TWANE DUCKWORTH: Welcome, everybody. We're so excited to have you to another edition of Women in risk and education, our WIRE series, a part of U of Risk educational collaboration with individuals in the field who can provide some insight and instruction to your professional development as a risk manager. I am your host, Twane Duckworth, and I'm so excited today to have with me a wonderful guest speaker, and presenter, and participant to our roundtable to talk about women being in the risk and education field, none other than Rachel Pluviose. I am so excited. I want to let her introduce herself, but I want to let you know that you all are in for a treat.
So please, if you're the note-taking time, pull out your pen, your pad, open your hearts, your minds, and your ears because you're going to get some great information. And I'm so excited again to introduce Rachel. Rachel, if you wouldn't mind, go ahead and let our listeners know who you are, what you do, and where you're at?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Thank you, Twane. So good morning to all the listeners or afternoon, depending on whatever time you choose to hear this. I am Rachel Pluviose. I am the Senior Director of Risk Management and Insurance at Johns Hopkins University.
I started on the university, but currently I have responsibilities for the health system as well. So two jobs rolled up into one, but it's all good. All good. Most people, when they hear Johns Hopkins, they think that it is a hospital, or they just understand the health system because that's really what we're well known for.
But the university is also pretty extensive. We have nine different divisions, eight academic units, affiliated research center, and I could go on and on. But that's who I am and who I'm with.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Wonderful. In fact, it's interesting that you mentioned that, because I think that that's absolutely true. Certainly when most people hear Johns Hopkins, you think of medical. As it relates to from an undergrad standpoint, is there anything that you've learned since becoming the risk manager that stands out about Hopkins from an undergraduate standpoint?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Not so much. I think I've been more impressed by what we do on the graduate level, so meaning Hopkins, unlike a lot of schools, has 25% of our student population is undergraduate and 75% is graduate. Well, actually, the most recent that I pulled, it's more like 80, 20, which is great for the undergraduates because they are able to do a lot of research almost from day one. So whatever their field of discipline is, they can grab hold of a professor or a graduate student and say, hey, I want to do this type of research, and jump right in.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: I never thought about it from that perspective. Well, that's why I like talking with smart people like you.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: There you go.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: So what made you decide you were interested in a risk manager career?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: I don't know if I decided or fell into it. No one ever grows up saying, mommy, I want to be a risk manager.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: That's true. Very true.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: I actually thought I was going to be a doctor when I started college. But I went to Howard, and Marsh came and interviewed. And the day that we were supposed to sign up for interviews, I wasn't there.
So I had a friend of mine just signed me up for anyone looking for finance major. Marsh was the one who was like, hey, we would love to talk with you. And I interviewed with them and was like, OK, now this doesn't sound like it would be a bad gig.
I was supposed to do it for two years, go back, get my MBA and then go do currency trading. For some reason, I was really into currency trading. I won't say how many years later, I am still in risk management. So there you go.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: A very common narrative. I think a lot of people say they fell into insurance or fell into risk management. There's not a bunch of TV series about being the ultimate risk manager.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Exactly, exactly. And some reason, we all stay. We never seem to find something else to do. So that must mean it's a great career. It's all good.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Well, I think it's a testament to, quite frankly, what it brings to the table, it's certainly a dynamic that is a part of risk management that you can't really get anywhere else.
There's a mix between finance, there's a mix of law, there's a mix of compliance, there's a mix of audit, certainly innovative thought process, collaboration, particularly in today's environment, where they are looking for-- and when I say they, the proverbial they. That is that organizations, entities, they want people who can dynamically address issues that range from not only the financial transfer of risk through an insurance policy, but as well as their ability to be concerned about their reputation, their image, their profit margin and all that good stuff. So your background goes right in line with that. Have you found that that's helped you as you proceeded in your career?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: It definitely has. You realize that the longer you do risk management, everything that you've touched along the way definitely comes to play at work. It is very dynamic and very timely.
So you're dealing with a lot of real-world issues. So I don't know if a lot of people fully appreciate how the MeToo movement, for example, completely changed the way we even look at risk management practices within higher ed, and how we look at insurance, and what that means, and so forth, and policies and procedures that came around because of just MeToo.
