Racha Moukayed McClelland is the Managing Director of Howden Guardian Insurance Brokers. In addition to that, she is also a Board Member of the Emirates Insurance Association.
With exceptional experience in the insurance industry, Racha Moukayed McClelland works with complete dedication and passion. She has valuable analytical skills and skills in negotiation, operations management, coaching, and sales. On top of that, she is an MBA graduate from the University of Phoenix in Healthcare Management.
Her company, Howden Guardian Insurance Brokers, aims to make a difference for people and attract talent.
Learn more about Racha Moukayed McClelland and her company through our interview below:
Explain the background of you and the company in detail.
Howden Guardian Insurance Brokers is part of the Howden Broking Group based in the UK. With more than twenty thousand talented people, it’s one of the largest independent brokers in the world. The notion to make a difference in everything we do is embedded in our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy, where we build relationships with our people, partners, insurance companies, clients, and the community based on trust and friendship.
Living in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, the risk is always there regarding our health, natural or manmade disasters, and other events. We have amazing intrapreneurs on board to provide solutions pertaining to risk management and all lines of insurance.
Being a responsible business, we started our climate risk and resilience department last year to offer amazing products related to climate change, such as volcanoes, carbon emissions, and more. We believe in conducting business legally, morally, and ethically to build sustainable business relations with our people, partners, clients, and community. Hence, we feel we should be projecting those values and beliefs daily, not only at the workplace but as a part of our lifestyle.
What are your goals?
We focusing on preserving our unique culture of “People First” while continuing the legacy of Howden Broking Group in building a sustainable business. We strive to make a difference to our people, the communities where we live, and the environment by attracting talent, providing a healthy environment for entrepreneurial thinking to address future risks, and creating the next generation of leaders through succession planning and coaching. Being part of this journey has been rewarding, including the positive impact we have made as a group by believing in “Stronger Together.”
Leaders can’t always make decisions if they want employees to grow. When we don’t listen to our people, they’ll stop talking to us, resulting in us not knowing what’s going on in the organization and not being aware of potential problems. To build an imperative of entrepreneurship; to have creative and innovative employees to understand their needs; to have a high rate of retention; and to create an environment where each person develops into an expert within their field, we must be empathetic.
I have always believed in diversity in our talent pool; in our example, we have thirteen nationalities in the team, half of them women. Regardless of gender, it’s about finding the right person who fits the organization’s specific role based on their skills, qualifications, expertise, and experience. We want to provide fair opportunities to everyone in the organization and help us build the business. And the last thing we want is for people to come just for a job; rather, they should truly be a part of building the business. This is why the leadership needs to be visible and open instead of cloistered behind a locked door—I call it LBWA: leadership by walking around.
Suppose we want to continue sustainably with a higher retention rate. In that case, we have to allow people to speak, share their worries and concerns with us, and provide honest and timely feedback and constructive criticism to help them grow. With empathy, be flexible, concerned, and appreciative of your workforce, offering them more than just a professional relationship because people follow people. People won’t follow you if you’re not a leader and you don’t lead by example. It’s that simple.
What is your and your company’s biggest strength?
Purpose-driven; based on a strong ESG strategy, we are building a sustainable business by putting people first, believing firmly that by taking care of our people, they will take care of us, the business, and our clients. We attract the best and brightest and keep the momentum going.
We help people grow in the industry by allowing them to be more innovative and offering ground-breaking products in the market, such as our climate change insurance products. Without competent and motivated talent on board and a healthy culture, we would not be able to deliver on our mission to make a difference.
To do that successfully, we will continue leading by example and helping our people and our community in different ways—every day. The industry is changing continuously, and so are the risks. By being flexible and receptive to different ideas and skill sets, we intend to welcome more talent on board, enabling us to keep sponsoring the people in our industry to do better.
What was the path you took to get to where you are today?
