S4 EP47: Integrating in to a new brand and communicating ‘the why’ - Aimee Kilpatrick, Chief Operating Officer, Cadence Insurance

“We always have a common goal every year for the entire organization. It’s in every single employee’s goal plan, from CEO all the way to somebody in an administrative position. The same goal we're all working towards”, says Aimee. “You can't expect people to rally around a goal unless you help them understand what that goal is.  You have to help connect every person's role or every team's role back to that goal.”On the Insurance Coffee House Podcast this week, Aimee talks through her insurance career journey. “My entire career in insurance has been spent in the banking space. Coming out of college, I went to a bank’s management training program.Through all the different rotations and nothing was really resonating. That bank had actually purchased an insurance agency and were still very early on in their journey of that agency into the fold. The manager of the program said, ‘why don't you go over there for a couple months and do a special project?’ I went and never left that space.”She shares how being inquisitive and working for a CEO who encouraged her to take risks and fail has been key to her insurance career development. “I’d ask a ton of questions. He would share things with me that I probably had no business asking. He was very transparent with me and helped me really to understand the business of insurance.I spent a lot of time focusing on early career programs, bringing talent to the industry. And then he gave me a couple of departments to run and gave me a lot of freedom to do that.”Aimee shares the road to becoming COO at Cadence Insurance, who’s inspired her along the way and how insurance has helped her find her true passions. She highlights how the business has recently transferred in to the ownership of Gallagher. “The organization I sit in today goes all the way back to the late 1880s. The next journey in our evolution was us joining the Gallagher organization. We have come out of that bank ownership structure and now joined one of the largest brokers in the world. It’s being positioned for growth and what our organization needed to move forward.”Aimee emphasizes the impact on the team and clients as well as Cadence’s aspirations under its new ownership.    “When the announcement came out, the bank had been our home for 24 years. There were very strong professional and personal relationships developed there.But the time was right for both them and us. This really was the thing that we needed for our future. Being owned by an insurance broker and having a parent company that speaks our language and lives and breathes insurance every day has been a lot of fun.  Short-term, it's about helping to connect our teams to the Gallagher teams. Helping to connect both our clients to the huge suite of resources that we now have access to and our teammates in terms of their career development, opportunities, that weren't in our legacy world. Then, it's going to be about how we best harness and leverage the power of Gallagher that we have behind us.”Being a key player in the merger, Aimee gives insight in to her role as COO and managing the transition. “Even the most positive change can still come with a feeling apprehension, anxiety. For us it's helping our teams understand the changes. Helping them understand ‘the why’ behind it. It’s also helping them to see the other side. Sometimes you have to go through a little bit of a pain period to get to the better part.We try to do our very best to be very clear about what's coming, what to expect and what we're going to gain on the other side. It’s been very much a collaborative conversation with our teammates, with the Gallagher teams that we're working with.”Aimee describes how transparent leadership is key to managing a culture of change.  “You have to be intentional around your communication strategy. We are a very...