And I'm just using that as one example because I think a lot of people will be familiar with that. But every day you come to work, and you realize that the world around you is essentially shaping how and what you view and how and what you do on a regular basis. And you get impacted by everything to your point, from financial risk to social justice, to everything. It impacts you in some way, shape, or form within the insurance world.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: That's probably even more so unique in the education field. Do you have any advice for young women starting out in risk management today, particularly if they're going to go into education and risk management?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: I would say be open. And what I mean by be open, open to new ideas, open to new thought, open to taking a step back and looking things through a different lens. I think a lot of times, we come through and think, oh, I've seen this before, I know this answer, but sometimes you have to just look at it from a different angle and a different lens, and you'll see so many different solutions that can come up through it.
People who are regimented in their way of thinking of it has to be this way, I don't think this is necessarily the best field for you, unless you're able to adapt and to learn that skill. That's the one best word I can think to say that, just be open to new thought, new ideas, new ways of looking at things, and to pivoting, because sometimes you don't necessarily have the right answer and sometimes you have to just pivot and be like, OK, well, that didn't work out, so now we need to look at it this way and try something different.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Yes, I know in my former professional life, as law background, that is certainly a comfort that comes along with the practice of law because there is the experience of knowing how cases have been decided for many years before. And the law is much slower to adapt and change, generally speaking, especially when you're talking about case law, simply because there is anticipated to be an expectation of how a decision will be rendered if a scenario is presented before you as a lawyer. So that way, you can provide advice to your clients appropriately. It's a little different in risk management, particularly--
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Just a little, though.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Sometimes you get an employee who does something that's a case of first impression, and that seems like a case of first impression every single day. It's like, they did what? How do we resolve that? And there's not always an insurance policy that's an answer. Sometimes you just need to innovate and pivot on the dime.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Yes, yes.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Do you recall any that you're allowed to share, of course, do you recall any scenarios where you was like, well, that was unique? It just took you off your heels, and it's just one of those stories you always remember in your risk management life.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Well, there is one, not in a claim scenario way. But at Hopkins we do some very, very interesting things. I tell people we are a government contractor and an NGO that happens to have a university attached, just to give an idea of all the different things we do.
So one day I get a call and someone asked if we have coverage for an Iron-man demonstration. So in my mind, again, be open, I'm thinking like, someone is doing a triathlon type of thing, swimming, and running, bicycling, whatever. That type of Iron-man. No, no, no, no, no. They literally wanted to test a jetpack on someone's back and have them fly around and see if that was going to work. I was like, OK, OK. This is different.
This is a day in the life.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Of a risk manager. Yeah, I'll tell you, I love it. It's never, never a boring day. I told this before and I'll say it again because it always hits me. I remember many times my family members would ask, as a risk manager, what do I do? And I say, everything. Everything.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that is true. We do do a little bit of everything and touch a lot of different areas. I don't think I fully appreciated just how much so, especially before coming into higher ed.
So previously, I worked at a financial firm. So it was an asset manager. And I've worked at a food service company before that, I was still doing risk management. But at a university, you literally are touching everything. We're in every industry imaginable, hospitality, real estate, food service. I mean, we just run the gamut. If you think of--
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Law enforcement, you've got, 18 to 26-year-olds running around. What can go wrong?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Exactly. So not at Hopkins, though, because our students are so wonderful and they're geniuses. So it's all good.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Great save. Great save. All right, and now this is true, I think, of every individual and every professional, certainly our backgrounds influence how we see things, or our perspectives, or how we walk into our professional lives. And I know I am a one of six children. My dad was in the Air Force, military brat. He moved around the world. I traveled around the world, spoke a lot of languages, forgot a lot of languages.
But seeing a lot of that growing up gave me a, I think, more balanced perspective on how things tend to operate, because what I saw growing up, Rachel, was this. I would be stationed overseas in the Middle East somewhere, and I would see that parents in the Middle East were looking for a lot of the same things that parents in the U.S. were looking for. I would be in London, and we were in Germany, and I was like, the parents over here in Germany are looking for the same things that the parents and the U.S. were looking for in Miami or in Georgia.
And I begin to normalize the fact that as human beings we have a certain core set of things that we're all trying to do and accomplish, a lot of it related to our families and our inner circle. So it gave me a, I would say, balanced perspective as it related to how we want and do things as human beings. And a lot of risk management, quite frankly, is appreciating human nature, and the human condition, and putting guardrails in some respects around things that the human condition allows people to do.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Yes.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: How, if at all, has your family background influenced your perspective on risk management? And talk about that as you desire.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: So I chuckled because anyone who is Caribbean will be able to appreciate this. So I grew up one of four children in a Caribbean immigrant household. And I phrase it that way because my parents, coming from another country, you're in America, but once you get behind the door, you're back in Haiti. And so that frames so much of how you see and view things.
