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Congrats to the 2023 Q4 Assurant Way CEO Award Winners!

The Assurant Way CEO Award Logo

Our culture is the secret to our success, and we call it The Assurant Way. The four dimensions of The Assurant Way describe the things that make our company culture unique: Our purpose. Our values. Our commitments. And our vision.

To further recognize the contributions made by our employees, we recently introduced The Assurant Way CEO Award. This recognition takes into account all the components of The Assurant Way and also highlights commitments to community engagement. When employees embody our values to deliver on our commitments and care for our customers and communities, it helps to carry out our purpose and drive our vision.

The winners are chosen quarterly and are nominated by their fellow coworkers. Employees selected will:

  • Receive a $1,500 bonus 
  • Be able to make a donation grant of $1,500 from the Assurant Foundation for a charity/charities of their choice.

We are excited to share the Q4 2023 winners of The Assurant Way CEO Award!

 

Christine Conboy  

Christine has been with Assurant for five years and currently works as an Associate Learning Specialist. In this role, she supports both client and operational training needs in Canada. This includes design, development, and implementation of both digital and in-person content.  

Christine received The Assurant Way CEO Award for demonstrating the commitment of bringing grit and determination to get things done. As an active member of our Women@Assurant ERG, Christine’s dedication, leadership and genuine commitment to the ERG mission and goals has made a signification impact. Her collaboration with other members drives positive change, helping the group achieve its objectives. She has led the volunteer team in organizing events, manages the SharePoint site, and recruits members, all while advocating for change and raising awareness of diversity and inclusion issues, an important pillar in our organization.  

In the absence of another team member, Christine has taken on the responsibility of leading the Marketing and Communication volunteer team. Bringing her unique skills, experiences, and insight to the group, she contributes to its continued success and growth. Additionally, she has served as a mentor, helping to empower ERG members and volunteers, all without losing focus of her role as a respected Associate Learning Specialist. Her willingness makes her shine, and it is contagious!  

Christine says, “The Women@Assurant ERG has allowed me to feel empowered in a way that I’ve never felt before. Bringing grit and determination to get things done and lead by example has always been how I approach any project or task asked of me at Assurant. Dedicating my time to help others succeed is my passion. Impacting collaboration, consistency and positive change are a few of the reasons I enjoy being engaged at Assurant in the way I am. Whether the team is part of our day-to-day operations, an ERG, or an ECT, I’m always all in.” 

Outside of Assurant, Christine loves being creative, volunteering and spending time with family.  

  

Meet Grace Jackson 


Grace has been with Assurant for 10 years and currently works as an Associate Technical Product Owner in our IT Department. She received the CEO Award for demonstrating The Assurant Way commitments of engaging the right people at the right time and spending time on what adds the most value. 

Grace was recently asked to implement modern products as part of the Assurant Vehicle Care Program in the old system in a very short timeframe. This effort was particularly challenging, as it required balancing what the legacy system can handle with the flexibility and standardization the new program was expected to offer. Grace worked tirelessly with our internal business teams, developers, and IT vendors to negotiate achievable and innovative solutions to accommodate the new, more flexible AVC products. She also addressed emerging issues by rallying relevant stakeholders and quickly resolving issues. Grace’s efforts have resulted in the new products being made available on all our platforms and legacy systems within our AVC Program. Grace consistently shows grit and determination to get her job done, has the ability to influence others to implement practical solutions and is able to negotiate effectively. 

She says, “Engaging the right people at the right time helps provide a broader perspective to the project. I always believe that understanding the bigger picture helps provide better solutions or improve efficiency. The only way to get the bigger picture is to engage in open communication. Ask lots of questions, find the right people, and create a path forward. I am very lucky to have fellow Assurant personnel, as well as our external vendors that were willing to engage and take time out of their day to provide the necessary information to accomplish our goal: Support Assurant’s Global Automotive growth.” 

Outside of Assurant, Grace enjoys spending time with family. Grace has two very active boys who play football on travel teams. Her family also enjoys traveling to different countries and learning about different cultures. 

