Rebecca Falk MBA

I give a lot of kudos and credit to the powerful women in my life. First, my grandmother, who was forced to leave school in the 8th grade because she was needed at home. Although she only had an 8th grade education, she was the most genuine, most influential person in my life. Her and I were best friends up until she passed. Second, my mom broke a lot of barriers. She passed away in 2006, but she was the first female Senior Executive Vice President for Wheaton Van Lines out of Indianapolis. That was a huge event back in the 80s when women were not seen as corporate execs. It cost her though - she traveled a lot, was only home two weekends out of the year, so my grandma came to live with us when I was in elementary school, which is probably why my grandma and I got so close. I look up to her and her professional career, and the things and the barriers she had to pave the way for other females. That's very inspiring to me. Third, I had a really good leader in my early professional career that I still think about and model after today. She really showed me that women can be in a place where we have a lot of good stuff to offer, and women can do that maybe in places where it's not always welcomed. Those are probably the three things that have shaped who I am today and model paying it forward.

When you're thinking about stepping outside your comfort zone, you need to step so far outside your comfort zone that you can't find your way back. That's when real change happens, that's when growth happens. This was something shared with me very early on in my career, and I've never forgot it. It's a constant reminder that I can do and be whatever it is I want to do, or whatever it is I want to be, and that there's not a limitation. I continue to do that over and over.

I would say every opportunity is an opportunity to learn and grow. Even in the situations and scenarios where they may be challenging and may not go how we would like them to go, find the moments, find the scenarios and situations where you can learn from them. Those can be positive learnings, or those can be constructive learnings, but that's super important. I would also say that stepping outside your comfort zone so far that you don't know how to get back will serve you in magnitude. The return on investment on that is incredible. Yeah, it is a very scary thing, but the fear is far outweighed by the opportunities that come with doing that.

In the financial service industry, we're not always the first to adopt technology or experiences, especially on property and casualty, the life, and the wealth management side of the house. I would say our biggest opportunity is to focus on efficiency as well as enhancing the overall experience. We're a little behind the times. We can say we're gonna do AI, we can do RPAs and those kinds of things, but if you're putting that kind of technology on a broken platform - and by platform I mean an experience that's clunky already - it's not gonna get you the improvement that you need. I think it's looking at both of those lenses and finding the win-wins that is our biggest opportunity.

I would say integrity is probably my number one. I have a strong sense of integrity that drives me a little insane when people don't have integrity. I also think just being genuine in who you are is critical. Sometimes there aren't individuals and situations where we don't always embrace that. In the corporate world, it's hard. It's hard to be genuine in a corporate environment because the expectation is to conform in so many different ways. That's where integrity shows up for me, because I need to be true to myself and my own values, and that's more important than having to be something I'm not.