Full steam ahead on the fastTrack

Pam Joshi will succeed founding member Kathryn Wallin as chair of Airmic’s fastTrack scheme and will take on this new role in February 2015, after its inaugural conference to be held at the Willis Building, London.

Joshi was appointed fastTrack deputy chair earlier this month after Airmic’s AGM decision to elect Wallin to the association’s board in June.

Joshi said she wants the programme to go “full steam ahead” as it approaches its first anniversary in January next year.

The scheme, which aims to accelerate the careers of inexperienced risk and insurance professionals, has grown its membership to 173 in its first ten months and Joshi is determined to ensure its continued growth.

Speaking to StrategicRISK, Joshi said: “We want to continue to engage risk and insurance professionals and take fastTrack to the next step.

“Given how far the programme has come since its launch in January 2014, we want to go full speed ahead. I want to keep the momentum going, keep the foundation courses going and grow our membership base.”

The inaugural fastTrack forum, themed Developing tomorrow’s risk leaders, is proving popular with half of spaces at the event booked. “We’ve had fantastic support from partners and people want to support the programme in terms of growing talent and supporting young, fresh professionals in risk,” Joshi added.

Joshi will continue to build on the scheme’s educational programmes and will begin scoping out details for a range of events already on the fastTrack book, including a two-day forum in association with Lloyd’s next February.

She also aims to push ahead with plans to give participants a-day-in-the-life experience of different roles within the industry, from underwriting to broking and courtroom settlements.

Webinars and online tutorials are also on the to-do list.  She said: “We would really like to develop the website. Discussions are taking place around providing support to risk managers who may not be able to attend the workshops and development programmes because they are based outside of London.

Although the scheme is still relatively new, Joshi is keen to move on from thinking of fastTrack as being in its early stages. She said the turning point for her came at the Airmic conference in Birmingham in June, where the scheme attracted much attention from the association members and was at the forefront of many discussions throughout the conference.

A major talking point for the risk management community concerns the evolving perceptions of risk, the role of risk managers and the education and training of young professionals. With greater industry focus on these areas, Joshi is keen to ensure fastTrack members are equipped with the requisite knowledge and skills to succeed in their careers.

She said members join with varying degrees of understanding of risk and insurance and sometimes from entirely different professions.  In fact this describes Joshi’s own path into risk management, which places her well to steer the fastTrack scheme.

Joshi read law at university and then worked for a property development firm Precis Management Services Limited (affiliated with Larco Investments in Canada) for seven years, spending 12 months split between shadowing the head of property and the legal team. She now manages insurable risk at Tesco PLC having established the risk and insurance department at her previous employer.

Reflecting the profile of many of fastTrack’s members, Joshi is well placed to be its new leader – and she has high hopes for the scheme. In time, Joshi said the scheme could expand to non-Airmic members and provide graduates with a route into risk management.