 

Luis Gomez

Luis has been with Assurant for 11 years and currently works as a CRM for our global footprint in Mexico. In this role, Luis works to support Global Automotive for the General Motors account nationwide.  

He received The Assurant Way CEO Award by embodying the Assurant values and commitment of serving our clients and customers with passion and purpose. As part of General Motors Financial regionalization in LATAM, a contract was signed with the brand financial company to supply the CPO program in Chile. Luis stepped in and used his experience and skills to position Assurant as a global partner with General Motors Financial, replicating best practices from Mexico to launch new GM Financial programs in Chile. As a result of the coaching and training that Luis provided to the local team and GM distributors, our opportunity to be successful in Chile has increased and we strengthened our relationship GM Financial. 

Luis says, “It was a little bit frightening going to another country with a different culture; I didn’t know what to expect and had to adapt to all differences and quickly change the training that I had prepared. At the end it was a success, the brand and the dealer were so satisfied with the result.” He contributes his personal success to always repeating this phrase to himself to serve as a reminder that we are here first to serve, not to sell: “The sale is the inevitable consequence of extraordinary customer service.” 
 

Moises Ocasio Morales 

Moises has been with Assurant for 27 years and currently works as a Systems Administrator within our IT department. In his role, Moises covers all aspects from designing and proposing to implementing ideas. He says, “we are a small shop, so we all wear multiple hats.”  

Moises received The Assurant Way CEO Award by embodying our values and the commitment of spending time on what adds the most value. Moises recently identified a tedious manual process for one of our most important clients. Due to Moises’s dedication and commitment, he significantly improved efficiency through process automation, saving hundreds of hours of work and allowing employees to use their time more effectively. He also played a key role contributing to robot automation, Employee Service Desk Portal optimization, and ongoing automation projects, demonstrating his commitment to streamlining operations. Additionally, his role in our disaster recovery process helps prepare for and respond to unexpected events, something common in Puerto Rico, avoiding disruption in our operation.  

Moises says, “My commitment is always to see ways to help others. It can be simple support or immersing myself in complicated projects. I must give my internal clients the tools to thrive at what they do; this will transform into better solutions that reflect on the customer service to our clients, internal or external. Being curious, trying new things, and getting it done will inspire others to keep working hard and reach their goals.”  

Outside of Assurant, Moises loves to spend time at the beach and is passionate about kayaking.  

 

Patrick Ross

Patrick started at Assurant 15 years ago and currently works as an AVP, Global Data Analytics. As a member of the business integration team, Patrick is responsible for working with all stakeholders from our U.S. Connected Living line of business to coordinate projects and tasks between the business and their numerous execution teams. 

Patrick received the CEO Award for demonstrating The Assurant Way with his commitment to be curious and inspire new ideas and solutions. He served in a key technical product owner role as the development team evolved the pilot work of “Carbon Calculator” into a product foundation for Carbon IQ. Patrick didn’t hesitate to jump in for whatever was needed wearing multiple hats to support in everything from data source methodology development, reporting demo builds, conducting partner and prospect meetings and even PowerPoint slide work. His passion for the work, curiosity into how to solve problems to create something new, as well as grit and determination to meet deadlines was instrumental in us being able to launch our first version of Carbon IQ. As an example during the scenario creation, Patrick reviewed our own internal Supply Chain flows against the input from Carbon Trust to revise documented process methodology to help drive a universal average. Then he researched the applications through countless articles and industry references.  

Patrick says, “I am grateful that Assurant offers an environment in which you can develop your ideas, which are then recognized and encouraged, especially by the senior leadership team. This corporate culture, the "Assurant Way," is the foundation for finding motivation every day and constantly striving to deliver added value. It is a great honor for me to accept this CEO award on behalf of the entire team. Developing Carbon-IQ was an exciting task and I’m super excited to support the launch and delivery of Carbon IQ to its first clients.”   

