Please join APIW Chicago on Thursday, October 21st at 4:00 p.m. CT as we welcome:

Sherry Gonzalez
President
Hylant
 

“”Fireside Chat” : grab a glass of your favorite beverage and kick off your shoes for on open conversation on how women not only endure adversities in our industry, but can flourish in spite of them. The discussion will be led by Sherry Gonzalez, who, in her career, has dealt with everything from archaic attitudes, unfair stereotypes, female hiring “quotas” to outright chauvinism. Many of you have probably been through the same. Sharing our experiences on how we rose above it all can be inspirational, plus lets us collectively laugh some of it off. You are not alone.

Bio Sherry Gonzalez – President Hylant, Chicago

Sherry started her career in 1989 with Johnson & Higgins, international department, in Los Angeles, straight out of graduate school. In 1994, and after much “lobbying”, she was the first female expat for J&H, relocated to Bogota, Colombia which was a rather challenging country for a foreign female at the time. That she got married to a Colombian and had children there only made things more interesting for her nervous employer. After Marsh acquired J&H in 1998, she was asked to take on several large roles for Marsh Latin America, as part of their Regional Management team (as, of course, their only female Managing Director). After 9 years with Marsh based in Miami, travelling the entirety of Latin America multiple times a month and missing terribly her two young children, she hit a wall. Luckily, she was able to negotiate a position at Marsh Brazil which required less travel and less regional strategy but a lot more P&L responsibility … in Portuguese. After 20+ years in Latin America, she was next hired by Arthur J Gallagher to help them build out their capabilities globally. Her responsibilities included creating a multinational client practice, building out a global broker network and taking on an unconventional COO role for Latin America … amongst other things. In 2019, during her “empty-nest” syndrome, she accepted a new and somewhat daunting role at AXA International (oversight for 20 countries) as Chief Business Officer, which encompassed everything from Business Development & Distribution to Underwriting & Claims, to IT, Data and Operations, XL Integration, Strategy Latin America etc etc etc… bring out that supposed Wonder Woman cape. Not only was she the only woman on the AXA management team, but as an American woman who came from the sales/brokerage side of the business, she had her hands quite full in a western European, male dominated company run by predominantly finance professionals.  Why you might ask? Job was based in Madrid, Spain!  After 9 months locked up alone in Madrid due to COVID (remember when the US thought is was an Italian & Spanish problem?) it was time to return to the US and finally hug her family again. In January 2021, she happily, and gratefully, accepted new challenges at Hylant, relocating to Chicago, the best month to relocate to that city. Bring it on.