Be strong, courageous, humble, and simple to do good; inspired by a remarkable woman and my mother, Aroub Samakia, who worked in the banking sector for thirty-five years, and following the footsteps of my father, Fawaz Moukayed, who has been in the insurance market for over forty-five years. I am also influenced by incredible people who greatly impacted my personal and professional career. And one of the best pieces of advice I learned from my mentor—also known as my husband—is to always maintain PMA: a positive mental attitude.
Why did you start this company?
I joined our family business, Guardian Insurance Brokers, in 2003; anyone who works for a parent knows the job can differ dramatically from one day to the next. One day I’ll be speaking at an insurance conference. On another day I’ll meet with real estate brokers helping us find a new office space to support the firm’s growth and development. And on a third day, I’ll sit with our Financial Controller and the internal auditors to refine policies and procedures and strengthen our business practices. In 2019, Howden Broking Group partnered with Guardian Insurance Brokers—now known as Howden Guardian Insurance Brokers—and assigned me to be the Managing Director in charge of P&L.
During this interesting journey, I’ve learned that centralization is the worst enemy of any organization. We should empower our people to make decisions based on their roles and responsibilities while mentoring them and building their leadership skills through training and example.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s my duty of care toward my people and partners to ensure we deliver on our promises. The most challenging incidents were the change management required at the time of integration with Howden Broking Group and addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. I have done it successfully through a simple approach, namely by engaging the people in open, effective communication to offer clarity and purpose by remaining genuine and authentic.
Give us one word that describes you the best.
Troublemaker, but in a good sense!
What makes you excited about Mondays?
Mondays means we have another opportunity to serve our clients need and grow as individuals and a company.
Tell us about a project that forced you to be innovative and creative.
Representing Howden at Expo 2020 in climate change to share our strategy in offsetting carbon emissions and our proposition in risk transfer solutions related to climate change.
What are the key values which helped you to overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership?
Self-awareness plays a vital role in making a difference; learn the intricacies of your business and spend time in each department of the company to understand not only how to do the job but also how to improve the processes for a better quality product or service. Effective leadership is not a title on a business card. Rather it knows the business inside and out in order to drive efficiency and quality.
The most important aspect of any business is its employees; the better they do their jobs, the better your customers and clients are served, so constantly challenge everyone in your organization to be better and work better. Know your people and look out for their welfare; they will respond in kind. And along the way we should build more leaders and foster personal growth and development.
What are your company’s services/solutions or products compared to the current industry standards? Tell us something about your upcoming products or services?
I am glad that I’ve created a healthy organizational culture, where I not only motivate my team to do better, but we have become a family. To achieve this, you need the proper organization with the right roles and responsibilities identified for every position in the company, along with the escalation matrix. Everyone needs to know what is expected from them and each other.
The performance indicators, the workflows, and the governing policies are super and equally important. Another crucial part of our ESG—environmental, social, and governance—program is the government policies. They aren’t just written documents; we periodically review and conduct training on their contents and intent.
I restructured the finance department to be the best, changing the payable and receivable structures. We’re the only broker that doesn’t collect premiums in our bank and keep the invoices debated, instead issuing directly to the client to ensure transparency. This has helped us maintain a very healthy cash flow. We have clients on board for whom we’ve provided products and services throughout the years, and I thank my father, who taught me how to build a business based on strong governing values.
In the market, we have good retention while maintaining clients’ satisfaction by working hard to ensure we meet their needs, we’re there when they need us, and anticipate their requirements before being asked. We are a purpose-driven company and have specialties for every risk, conventional and unconventional, such as financial lines (including M&A, D&O, cyber), employee benefits (including life & medical), climate change, engineering, property and casualty, personal lines, marine, and many more.
We want to make a difference now and solve problems with innovative risk transfer solutions for the problems of today and tomorrow.
I am proud to be part of a group that cares about its responsibilities and its impact on building a sustainable business.
Connect with Racha Moukayed McClelland on LinkedIn