Outside of Assurant, Patrick enjoys spending time with his family (wife, two children and two cats) in nature and riding his road and gravel bikes. Additionally, last year, Patrick joined the biggest charity cycling team in Europe: "Team Rynkeby.” With over 2500 members, he cycled across Europe to raise awareness and collect funds to improve the chances of recovery for children with serious illnesses. And even here: “Assurant supports my passion being a gold sponsor on our jerseys and according to the “Assurant Way” helps to give back to our community.”

 

Sarah Short

Sarah has been with Assurant for 16 years and currently works as a Digital Experience Product Manager supporting the Loss Draft Business. In this role, Sarah owns digital products that allow customers to self-service their property claim process to obtain their insurance claim funds to repair their property. 

Sarah received The Assurant Way CEO Award for demonstrating our commitment of bringing grit and determination to get things done. Sarah recently stepped up (without being asked) to manage and execute a fast track 90-day implementation of our Loss Draft emails to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. From the start, Sarah was instrumental in helping to document the as-is process in today’s environment.

Without hesitation, Sarah rolled up her sleeves, offering to work weekends to ensure we had no impact on our deadlines. She walks the line of leading, pushing through the plan, stepping in when needed and getting results all while knowing immediately when a roadblock can hinder a date. As a result of Sarah’s efforts, we will be rolling out 13 new Loss Draft emails with Salesforce Marketing Cloud with three of our top lending clients. This effort will allow us to quickly push to all clients a few weeks after the initial release. Utilizing this new platform provides us the flexibility to quickly design, test and pushing customers to our digital platforms. It is vital to our future in the Digital Product space. 

Sarah says, “I feel so honored to be receiving this award knowing so many at Assurant go above and beyond every day. This wouldn’t be possible without the unwavering support of Sky Stone and her continuous drive for our team to deliver valuable changes for the organization and to my team for always doing what it takes to get the job done.” 

Outside of Assurant, Sarah enjoys spending as much time as she can with family and friends.  

 

Serpil Gazko-Serfaty

Serpil has been with Assurant for almost two years and currently works as a Professional Development Director in Talent Enablement within the People Organization. In her role, she creates value for our employees globally across the enterprise from a skilling and career growth perspective, striving to unlock potential by providing an inclusive and dynamic space for employees and managers to: explore new talents, find fulfilling career opportunities, showcase skills, and connect with others while enabling business outcomes. 

Serpil received the CEO Award for demonstrating The Assurant Way for embodying the values and commitment of engaging the right people at the right time. Serpil recently led an RFP to select a learning content vendor to support the development needs for employees at Assurant. The learning vendor would need to support our global employees and allow for their ability to access online learning content in multiple languages with a library that supported multiple business-related topics. The desired vendor came in extremely over budget and the choices that remained would have meant sacrificing access and quality for our employees and added administration work for our learning and development teams.   

Serpil wasn’t ready to give up on finding a way forward with the chosen vendor. She brought grit, determination, and common sense – along with many extra hours of work in addition to normal workloads – to find a path forward. She engaged with our IT partners to collaborate understanding their overlapping IT learning vendor RFP timeline and hoping that the chosen vendor for learning and development could also be one to support IT’s learning needs. Together, they forged a new solution to meet the specialized learning needs across the enterprise. Serpil's common sense thinking and passion for finding a solution was only possible by engaging the right people at the right time and by spending time with our sourcing and procurement partners on what added the most value. The result is an upgraded learning solution that all employees can access with significant enterprise cost savings. 

Serpil says, “I’m humbled to receive this honor and it wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing team members I am fortunate to work with and learn from each day! I’m a big believer in not accepting things at face value and not being afraid to challenge the status quo. Being a “disrupter” is not necessarily a bad thing if done right. It's truly the only way a person/team/organization can innovate and effectively advance and grow. My motto is: never accept the status quo. And my favorite quote is from Steve Jobs: “We’re here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here?”   

