Angela Kain

Four years ago, I would have considered myself a massive workaholic, type A, with struggles delegating. I was in management, burning out, working nights and weekends at 70 to 75 hours a week. Then I had a personal thing happen to me where I had to stop traveling, focus on my work-life balance, and struggled to even get 30 hours a week. I had to share something incredibly personal with my boss and team, and really had to rely on them for 6 months. What it taught me is that delegation is key - I really learned how to delegate and trust my team to help me out. I do even more work now, but with less hours, down to 40 to 45 hours, and I have a tight barrier around my work-life balance because of that situation. If we're efficient, and we delegate and trust those on our team, we can get so much more done, and it can actually make us a way better leader. I feel like I'm a much more incredible, thoughtful, organized leader now than I was 5 years ago. That has probably taught me the biggest life lesson as far as my professional career goes. I've also had a lot of mentors over the years, and I tend to gravitate towards female mentors, especially in a male-dominated industry like insurance. I could probably name 3 or 4 women mentors throughout my career that have really helped shape me into who I am as a leader and how I operate on a day-to-day basis.

I had a CEO once that I was working with that said, 'Angela, your net worth is your net worth.' That resonated with me throughout all these years, and I just love having a vast network, because you never know when you might have a question, or need to rely on someone else's expertise, or maybe need to introduce someone. I actually have a couple interns on my team, and we might not have a position here, but the faster my network could be, the more influential I can be in opening some doors for them, too. So network is huge.

I always say don't hesitate to get into the industry and find where your niche is. It took me 20 years in this industry to figure out where my passion really lies, and so it's okay to start with a role that might not be your quote-unquote dream role. Because sometimes we don't even know what our dream role is, and it's just a good idea to get in with an organization, and then you can always laterally move in a couple years, if that might not be where your passion project is. So sometimes we just need to dabble in things, and kind of find out who we are and who the organization is and how we best fit with each other.

One of the biggest opportunities in her field right now is the application of AI and machine learning to improve healthcare and retail/e-commerce workflows, particularly by streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency. At the same time, a key challenge is reducing administrative burden for small clinics while continuously adapting to rapidly evolving roles and shifting professional expectations across the industry.

Work-life balance is incredibly important to me. Four years ago, I was a massive workaholic working 70 to 75 hour weeks, but after a personal situation forced me to focus on balance, I learned to work more efficiently in 40 to 45 hours while becoming a better leader. I now maintain a tight barrier around my work-life balance. I'm also an avid reader - I've read 70 books already this year across all genres, from love stories in the Bible to personal development to romance novels. I believe there is something to learn from everything I read. Additionally, networking is hugely important to me. As a CEO once told me, your net worth is your network, and I love having a vast network because you never know when you might need to rely on someone else's expertise or help open doors for others, like the interns on my team.