Courtney Davis Curtis is the Assistant Vice President of Risk Management and Resilience Planning at the University of Chicago. She was also named RIMS Risk Manager of the Year 2022, 2020 Business Insurance Women to Watch, 2017 Business Insurance Break Out, and received the 2015 Risk & Insurance Power Broker award. In this episode, Courtney shares her journey as an insurance professional, what a risk manager has to think about when there’s a university under their care, and her next steps as a seasoned insurance and risk professional.

Key Takeaways:

• A little bit about Courtney and her role at the University of Chicago.

• When COVID-19 first hit, what was Courtney’s approach to keeping her students safe?

• How did Courtney find herself in insurance?

• Higher education institutions can end up being the highest employer in a city. If you think about it, they’re like mini-cities in themselves.

• Protesting can be part of a university’s culture. How does a risk manager think about protests in terms of risks?

• When it comes to risk managers, the answer is often “no” when you want to do something new. However, it’s important to work with partners to get to a “yes.”

• Everything we do has an inherent risk to it.

• Why is Courtney so passionate about the insurance industry?

• Has Courtney ever thought about going back to being a broker?

• Courtney recommends really diving deep into a topic and getting your hands dirty so that you can shorten the gap and become an expert in that field quicker.

• How important are CPCU certifications and what has Courtney’s experience been like so far with it?

• Is the insurance industry still a male-dominated field?

• Mentorship and support are critical pieces of getting more diversity into the insurance space.

• What do younger generations need to be mindful of?

• Courtney won the risk manager of the year award. What was that like?

• What’s next for Courtney? What gets her the most excited?

Mentioned in This Episode:

Urmia.org

Courtney on LinkedIn

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color, by Ruby Hamad