2022 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Leigh McMullan Senior vice president, executive risk
Crum & Forster
Morristown, New Jersey
Leigh McMullan started her career at Ace USA as a summer intern, which led to a full-time position.
“We were in the throes of a hard market, and they were willing to hire people with little to no experience,” she said. “In 2002, I began working there as an underwriter.”
Ms. McMullan’s underwriting expertise includes errors and omissions, directors and officers liability, cyber, crime and fidelity, tech E&O and financial institutions.
She appreciates her vocation now more than ever. “Underwriting is an overlooked profession, but it’s dynamic,” she said. “It’s tied to every aspect of our economy and our lives, and it’s interesting.”
While she says she’s sometimes “dumbfounded” by her success, John Binder, president of commercial lines at Crum & Forster and Ms. McMullan’s manager for the past four years, says it is no accident.
“Leigh is good at seeing a lot of different perspectives,” he said. “That comes from her personality and from her background. She spent time, before working in insurance, teaching English as a second language in Japan.”
Ms. McMullan, he said, has brought together “an extraordinary array of talent in her team over the past four or five years.”
He added that she has built her group into, “a market-leading executive risk team. Her revenue that she was managing four years ago was about $50 million; today it’s $350 million, and it’s on its way to well beyond that,” Mr. Binder said.
Ms. McMullan has a goal to help people advance in their careers. One initiative is called the The Bridge, started to support women in financial lines. Crum & Forster also has a mentorship program.
Diversity and inclusion are also important, Ms. McMullan said. “I’d like to think I have always promoted a diverse workforce and workplace,” she said. “But, candidly, we’ve learned so much about diversity as an industry and as a society. I think there are always opportunities for people to learn more about it and reach for the next step and do better.”
