and Other Risk Transfer Mechanisms”. She also lectures on the Cayman Islands Compliance Diploma.
How did you get started in the captive insurance industry?
My entire career has been insurance-centric, graduating university with a degree in international insurance in 2007 and spending the past 17 years working in the insurance industry. While exposed to captives early on in my career, the captive insurance industry became a more dominant part of my work when moving to the Cayman Islands in 2015 to oversee the captives industry, originally as CIMA’s reinsurance specialist and later as deputy head of the Insurance Division.
Who inspired you or acted as a mentor in your career?
I have always drawn inspiration from the work ethic of my late grandmother who established and ran a family business for many years and worked there until her early 90s. That business is still operating today, over 75 years later, which is a testament to what she created and built upon.
She was determined, hard-working, dynamic, and intelligent. I learned a lot from her and have tried to uphold her values throughout my career.
What do you think deters people from entering the world of captives?
There is still a lack of awareness of the depths/variety of career opportunities available in the insurance industry, including in captives. I don’t believe it’s a case of people lining up the possibility of working in the captives industry as compared to other options and then deciding not to pursue it—the issue is it’s not always prominent enough to be part of the selection process in the first place.
We have a responsibility to promote the sector through educational connections—a great example is the work of the ICCIE—and also for example through attending career fairs and engaging with students to share what makes it such a rewarding career path.
How can mentorship and sponsorship programmes be designed to better support the career development of women?
By ensuring that these programmes are flexible in their offering, they can be highly beneficial to women in captive insurance. For example, expectant mothers or those with children might need greater flexibility to study at their own pace and at their desired times of the day.
Mentorship can also be valuable in helping women to share challenges experienced with gender inequality and benefit from other perspectives on how best to manage to an optimal outcome. In addition, having dedicated sponsorship programmes for women is a necessity in promoting equity in the workforce.
In what ways can companies in the sector create a more inclusive culture that actively promotes gender diversity at all levels?
It’s key they begin with having an agenda dedicated to diversity and inclusion that addresses gender diversity. Enabling discussion forums is very productive as an opportunity for experiences to be shared and for people to be receptive to other perspectives.
There should also be a safe space to interrupt biased behaviours and to recognise and address behaviours that marginalise women. Finally, it’s important to have mechanisms to promote and champion female success as a means of advancing equity
What challenges are gender-specific to women in the captives industry?
Sales can be a challenging territory for women to break into as it’s typically an area in which women are under-represented. The more that representation increases, the better upcoming talent can see a path to success.
What solutions would you like to see?
Sales and business development workshops for women in the industry would be beneficial. Increased access to coaching and mentoring in those areas would be great. Top female sales and business development talent should be highlighted so that the next generation can know it’s achievable and rewarded.
What are your ambitions?
I am consistently motivated to enhance my knowledge and exposure to various strategies and aspects of the business world and to share what I have accumulated with colleagues and connections. Beyond that, my ambitions are set on continuous success in my current mandate as EVP in captive management to provide a solid foundation towards further broadening my position when the time is right.
Click here to read Captive International’s first Influential Women in Captive Insurance publication, celebrating the women transforming the captive sector through their sustained excellence and leadership.
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