Susan Winkler represents the business interests of 23 insurance and financial services (IFS) companies in Connecticut, including property and casualty, life/retirement and health insurers, financial services companies and service providers.
Her role as executive director began as a three-year assignment to expand and grow a competitive workforce in Connecticut. She soon realized that the IFS workforce had an economic value that contributed over 20% to the state’s GDP. Winkler’s passion to sustain the vitality of the IFS industry, including its diversified and dynamic people, is the driver for her to maintain the course for over 20 years.
What have been your biggest professional accomplishments so far?
I am proud of ‘growing our own actuaries’ in Hartford. The Actuarial Boot Camp has annually hosted high school students and created hundreds of actuaries. One notable accomplishment was the marriage between two bootcampers!
Additionally, CT IFS established an international partnership between Connecticut and the U.K. to grow insurtech startups in Hartford.
What’s the next big goal you want to accomplish professionally?
The Women in World Trade New England (WWTNE) is a trade association of women involved in international business. Working with its New England leadership, I have decided to create a CT Chapter, since there was none, to provide our local women a place of business support and friendship.
What’s one of the biggest professional challenges you’ve overcome?
The first time that I convened the CT IFS board of directors, I was the only woman around the boardroom table. With strategic and thoughtful suggestions, today the board consists of both executive men and women providing diversity of thought, balanced discussion and great camaraderie of which I am proud.
How are you involved in the community?
I am especially proud of my work with NINA, Northside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, a nonprofit that I co-founded in Asylum Hill that is dedicated to destroying blight and building homeownership. NINA has rehabilitated over 20 homes and built two new ones with many more to come!
There is no success without a friend, partner and family member who is with you through the years — to my husband, Jim, I am forever grateful.