Linking insurance and education bosses can provide ‘huge’ benefits for talent

Linking senior business leaders with their peers in the education system can provide “huge” benefits to both parties when looking at how to develop early careers talent.

That is according to Jacqueline Girow, executive director at the London and International Insurance Brokers’ Association (Liiba), who said the move gives “really good insight” over what is needed to empower pupils.

In 2025, Liiba partnered with education charity Inspiration for All to connect school leaders with professionals from Liiba member firms.

The nine-month initiative is designed to provide strategic insights and professional development for both mentors and mentees.

“The benefits are just huge to both parties,” Girow told Insurance Times.

“It’s not a case of a business goes in to sort the educational problems out. It gives really good insight to senior leaders because they’re the ones who are making the decisions about the short, medium and long-term goals – and they can see what’s happening in the education system at the moment.”

Girow also noted the need for parties to understand Gatsby benchmarks within schools, which are a framework of eight guidelines defining career guidance, as well as the “increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) within schools” that can “disadvtange those from poor backgrounds even more in schools”.

“For senior leaders being able to understand those sorts of issues will be really key,” Girow said.

Charter signing

Girow made the comments after signing Insurance Times’ Destination Insurance Charter.

The charter forms part of Insurance Times’ broader talent campaign – entitled Destination Insurance – which aims to support the UKGI industry to mitigate its unique talent challenges by instigating market-wide collaboration and being a prominent source of best practice information, ideas and insight.

The charter contains five commitments that have been designed as an accountability framework for small and medium-sized firms and trade bodies operating in the UKGI, Lloyd’s and London markets, to help signatories create and maintain effective talent strategies.

Girow said: “When we looked at the charter, it was really all the work we were doing already.

“But sometimes when people are busy, they don’t really appreciate what is going on in the background.

“It’s so much easier for people to be able to talk to their peers and others in the market who’ve already done work and it is within everyone’s interest to make sure that our market is still there for the future – it is important to us to be visible about that.

“Although we have our initiatives belonging to Liiba, we thought it was important to sign the charter, just to give that visibility.”