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2020 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA

Heidi Hull Operations senior vice president, Cleveland operations manager

FM Global

Cleveland

Heidi Hull says she has seen progress on the diversity front during her career.

“At the beginning of my career, I oftentimes was the only woman in the room,” said Ms. Hull, operations senior vice president and Cleveland operations manager for FM Global.

“Within the past five years, I’ve seen a shift, not just from a carrier perspective but brokers, risk managers, treasurers, chief financial officers. There definitely is representation of women and others that are diverse. It’s good to see that representation, and those voices and perspectives are now part of the conversation.”

Ms. Hull chose insurance because she believed in the partnership proposal touted by FM Global and other insurers: “That sense of purpose, how a company like FM Global can really help a local economy by helping a business which supports a town — those towns that you hear of where it’s the mill that keeps the town alive.”

That sense of purpose “really spoke to me, having grown up in a very small town in Maine,” she said.

FM Global, where she has been for almost 20 years, also offered her opportunity, she said. 

Starting as a temporary employee in the processing department, she “quickly found an opportunity to go into underwriting, and that just opened up the world for me, of opportunity to get to know our clients’ businesses and to be able to protect their facilities — then I was a lifer,” Ms. Hull said.

It was during the interview for that job that, after meeting the hiring manager, she met with an underwriting manager who “talked about the opportunities at FM Global for someone like me,” and who remained an important sponsor for future opportunities, she said.

Underwriting, she said, gives her the opportunity “to work on a lot of different businesses and occupancy types. Every day you go into the office, you’re learning more about businesses around you,” which is appealing to “someone who likes to learn all the time.”

The underwriting role, she said, also enabled her to move up in the organization. “Going into underwriting opened the doors for me to work into management,” she said.