Award winning Sinéad White creates change through mentorship

Sinéad White, winner of the 2024 Donna Walker Award for Inspiring Leadership, loves helping team members understand and harness their strengths.

“Naming a strength and realising where and when to apply is powerful. When a team of people understand and apply their strengths effectively, it amplifies the value added by each individual,” says White, Manager of People, Customer & Communications - Intermediated Claims at IAG. 

White is proud of leading a team that “has a reputation for delivering excellent work”.

Her outstanding professionalism, commitment, achievement and passion — qualities the Inspiring Leadership Award recognises —  shine through in her mentoring of colleagues, her customer service training work, involvement in programs to support female leadership in insurance, and her extensive voluntary work with the City East Mentor Program and local charities. 

Fostering leadership

Growing up in the west of Ireland, the eldest of four girls, Sinéad always believed that she could do anything boys could do.

Today, she champions women’s leadership in the insurance industry through direct mentorship of aspiring female leaders, and through building capacity and confidence in her team of seven female People, Customer & Communications Specialists. 

She has also co-facilitated the highly successful Leading Women in Long Tail Claims (LTC) program. 

White sees mentoring as a great way to make a positive impact for people both personally and professionally. In her role as Chair of Mentee/Mentor Program for Intermediated Claims, she provides support and career development opportunities for front line team members and new leaders.

White and her team have also created bespoke training, tailored to address the needs of vulnerable customers, to improve the process for, and resolution and management of, customer complaints, within the claim experience.  

White’s educational background and early professional experience was in the Finance Sector, where she focused on change management and implementation of large-scale tech initiatives. She then moved into consultancy, working with government, financial and not-for-profit entities.

White specialised in management consulting, addressing diverse organisational challenges and change initiatives within the corporate setting.

She transitioned to the insurance industry in October 2019, when she was offered a permanent role after doing consultancy work for IAG.

She says, “I loved the culture and people, and it’s an environment and industry where I feel I can grow and continue to learn.”

Building community connections

Having arrived in Australia in 2007, White knows that being new to a country can be an isolating and overwhelming experience even when you speak English and arrive here completely by choice. 

"It makes a huge difference to feel you’ve got someone in your corner,” she says. 

This, along with her keen interest in people from different backgrounds, cultures and values, motivates her voluntary work with the City East Mentor Program, supporting newly arrived skilled professionals, migrants and refugees to find work in Australia.

“Newly arrived migrants who don’t have local experience often can’t get into the workforce in their given profession. Instead, IT professionals, architects and engineers resort to unskilled work to pay the bills,” she says. 

“Access to the advice and professional networks of local mentors is a game-changer for skilled migrants,” White adds.

"The City East Mentor Program helps mentees to differentiate their applications, overcome the lack of local work experience and demonstrate their suitability for a role.”

Removing barriers

White says that being unfamiliar with Australian workplace culture and local job seeking processes, along with lacking confidence, exacerbates barriers to entering the workforce for migrant women. 

She also notes that in some cultures, demonstrating humility is highly valued, so promoting personal strengths and achievements is considered inappropriate or arrogant.

"As a mentor,  I help people articulate their strengths and value-add in a way that feels comfortable for them.” 

Through the City East Mentoring Mock Interview Program, which White initiated, corporate leaders conduct practice interviews with City East mentees.

"The program provides valuable interview experience for mentees and extends their networks and understanding of Australian workplace culture," White says.

"For corporate participants, it provides a greater appreciation of overseas talent, challenges unconscious bias and causes them to question the blockers to employment for this talent.”  

White says helping mentees secure their first role in Australia has been her greatest success as a mentor.  

She recalls how, recently, “a mentee cried when she received her first job offer here after six months of relentless job hunting".

Other mentees have shared that the mentoring relationships helped them to feel valued, trusted and hopeful during a time of desperation.

Finding balance

White is also a corporate volunteer with Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN), a group of almost 200 low socio-economic status schools and over 50 leading businesses and organisations, working together to address educational disadvantage through structured workplace mentoring and business/school partnerships. 

Her involvement as a corporate ABCN mentor “supports the development of secondary school students’ skills and mindsets, confidence and aspirations, so they can achieve more than they thought was possible.”

“Good leadership enables people to be their best, to feel happy to come to work on a Monday morning and to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride,” says White.

“The greatest leaders I’ve worked with have had a strong ability to build confidence in their staff and have trusted them to deliver great work.

"They set clear, (often very high) standards, remove blockers and ensure the team always has the resources necessary to do the job. They get to know team members on a personal level, show interest and care in the individual and foster an open relationship.

"A great leader doesn’t shy away from sharing difficult feedback, but they do it in a way that assumes positive intent, focuses on the problem rather than the person and, points to the future rather that dwells on the past.”

A strong believer in the work-life balance, White, who has a toddler and is expecting her second child, takes a flexible, hybrid approach to support her team and works hard to maintain balance herself. 

As a leader, she says her biggest challenge is protecting her “undisturbed drive time" which she uses to plan the week as well as the future, including thinking through complex problems, or reflect on where a change of course is required .

"This can sometimes feel like a luxury, but it's essential for me," she says. "As we become increasingly accessible, our time as leaders can quickly be consumed with reactive work."

People and technology

White relishes the interface of people and technology. Working in the operations team supporting claims staff provides her with exciting opportunities to get involved in interesting technology and people related projects. 

As technology, especially AI, continues to advance, “industries are grappling with how to effectively leverage the capacity created by these innovations,” White says.

She anticipates that in the insurance sector, there will be a growing demand for uniquely human skills.

"These include empathy, support for vulnerable customers, negotiation abilities, on-the-ground presence during events, handling complex claims, and fostering strong relationships with brokers.” 

White hopes that her leadership skills and experience will continue to grow in the future.

Find out more about the Allianz Donna Walker Awards