2023 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Amanda Lyons Executive managing director - U.S. casualty strategic leader, Aon Reinsurance Solutions
Aon PLC
Philadelphia
An inspirational professor helped Amanda Lyons decide on a career in insurance.
She had initially planned to go to law school after studying risk management with a business minor at Temple University in Philadelphia but required business courses in insurance and “an incredible professor” ultimately led her to pursue insurance.
“He gave us some real-life projects to work on” concerning risk management “and it was really interesting to me,” Ms. Lyons said. “The other selling factor for me for insurance was that access to incredibly smart people,” she said.
Ms. Lyons began her career in 2008 with reinsurance brokerage Benfield Group Ltd., which was acquired by Aon later that year.
She has been in her current role since January 2022 and says it has been “really, really exciting,” allowing her access to a broad range of clients, including global and regional accounts.
“Getting insight into the different businesses and what makes them tick … is a pretty fulfilling role,” Ms. Lyons said. She enjoys the innovation that is a necessary part of the position.
The role was created for her, she said. “I was a senior managing director, casualty broking. They created this role for me to pull together all the U.S. casualty lines of business and bring it all together.”
She considers herself to have been lucky in having mentors and supporters through her career and believes strongly in building for the future.
“You can’t expect women to be in the C-suite if they’re not in the funnel” already moving through the ranks of leadership. “We put a lot of time and effort in really building up that base of our junior people,” including “strong, capable women.”
“Clients value her insight, but even more so they trust her guidance,” Joe Monaghan, global growth leader for Aon Reinsurance Solutions, said of Ms. Lyons. “They know that she only has their best interests in mind, and, as a result, she is able to build very strong relationships with them.”
Matthew Lerner
