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2021 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA

Shelley Yim Managing director

Aon PLC

San Francisco

Shelley Yim, whose first job in insurance in 1982 for a regional broker involved typing up insurance certificates and ID cards, believes in “paying it forward.”

“People always ask me, do I feel like I’ve been discriminated against, because I’m Asian or a woman. Early on in the business, there were some times, but it’s never held me back,” said Ms. Yim, managing director at Aon PLC in San Francisco.

Ms. Yim, who previously worked at regional broker Dinner Levinson, Tri-City Brokerage and Marsh LLC, joined Aon in 2007. She has been broking leader there since 2014, where her duties have included serving as account executive on several Fortune 500 accounts.

Support from mentors and sponsors contributed significantly to her success, she said.

Ms. Yim in turn has coached and mentored a lot of people in the industry. “It’s important to me to pay it forward because I’ve been pretty fortunate in this business.”

“I hold her in the highest regard,” said Marilyn Boss, San Francisco-based west regional executive for Zurich North America, who has known Ms. Yim for more than 20 years and worked with her at Marsh LLC.

Ms. Yim is a leader, mentor and problem solver who always thinks about how to make others successful, Ms. Boss said.

Ms. Yim said, “I’m going on 40 years in the business, and throughout that time, I’ve met some incredible people, and I’ve got great friends.”

These include her best friend, Pat Cody, who offered to take her place at a meeting at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, because Ms. Yim had just been in New York the week before. Ms. Cody perished in the terrorist attack. “I found myself on an airplane two weeks later to give a eulogy,” Ms. Yim said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult, Ms. Yim said.

“I am pretty gregarious,” she said. “I’m a big hugger.” But, she added, “It’s been great to see how people find new and inventive ways beyond Zoom to catch up with folks.”