For The Hartford’s Tracey Ant, Succeeding in a Leadership Role Is All About Communication

Tracey Ant began her insurance career with The Hartford right out of college. After a stint on the broker side, she returned to the carrier and has remained for nearly 10 years. Her experience is partly what has shaped her goals as the new head of middle & large commercial, a role she took over in January of this year.

“I’m very proud of how we focus on individuals’ career development. We try to make it easier for people to move to new roles internally, to avoid becoming stagnant and to support continuous learning,” she said. “We want to make sure there are multiple ways to advance a career with us.”

Talent recruitment and development will be both key opportunities and challenges for Ant in the coming year amid the ongoing talent shortage. Employee feedback will be a cornerstone of these efforts.

“We review employee feedback on a quarterly basis. We want our employees to feel they have a solid forum to share ideas. To me, execution of our goals is all dependent on clear and constant communication, both internally and externally,” Ant said. “We will continue to work hard at building an inclusive, collaborative culture to better serve all our constituents, including employees and customers.”

Other challenges include staying up-to-date in a dynamic risk environment, and leveraging data and digital tools.

“Between extreme weather, geopolitical tensions and ever-evolving cyber-attacks, the risk environment has never been so complex,” Ant said.

“We can navigate this through specialization. We have to build and maintain a deep understanding of our clients’ businesses and the unique risks they face. We also have to stay creative.”

To that end, underwriters and broker partners have access to The Hartford’s Innovation Lab, where stakeholders can collaborate on new solutions where traditional coverage just doesn’t fit.

Data will play an ever-larger role in understanding risk and building specific plans to mitigate it. Tools to collect, analyze and effectively share this information not only support more accurate underwriting, but also deliver a more modern, streamlined and transparent customer experience. The challenge lies in identifying which tools are worthwhile and implementing them seamlessly — which requires a great deal of education and communication.

“There is a lot of change management with digital tools and automation. We have to get everyone on board. So, I’m focused on bringing in the right group of leaders from the start who can confidently talk to their teams about a new tool or development and why it will make a difference,” Ant said.

No matter what challenges the next year may bring, Ant believes overcoming any obstacle starts with getting back to the basics.

“Our job is to protect people and businesses. That can get lost. If we stick to the essence of what the insurance industry is meant to do, we can visualize a clearer path forward.” &

Tracey Ant has been selected as a 2024 Risk & Insurance® Executive to Watch. To see the other executives selected this year, visit here.