{"id":24824,"date":"2021-02-02T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T09:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=24824"},"modified":"2021-02-02T16:32:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T16:32:50","slug":"a-progressive-business-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/business\/management-leadership\/a-progressive-business-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"A progressive business woman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CEO Tricia Griffith shares with us the ideals she continues to put at the forefront of Progressive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Just two years after taking over as president and CEO of insurance giant Progressive in 2018, Tricia Griffith became the first woman to be named Businessperson of the Year by Fortune magazine\u2014such has been her impact on the company and the insurance industry more broadly. Yet she started out much lower down the ladder, joining Progressive as a lowly claims representative in 1988 and climbing the corporate ranks through a combination of hard work, talent, and vision.<\/p>\n

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The Progressive Corporation is one of the largest providers of car insurance in the United States. It was co-founded in 1937 by Jack Green and Joseph M. Lewis, and is headquartered in Mayfield Village, Ohio. The company insures motorcycles, boats, RVs, and commercial vehicles, and also provides home insurance through select partners. In recent years, Progressive has expanded internationally, offering insurance services in Australia, and is currently ranked No. 99 in the Fortune 500 list of the largest US corporations by total revenue.<\/p>\n

Yet Tricia Griffith\u2019s story is arguably as compelling as the company\u2019s own trajectory. As a prominent female CEO, Griffith has not only gained a reputation for innovation, she has also spoken honestly about the challenges facing women in the corporate workplace, including some of the mistakes she feels she made early on in her career and the advice that led her to reach the top.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf I could distill everything I\u2019ve learned in my career into one piece of advice, I think for years, especially growing up in the claims organization, I really tried to be one of the guys,\u201d Griffith said in a recent interview<\/a> with Cleveland.com<\/strong>. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be seen necessarily as a female, and so that didn\u2019t actually allow me to fully be myself. Probably 15 or 20 years ago, (what helped me was) having people, especially, Glenn (Renwick), who was my predecessor, really sponsored me and said, \u2018Try this and do this.\u2019 He always said be yourself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enviable growth<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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At 20.2% and 11.4% respectively, Progressive\u2019s one-year and annualized three-year sales growth tops both Apple and Microsoft\u2019s. The insurer\u2019s stock was up nearly 50% over the last year, and profits have more than doubled. In 2017, Progressive vaulted past Allstate to become the nation\u2019s third-largest auto insurer, behind Geico and State Farm. And perhaps most impressively, at the end of the third quarter, the Mayfield, Ohio, company hit $30 billion in net premiums written, after reaching $20 billion just three years earlier\u2014a remarkable growth rate for an old enterprise.<\/p>\n

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Progressive was founded in 1937 as a personal auto insurer, eventually finding its niche in high-risk drivers. But under Griffith\u2019s leadership, it has moved far beyond that. One key move came in 2015, when the company acquired a majority stake in home insurer ASI for roughly $875 million in cash in an effort to better bundle auto and home insurance. Progressive refers to these bundle shoppers as Robinsons, a move to personify customers rather than using sterile insurance lingo.<\/p>\n

Making a difference<\/h1>\n
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After attending Indiana State University and joining the advanced management program at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, Griffith began her career at Progressive in 1988 as a claims representative in Indianapolis. She became Chief Human Resources Officer in 2002, launched the company\u2019s first ever diversity and inclusion program, and served as President of Customer Operations and COO of Progressive\u2019s personal lines branch, before being appointed CEO in 2016.<\/p>\n

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Griffith\u2019s drive and self-belief has not only seen her become a role model for fellow business-women, but also helped Progressive maintain its reputation as one of the most innovative companies in its space: while the company had been trying to sign up homeowners roughly a decade before the ASI purchase, Griffith led the charge to rapidly expand their numbers from around 400,000 to 1 million in just over two years\u2014a major factor driving the recent premium growth surge.<\/p>\n

Approachable and authentic<\/h1>\n
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While Griffith\u2019s business acumen has driven results, it\u2019s her approachable and authentic leadership style that many employees will cite as a key to the company\u2019s success. Griffith puts a premium on creating a diverse and inclusive environment for all employees and speaks frequently about the importance of bringing your whole self to work. The efforts have paid off. In 2018, Progressive\u2019s annual Culture Survey placed the company in the 96th percentile of all companies who use Gallup\u2019s survey, highlighting an engaged culture which continues to lead to success.<\/p>\n

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Griffith has also gained a reputation for her generosity, especially where fellow female employees are concerned. She always agrees to meet with women employees that want to speak to her, stating publicly that she believes personal attention and encouragement to be important leadership qualities. Answering a Progressive employee what advice she\u2019d give to an aspiring CEO, she told them:<\/p>\n

\u201cFocus on the job you\u2019re doing now. You will get noticed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Griffith says she likes to \u201cset audacious goals\u201d to rally the company around key projects and spur targeted investments. In the home-owners insurance segment, such an investment helped launch the HomeQuote Explorer tool in 2017 to help customers compare carrier quotes. Indeed, technology has always been at the forefront of Progressive\u2019s growth. It was the first auto insurance company to have a website, allow customers to purchase policies via that site, and later to pioneer the use of mobile browsers and smartphone apps for rating and managing policies. It was also the first to offer 24\/7 claims reporting.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are constantly reviewing our processes to identify areas where we can learn and improve,\u201d Griffith has said on innovation in the insurance space.<\/strong> \u201cProgressive changed the industry when we introduced our Comparison Rater Experience and showed you auto rates of other companies next to our own, even if our rates weren\u2019t the lowest. That level of transparency was unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not yourself, you can\u2019t be a truly great leader,\u201d Griffith has remarked on the broader demands of leadership<\/strong>. \u201cI always reflect on that Teddy Roosevelt quote, \u2018Comparison is the thief of joy.\u2019 I think a big part of my career was, \u2018I wish I was, as smart as him, as well traveled as her, or whatever.\u2019 And so, for me, it is about being true to yourself and capitalizing on that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CEO Tricia Griffith shares with us the ideals she continues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,43],"tags":[99,1385,2019,3254,3253],"class_list":["post-24824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-executive-interviews","category-management-leadership","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-northam","tag-print-issue","tag-progressive","tag-tricia-griffith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24824"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24876,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24824\/revisions\/24876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}