Outside of Assurant, Serpil is a wife and mother to three boys. In her (often non-existent) spare time, she loves to read, write, and travel – especially if there’s sun/warm weather, water, and a beach involved! 

 

Steven Colley

Steven has been with Assurant for almost nine years and currently works as an Operations Engagement Team Member. In this role, Steven is responsible for supporting the UK Operational teams with things like employee engagement, as well as supporting with reward and recognition, creating briefs or internal communications with important updates, working closely with the Your Voice team to improve the employee experience and shooting/creating videos to help share things like the business strategy, promotion of internal vacancies, business achievements and more. It’s a unique role, and every week is different as it continues to evolve.  

Steven received The Assurant Way CEO Award for demonstrating The Assurant Way for his commitment of building and empowering diverse, winning teams and spending time on what adds the most value. By understanding his audience, Steven has been able to drive many improvements across the operation as well as go above and beyond organizing outside work social events. He regularly meets with his stakeholders and key business leaders to work on messages and using various ways of communicating such as videos, SMS updates and on-site verbal updates. He also leads a team of agents who were selected to the 'the voice' of the people to get regular feedback and agreed ways to focus on the future. 

Steven says, “I try to approach all aspects of my role with the commitments and values in mind and I always relate my work back to these as well, to help our audience understand the bigger impacts of the changes and improvements we make. I’m so grateful to have been nominated for this award, let alone win! Our results wouldn’t be possible without everyone in the team’s support, but receiving this award has really helped me to recognize and celebrate how I personally have contributed towards this.”  

Outside of Assurant, Steven loves being outdoors and visiting new places. He is currently converting a van into a campervan, so he can do even more travelling in future. Additionally, before taking on his current role, Steven made lots of travel videos via his cameras and drone to post on Youtube, Tiktok or Instagram; he never expected that this experience would translate into a career at Assurant! Steven also loves cooking and is a big film geek.

 

Tonya Lowmon

Tonya has been with Assurant for eight years and currently works as a Senior Business Unit Systems Analyst in our Operations Department. In this role, Tonya specializes in Process Management for Global Connected Living Home Solutions - Life Operations.  

She received The Assurant Way CEO Award for demonstrating The Assurant Way by spending time on what adds the most value and demonstrating extraordinary commitment to community engagement. Tonya identified a significant need to streamline the intake process for operational enhancements which surface from multiple departments. Before the intake process existed, it was unclear who to go to for support and in some cases, teams were working on initiatives in silo’s and inadvertently creating challenges for others. Her single intake funnel combined with monthly meetings allowed groups to improve communication and efficiency, positively impacting all departments involved. 

Tonya also serves as the Assurant GA ECT Co-chair for Make-A-Wish, Chair for YELLS (Youth Empowerment through Learning, Leading, and Serving), and Chair for PADV (partnership Against Domestic Violence). Tonya is actively involved in Assurant events, such as volunteering at the MCOM breakfast and 2023 United Way Fundraising Campaign. Her role in raising funds for United Way and facilitating an additional $13,000 in grants for YELLS and PADV through GA ECT highlights her passion for securing vital resources for Assurant’s community partnerships.  

Tonya says, “I'm truly honored to receive The Assurant Way CEO Award. The specific commitments mentioned in this nomination hold special significance for me, recognizing both my internal contributions and my passion for volunteerism. I’d like to express my gratitude to the incredible teams and mentors at Assurant who have played a pivotal role in shaping my journey. This achievement is a testament to the supportive and unique culture that sets our organization apart, and I feel extremely fortunate to be part of the Assurant family.” 

Outside of Assurant, Tonya loves to spend time with family and friends, traveling the world and giving back through volunteering. Tonya’s passions fuel her sense of purpose, contributing to a balanced and meaningful life beyond the workplace. Fun fact: After her upcoming trip to Antarctica, Tonya will have visited all 7 continents.  

 

Congratulations to all! We are so proud of our Q4 winners and are honored to call them part of the Assurant team. Make sure to check back each quarter as we continue recognizing some of our employees' hard work! 

 

 

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