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Susie Hess

Insurance Specialist | Dallas

27/05/2023

  • Job Title: Insurance Specialist
  • Department: FINPRO
  • Office Location: Dallas, Texas
  • Joined Marsh: 1990 (via J&H)
  • Hometown: Dallas, Texas
  • Education: Amberton University, Bachelors in Business Administration, Management
  • Personal Interests and Hobbies: Singing, volunteering, advocating for the Transgender and LGBTQ+ community

Meet Susie

As a senior insurance specialist within FINPRO (Financial and Professional), my responsibilities have changed over time as we continue to remap what brings value to our clients and the organisation. A typical day begins with focus time to review, plan and act on various client deliverable items, work with insurer partners, engage with other team members to ensure alignment to our service agreement, test an operational system to evaluate its effectiveness, and mentor or assist an early career colleague with questions.

How does your work support our company in being the Risk Advisor of the Future?

Managing and mitigating risk includes soliciting and evaluating various perspectives, viewing challenges as opportunities to create a new coalition that works together to design a plan, and executing solutions. Marsh McLennan understands that leadership involves undertaking difficult conversations and discerning how to work together. Our varied lived experiences, identities, and cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds contribute to a colourful tapestry that is all the richer because of these contributions.

Tell us about something new you learned recently. What motivated you to pick up this new skill or knowledge, and how did you learn it?

When someone tells you who they are: see them, believe them, trust them, and keep loving them. Within interpersonal relationships and among teams of people, I constantly seek ways to listen and discern and validate the speaker's courage, even if I do not directly understand.

Learning that my beloved spouse experienced gender dysphoria set us on a path to discovery, both as a couple and within our local community. Walking through the journey with Michelle and seeing her grow into her full expression as an out, proud, transgender woman changed our marriage and our relationship for the better.

Across the US and worldwide, misunderstandings exist about gender identity. Some do the intentional and difficult work of understanding and lifting up, while others seem committed to actively suppressing transgender people’s very right to exist in public life. It can be exhausting to defend your human right to claim space when people expect to have an opinion on your validity as a human being. It is always a choice whether or not to build others up.

Tell us something important about your family or background that helped form the person and colleague you are today.

My mom and her spirit of volunteering inspire me daily to recognise the opportunities to contribute and to offer a hand. I grew up watching my beautiful Deaf sister overcome many obstacles, learning in a time before closed captioning, video relay services, and speech-to-text technology. Seeing her and others within the Disability community navigate hurdles shaped me to advocate for people who literally are not “in the conversation” due to barriers. Seeing her accomplishments reinforces that every individual’s strengths can develop into excellence when education, opportunity, and intentional belonging prevail.

What’s the best career advice you’ve received?

One of my first managers loved the writing of Og Mandino and peppered his advice with quotes such as “You will move in the direction you are facing" and "You can't conquer reality by running away from it." The underlying message: keep your integrity, always continue learning, and “use wisely your power of choice.”

This Mandino quote especially resonates with me: “Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance.” 

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Celebrating Pride Month

Join us in celebrating Pride Month. At Marsh, we believe that inclusion, diversity, and belonging are core to our purpose of protecting and promoting possibility.

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