2023 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Megan McClellan Southeast zone leader
Marsh LLC
Washington
Megan McClellan has come full circle.
After beginning her professional life at Marsh as a risk analyst after college in 2002, she did an about face and attended law school to start a legal career.
In time, though, Ms. McClellan realized that climbing the legal ladder wasn’t for her, and when she learned from an old Marsh colleague in 2012 that the brokerage was looking to bring on board professionals with legal experience, she jumped at the chance.
“I kind of took what (was) the biggest risk of my career,” she said. “Frankly, it was beyond being a little risky. It was a little bit of an ego check.”
Rejoining the brokerage in its financial and professional liability practice, she held various roles of increasing responsibility before being named to her current position earlier this year. In terms of accomplishments, Ms. McClellan points to her willingness to be the only woman sales leader among a team of men.
“It’s something that I am proud of, that I was able to influence the company — and maybe the population hopefully — in a positive way.”
In addition to her day-to-day duties at Marsh, Ms. McClellan helps other women in the insurance field.
In 2020, she approached Marsh’s sales leadership about the prospect of creating a women-in-sales council to raise awareness of higher-paying, sales-related jobs at the company that could be open to women who might otherwise be intimidated to apply.
“Women do sell differently than men,” she said. “And so just sort of calling that out and acknowledging it and talking about how we can network and sell as women in this business was, I think, an important dialogue that wasn’t really being had.”
Brian Wilson met Ms. McClellan seven years ago while he worked in risk management for FedEx Corp. Ms. McClellan “definitely knows the business and she knows her industry better than anyone I’ve ever come across,” said Mr. Wilson, who now works as treasury manager for an electric vehicle battery technology company.
Jon Campisi
