Building the next generation of talent
Recruiting, developing, and retaining future professionals is an opportunity the export credit and investment insurance industry can meet through strategic focus.
Insurance has long been known as a ‘people’ business. It is a global industry where professionals strive to solve the risk challenges of individuals and organisations. Many longtime insurance professionals, especially those in the export credit and investment insurance sector, admit to building their careers by accident.
Many of their stories have common threads: ‘I was looking for a job, and a friend told me about an opportunity at an ECA,’ or ‘I was interested in international finance, but an insurance company hired me,’ or ‘I didn’t even know this industry existed when I started, but I found it really interesting.’ These sentiments offer lessons in how the industry can recruit and retain future generations of professionals.
An appealing career option
To attract talent for roles in political risk and credit insurance, organisations should first understand how this specialised area can appeal to professionals as a career option. Two labour surveys suggest factors that firms should consider.
The first is attitudes toward careers. In 2024, the Pew Research Center studied American workers’ attitudes toward their jobs. Among all employed workers, 50% saw their current job as a career, while 15% viewed it as a steppingstone to a career, and 35% considered it a job to get by. Among workers aged 30–49, 55% saw their current job as a career, and of those aged 50–62, 62% did.1
Another key factor is the drivers of job satisfaction. The Conference Board in 2025 surveyed workers on the factors that most contribute to their job satisfaction. Topping the list, cited by 92%, was interest in the work itself, followed by quality of leadership (87%) and workplace culture (84%). Compensation was a distant sixth, trailing workload and supervisor relations.2
My experience has shown that our industry has the ability to offer a satisfying career and foster the professional satisfaction these studies show we should not take for granted. The field is fascinating and touches many facets of global, regional, and local economies. Each project represents a unique set of challenges to analyse and solve. Further, the export credit and investment insurance industry possesses a strong culture of collegiality and camaraderie.
A prime example is the Berne Union Young Professionals (‘YP’) Forum. The 2026 event hosted by EKN in Stockholm drew nearly 60 participants. The YP Forum was created in 2019 to bring together early-career professionals from export credit agencies, credit insurers, and investment guarantee institutions. As both a participant and a member of the YP Core Group tasked with planning the event, I heard from other attendees how valuable the opportunities were for networking, collaboration, and discovering new perspectives on problem-solving.
Insurance can offer a deeply rewarding career. It offers professionals the ability to make meaningful improvements in the lives of others around the world, facilitate economic development and investment, learn from colleagues, and forge lasting friendships. The key that unlocks these opportunities is greater awareness of this field. Making more students and young professionals aware that this market exists and needs curious minds is a critical, ongoing challenge.
Formal and informal programmes
Over my career, from an entry-level hire through my time as a young professional, I have seen, and even directly benefited from, a combination of formal and informal approaches that can effectively attract and develop talent. Across organisations, these programmes can take the following forms:
Internships: Many colleagues in our market began their tenure as interns. For undergraduate or graduate students, corporate and agency internship programmes provide experience in research and assisting more experienced team members with analysing and assessing risks, along with other high-value tasks and activities. They show interns what the job is really like and whether it is something that interests them long-term (the answer is almost always ‘yes’).
Mentorships: Early-career professionals, and even those with more experience, gain valuable insights from formal mentoring. The insurance industry has a wealth of knowledge to transfer to its next generation of leaders, and mentorships are effective ways to make that happen. The BU YP Initiative formalises this by partnering mentors and mentees across the industry to further help pass along experience to future generations.
Spontaneous meetings: The most informal of approaches is a spontaneous invitation to go to lunch or take tea or coffee. Taking an interest in young professionals, inquiring about how they are faring and what their interests are, and providing feedback and guidance is a good way to build trust and dialogue between colleagues.
Advice for new and seasoned entrants
Opportunity in any organisation is a two-way street. I would offer the following advice to new entrants to the political risk and credit insurance field.
First, ask questions. Complexity is part of the landscape in economic development, international finance, and insurance. Asking questions of experienced colleagues is an important way to learn and demonstrate your curiosity while equipping yourself to thrive in your role by more fully understanding what is going on.
Seize opportunities. Advancement comes in time, but every role offers the ability to acquire experience and contribute. New entrants should seek out such opportunities to be challenged, to take on new tasks, and to perform core activities well. Former US President Barack Obama said in a 2023 podcast interview, ‘Just learn how to get stuff done… I’ve seen at every level people who are very good at describing problems, people who are very sophisticated in explaining why something went wrong or why something can’t get fixed, but what I’m always looking for is no matter how small the problem or how big it is, somebody who says, “Let me take care of that.”’
Finally, take initiative to develop your skills. Building career skills is not a passive activity. Young professionals should actively pursue relevant skills and certifications. Listening to podcasts, reading books and articles, and pursuing additional studies are all ways to bring more to the table, to learn from the experiences of others, and to grow into a better professional.
Professionals with more career experience, on the other hand, can help build the next era of talent by sharing knowledge. Helping build others’ knowledge brings value to the entire team. Whether analysing political risk or creditworthiness, broad knowledge of business and global affairs is often an asset. Experienced professionals should share what they have learned and add context by explaining ‘why’, helping younger colleagues gain insights and perspective from those who have built successful careers in this field.
They can also help by interacting with prospective new joiners, for instance by taking the opportunity to speak at and engage with the university in their city or from which they graduated. They can highlight the unique opportunities for personal fulfilment, the privilege of advancing economic development, and the ability to stay at the forefront of international trade and investment. In the same way that we need to market our organisations to our clients, we also need to market our industry to the hires we want.
I have personally benefited from formal and informal mentors and support across the three BU member firms I have worked at, and from the dozens of colleagues at other BU member organisations I have come to know through the BU YP Forum and beyond. The saying is ‘tomorrow is promised to no one’ – one could also say the same about the future of our industry’s talent. Let’s take the initiative to build the next generation, so trade and investment risks across the world can be managed and national economies can continue to grow.
Endnotes
1 Pew Research Center, “How Americans View Their Jobs,” 10 December 2024; https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/12/10/how-americans-view-their-jobs-2024/
2 The Conference Board, “Job Satisfaction 2025: US Worker Satisfaction Rebounds Sharply,” 11 June 2025; https://www.conference-board.org/publications/job-satisfaction-2025-US-worker-satisfaction-rebounds-sharply