And so to your point, you do see the commonality in a lot of people, and so forth. But if you were raised in a Caribbean household, you grow up with an innate distrust of everything, not just people, everything. It's like complete everything. You want to go to your friend's house, wait, who are these friends? Who are they [INAUDIBLE]? I don't know these people. Wait a minute. Sleepovers is not a thing. There's just an innate suspicion, if you will, of things.
And that tends to be helpful because as a risk manager, a lot of times you're defaulting to, that sounds like a good idea, but what can go wrong? And not so much to say, we're not going to do it, we're not necessarily going to allow people to have an event or whatever the case may be, but then to your point, how do we put guardrails around those things we can think of that potentially could go wrong?
And even if that's looking at contracts and so forth, thinking through, OK, yeah, we're going to waive our rights to this, but how many ways could we potentially get sued if this contract goes wrong? Alright now let's put some wording around this. Alright, you guys want to go and have a petting zoo on campus because it allows you to de-stress during finals. OK, so what goes wrong if someone is allergic to the dogs? What goes wrong if someone gets bitten by the dogs? And again, not to say you have to say no, but how do we put guardrails around it and so forth? So that has been extremely helpful to think through all the many different scenarios because growing up in our household, that was, oh, yeah, anything you want to do, I don't know if that's a good idea. What about this? What about this? What about that?
TWANE DUCKWORTH: In the order of the children in your family, which one are you?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Oh, I had it worse because I'm the last one. I'm the baby of the family. So all the crazy stuff my sisters did—
TWANE DUCKWORTH: People will tell you you had it best because-- OK, listen, I'm four of the six. People will tell you on any given day, oh, the baby gets it the easiest. The parents are--
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: So you would think so, but my sisters tried so many different things, my parents were wise to the game by the time I came around. So it was like, nope, you're not doing that. Nope, that's what your sister did, so we're not allowing this, that, or the other. Yeah, no. So you're getting good on one hand, but on the other hand, they're already hit to the game.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: All girls or you have any brothers?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: No, all girls. That made it even worse.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: So they were really experts by the time they got to?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Yes. Complete lockdown. Oh, mercy.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Listen, in a lot of ways, that perspective is true. My dad, he was always like, OK, what are y'all doing? With the six of us, there's five boys and one girl. And so with the six of us. And just boys being boys a lot, trouble seem to find us or at least that's what we would lament. But that wasn't necessarily true.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: Absolutely.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: But what tends to help as you grow up and recognize that there is a more, I should say, official way to manage risk just behind being suspicious of everything or concerned about what might go wrong, particularly, again, as enterprise risk management becomes the absolute norm and has been strategic risk management thinks about ways to profit off of and develop a more robust organization and program because you're looking at upside risk as well. Have you had the experience of being mentored or being a mentor? And talk to me about why you think that's important if you have.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: So I've had experience doing both, and it is so important and not just official mentors. So I know a lot of companies and institutions will have official mentorship programs, but even that unofficial mentor, that person that you can just call to say, hey, I'm thinking about this, that, and the other thing. What are your thoughts?
Throughout my career, even from college days on having those people that you can just talk to, pick up the phone, get some advice, brainstorm a couple of things has been so instrumental in helping to guide how you view things. What makes the most sense for you?
I had one mentor who told me, and I'll never forget, this was really early on in my career, you do something for five years, stick it out for at least five years, because within the five years, the first couple of years, you're learning, you're growing. Then by around year three, you hit your stride, you're able to make some changes. And by year five, you'll know if you're still really having impact or if you now decide, OK, I've got everything I can learn from this and also given everything I can to this, maybe now it's time for me to pivot and do something different.
And that doesn't necessarily mean change jobs, but then just thinking through maybe there's another area within my job that I want to grow and learn and so forth. And that advice has stuck with me throughout my entire career and it's been so helpful.
And as far as mentoring others, you learn so much when you mentor others. I know ideally the idea is the mentee is learning from the mentor, but the mentor is also learning from the mentee, you're also learning different thoughts and different things that help you be better coach, that help you be a better manager.
