On this episode of the Insurance Coffee House, Nick Hoadley is joined by Dr Susan Fleming, an experienced independent director with more than 25 years across insurance, asset management, and financial services. Susan currently serves on the boards of RLI Corp and Virtus Investment Partners, and has previously held director roles at Endurance Specialty, PXRE Group, Quanta Capital, and others. Susan shares how she first entered financial services, starting at SNL Securities before moving into Morgan Stanley’s M&A group focused on financial institutions. That early exposure led her into insurance private equity at Insurance Partners, later Capital Z Partners, where she spent years working on complex and often distressed insurance transactions. She reflects on the pace and intensity of that period, the analytical grounding it gave her, and how it led to her first public board seat at just 29 years old. The conversation explores what it was like entering the boardroom at a young age, why private equity-backed board roles differ from independent directorships, and how board work has changed over the past two decades. Susan describes a clear shift toward greater professionalisation, higher expectations of directors, more scrutiny from shareholders and regulators, and a noticeable rise in overall board quality and rigour. Nick and Susan also discuss crisis governance in detail. Susan reflects on her experience joining Quanta Capital during a difficult period, helping oversee a runoff and sale process, and what that taught her about board teamwork, communication, and staying focused on the core objective of delivering value for shareholders. She also shares the lessons from Endurance Specialty, where the board supported a sale that created a strong outcome for shareholders, employees, and customers, even though selling the company had not originally been the plan. The conversation then broadens into Susan’s wider career beyond the boardroom. She explains why she chose to leave private equity, pursue a PhD in management, and move into academia at Cornell University. There, she taught entrepreneurship, women in leadership, negotiations, and entrepreneurial finance, while also helping develop curriculum and contributing to the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship. Susan reflects on how academic work, startup thinking, and board experience strengthened each other, particularly around innovation, experimentation, and helping larger organisations stay open to new ideas. Nick and Susan close with practical advice for executives seeking their first board role. Susan emphasises the importance of networking, having a clear board bio, preparing properly before joining a board, and making sure any opportunity aligns with both your expertise and your reputation. She is clear that challenging situations can be worthwhile if you can genuinely contribute, but that any question mark around integrity is a reason to walk away. Above all, she argues that directors should come prepared, check their ego, listen carefully, and earn trust through integrity, judgment, and thoughtful contribution. Connect with Dr Susan Fleming on LinkedIn to follow her work across insurance, governance, entrepreneurship, and board leadership. The Insurance Coffee House Podcast is brought to you by Insurance Search. We are a global Insurance Executive Search Consultancy, supporting Insurance and Insurtech businesses to attract and retain the very best insurance talent. Find out more about showcasing your employer brand as a guest on the Insurance Coffee House Podcast or sign up to our News and Insights. Or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. Insurance Executive Search Consultants in USA, London and Bermuda. Copyright Insurance Search 2025 - All Rights Reserved.
