Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

In this episode, Justin interviews Susan Hiteshew about her career path, from long-time risk manager to broker, and how her foundation in risk provides her with corporate empathy and understanding of her clients. They cover key principles Susan learned on the way, how she intentionally made a change, and how her risk philosophy helps her as a broker. Susan shares points from her risk philosophy and the benefits she realized from the RIMS-CRMP, as well as from serving on the National RIMS Board.

Listen for key factors in a great trisk management team.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:17] About this episode of RIMScast. We will be joined by Susan Hiteshew, a long-time risk professional, to discuss how she successfully transitioned over to the broker side. We will also get her ERM philosophy and how it still guides her to this day. But first…

[:47] RIMS-CRMP and Some Prep Courses. The next virtual prep courses will be held on March 110th and 11th and again on April 21st and 22nd. Links to these courses can be found through the Certification page of RIMS.org and through this episode's show notes.

[1:04] RIMS Virtual Workshops are coming up. On February 2nd and 3rd, Pat Saporito will host the debut of the two-day course, "Storytelling with Data for Risk Management".

[1:18] On February 4th and 5th, Ken Baker will return to deliver the course, "Applying and Integrating ERM".

[1:28] The full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's notes.

[1:39] RIMS members always enjoy deep discounts on the virtual workshops.

[1:43] The next RIMS Webinar will celebrate Women's History Month by exploring "Hard Hats & High Stakes: Women Leaders Shaping Construction Risk Management" on March 6th.

[1:53] We'll be joined by a Chief Risk Officer, an underwriter, and a broker, who will explore their career paths and risk and safety philosophies, and lend some insight as to why this is the time for the next generation of leaders to rise.

[2:08] Visit RIMS.org/webinars and check out the link in this episode's show notes.

[2:12] On with the show! Our guest today is the Managing Director and Office Head for Marsh's Washington, D.C. Office. Before accepting that role, she had 16 years of experience in risk management. She was one of the first RIMS-CRMP certificate holders. She's Susan Hiteshew.

[2:35] We're going to talk about her career and why she decided to make a transition over to the broker side with Marsh. We'll also talk about her ERM philosophy and how it continues to guide her to this day.

[2:47] We will also talk about strategy and the concept of professional empathy. Let's get to it…

[2:54] Interview! Susan Hiteshew, welcome to RIMScast!

[3:34] Susan can't imagine a better way to start 2026 than getting to be here on RIMScast with Justin!

[4:00] For years, Susan was a corporate risk manager. Most recently, she was the VP of Risk at a real estate investment trust. Before that, she was Senior Director of Insurance at a major hotel brand and had filled other risk roles.

[4:25] Susan says that before she got started as a risk manager, she began her career in claims. She worked in a specialized unit on the carrier side, analyzing legacy claims for coverage. They printed policies, read them, and manually wrote claims notes on them.

[4:57] Susan says it was a great way to learn the coverages and understand the underwriting intent of the policies. That foundation taught her that insurance is technically complex and that there's a policyholder on the other end who will be getting your coverage letter in the mail.

[5:19] Susan says insurance is a people business, even though it is very much a technical business. It's a form of strategic finance.

[5:28] Susan learned as a risk manager the value in building that downside protection for your company and creating predictability in your cost of risk so that your business can operate with confident margins.

[5:44] As a risk manager, Susan implemented that approach into how she thought about ERM. She thinks the most successful ERM programs are very collaborative across different business units and are built upon the spirit that everyone's a risk manager.

[6:05] Risk is something we all own for our company. Susan's focus was always on supporting her executive team and board, and giving them information in clear, cogent, and actionable ways.

[6:24] Susan speaks of frameworks. Risk and strategy are two sides of the same coin. Some risks are quantifiable and insurable; some risks are not.

[6:36] Enterprise risk management is about understanding all risks, creating awareness around them, and mobilizing your company to focus on those risks in every part of your organization, at every level. Susan finds value in both ISO and COSO. She leans more toward COSO.

[7:19] ERM was different at every company Susan worked with, tailored to the company and the business. It was collaborative. So much of enterprise risk management is taking who you are as a company, where you're trying to go, and building a framework that makes the most sense.

[8:11] Susan was a risk manager for about 16 years.

[8:20] Susan had reached the point where she wanted to broaden her impact across the board. Every time she made a change in her career, it was because she wanted to try something new and learn something different.

[9:09] The timing felt right. She had had a lot of different in-house experiences, so she could sit across from a client and say she had been in their seat and knows what they are thinking through from an insurance perspective, and she can help them solve their issues.

[9:32] At different companies, a risk manager does different things. Susan had had different areas of responsibility in insurance, claims, captive management, and enterprise risk management. What she loved the most was the insurance side.

[10:05] Susan asked herself, wouldn't it be great if she could do what she loved most, all the time, for lots of clients? She loves that in her role now, leading the D.C. office for Marsh, she gets to help lots of clients with lots of different problems. She loves supporting risk managers.

[10:44] Susan says the reason that she's been able to do what she's done in her career is because of support from others in the industry. She's having a lot of fun, working on helping clients with interesting problems. She thinks professional empathy helps her support clients.

[11:23] Quick Break! The RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management is RIMS' live virtual program, led by James Lam. Great News! A brand new cohort has been announced. Registration closes on April 6th.

[11:44] Beginning on April 14th, bi-weekly workshops will be held from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time through June 23rd. Register now! A link is also in this episode's show notes.

[11:57] Save the dates, March 18th and 19th, 2026, for the RIMS Legislative Summit, which will be held in Washington, D.C. Join us for two days of Congressional Meetings, networking, and advocating on behalf of the risk management community.

[12:13] Visit RIMS.org/advocacy for more information and updates and to register.

[12:21] Let's Return to Our Interview with Susan Hiteshew!

[13:08] Susan says that where her background is most helpful is in her claims foundation. It trained her to interpret coverage, to understand the intent of policy language, and to understand all that goes into resolving complex claims.

[13:24] As a risk manager, Susan learned what Accounting needs, what Finance needs, and what a CFO needs when something "has gone bump in the night" and there's a significant claim issue.

[13:37] Susan can tie all that together to support a risk manager and say, "You might want to have a conversation with Accounting about this. What do you have budgeted for this? Let's have a conversation with Finance about this. Is Legal involved? Do we have clarity on Operations?"

[13:55] Susan's years in-house taught her how to pull all of those different components of the organization together. A good risk manager knows and works with everybody in their company. There are many internal and external stakeholders.

[14:19] Susan helps risk managers navigate tough situations and know whom to talk to before needing to get in front of them, to bring a tough situation to a good resolution, with everybody being aware and having the opportunity to give input to bring the situation to a close.

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Strategic Risk Career Transitions with Susan Hiteshew