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Sherry Thomas

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Sherry Thomas

Sherry Thomas
Managing director and head of catastrophe management for the Americas
Guy Carpenter & Co. L.L.C.
Minneapolis
Age: 45


Sherry Thomas says one of the most rewarding parts of her job is developing relationships with clients.

Getting to a place with a client where “they treat you as a member of their own team” means they value you and “that you've done a great job for them,” said Ms. Thomas, Minneapolis-based managing director and head of catastrophe management for the Americas at Guy Carpenter & Co. L.L.C.

But it's not just Ms. Thomas' contributions to her clients' teams that have earned her praise from co-workers.

“Sherry is a great sounding board to me and for our colleagues here, but also our clients,” said Kathleen McCann, Boston-based managing director for Guy Carpenter. “She very clearly enjoys inspiring others to achieve their goals and objectives, both personally and professionally. She brings purpose and meaning to everything she does.”

In Ms. Thomas' current role, she provides catastrophe modeling, catastrophe event response, and portfolio management advice and solutions to clients. She said her team of more than 70 people often becomes an “ingrained part of a clients' analytics team,” helping clients grow their business and find new ways to improve profitability.

Ms. Thomas said hard work and taking “some calculated chances” has helped her get to where she is today. There have been times, she said, where she's known she could do something but wasn't the “person that everybody expected to step up to the plate.”

One of those chances was joining Guy Carpenter in 2009 after spending 12 years at Aon Benfield Group Ltd.

Ms. Thomas is also involved with Guy Carpenter's Women's Employee Resource Group.

Some women might think, “Maybe it's not my place to speak up right now,” she said. So it's important to encourage them “to present their own work and take chances ... I don't have to be present in the room to help them make an impact. I just have to give them the confidence and give them a few things that I think are going to help them with the conversations.”

The advice Ms. Thomas said she gives to her team is, “Hard work definitely pays off — sometimes years down the road.”

By Stephanie Goldberg