What is it that they're really looking for in a mentor? And sometimes it's not just advice, sometimes it is just, I just want someone to listen and to see what it is that I'm going through and how there may be some parallels and so forth. So it's invaluable. And I always encourage everyone to do both, have a mentor and also mentor someone because experiences is just-- rewards that you get from that are limitless.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: And not only is it rewarding, it's actually completing you in a way that most people can't really value until you have had the experience. I remember, I was an adjunct professor for a little while and taught for law school. And you know what one of my worst fears was, Rachel? It was that simply my students would come into class more prepared than me and would know things that I didn't know. So I give my hats off to all educators around the world, because what people don't realize is that educators actually spend a good portion of their time making sure they know more than you before you get to class. So they actually help develop me into a more well-rounded lawyer, and individual, and proctor, professor, and communicator because I never wanted to be in that class and be like, wait, what's the question? Sure, I'll have to get back to you on that.
I tried my best to be prepared, and I was like, teaching is hard. So being a mentor in a lot of ways is not as easy as people would think, but it's so interesting how your mentee can challenge you, and help teach you, help round you out as a person. And so I think that that is certainly a phenomenal perspective, and I really do appreciate that.
Well, really quickly, before we wind down, I want to say thank you for your time. But I wanted to ask you about one more thing just because I recognize that, again, the arena of education is very fluid at this point. It's very fluid, it's dynamic, it's evolving. And I think that's the case for most organizations, but probably none other than the education space. You have so many issues socially that's going on and we won't get into politics or anything like that, but it is an emerging landscape of issues.
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: It is.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: And so I guess my question to you is that one of the great things that are going on in education that I would like to ask you about is that there seems to be a greater proliferation of formalized programs and degrees surrounding risk management. I know there certainly has been the development of many, even since I started in risk management a little over 12, 13 years ago.
So what's been your take or experience, how have you seen the field of risk management adjust or be received, I probably should say, as they're becoming more professional standard and the expanded scope of educational programs from a higher institution level that allow people to become successful risk management? What's your perspective on how that's been working and impact on the field?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: I don't think we fully seen the impact yet. There is such a huge gap between the people who have been doing this for a while and who are on that cusp of retirement and not having another event to replace them.
So as those programs continue coming up and as people matriculate through them and graduate, ideally we'll see more of that impacting the landscape. But as of right now, I think we still have a lot of work to do to, A, get students interested in the field, to get more schools interested in standing up those type of programs. And even when we do have students matriculate and then graduate, it's one thing to hire, but to actually retain that talent and have them move up and progress their career within the space.
So I'm hopeful that as we see this proliferation of more and more programs being set up and so forth, that that will really change the landscape. And I've seen some small incremental impact, but from where I sit, not enough. And I say it that way because I'm hoping those who are listening will also join me in picking up that mantle and that challenge. I've been challenging every broker I work with, every care I work with, what is your pipeline? How are you grooming the next generation of talent? Are they either working with those programs that are being set up trying to sponsor internships and students and so forth? Are we making sure that as we hire new graduates, we're exposing them to accounts like a Hopkins so that they can get that experience? Were they able to put that on their resume and continue their career here?
Because to your point earlier, people are all the same and people will not stick around in any place where they're not feeling valued and not feeling like they are being challenged, and learning, and able to grow. And we need to do a better job of that, I feel, collectively as an industry, making sure that we are grooming that next generation.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Well, listen, folks, you heard it here first. Rachel is throwing down the gauntlet. If you are in--
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: I am throwing down the gauntlet.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: --industry, she is challenging you, us, all of us to contribute to the succession, the next generation of insurance professionals, risk managers, and those who can contribute to the overall profession that we lovingly refer to as being insurance advisors, and communicators, and problem-solvers, and innovators.
Because I think that's really what it all sits beneath that umbrella of risk management. It really does. Well, having said that, again, Rachel, I want to officially thank you for your time. I appreciate your contribution. You have been an extremely wonderful guest. I am certain that you all out here in the audience land have gotten some information, perspective, and probably something that you can take with you and move forward with. If nothing else, you've got the gauntlet thrown before you. Join Rachel in planting the flag and marching forward as we continue to train up the next generation so they should know which way to go, and they won't depart from it. Right, Rachel?
RACHEL PLUVIOSE: There you go. That's it. That's the goal. That's the goal.
TWANE DUCKWORTH: Well, everyone, I want to say thank you once again for joining us. We are so excited to have some of the most preeminent contributors and scholars that can talk about their experience as a woman in risk and education, a part of our WIRE series for the University of Risk. We are excited that you are able to listen to their insight and get some perspective on how you might be able to better service your educational institution. And we hope you enjoyed what you heard.
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