Recognizing a lifetime of achievement: Meet The Hanover Insurance Group's Cilsy Harris

It’s always interesting to learn how people entered the insurance industry, since most have worked in or studied a different line of business before making the leap into insurance.

Cilsy Harris, senior vice president and chief information officer of Insurance & Service Applications at The Hanover Insurance Group, considered a career in science and obtained a degree in chemistry before deciding that she really didn’t want to spend her life in a laboratory. She worked briefly for the lab that developed the cephalosporin antibiotic called Keflex and then decided to see how she could combine her science background with a business degree. When a patient of her father’s was developing a new dental claims system, they asked if Harris wanted to come in as their business analyst, so she went to work at Sun Life of Canada in their group health and life division.

After several years, she left to work in private banking before being hired by the parent company of The Hanover Insurance Group, where she has consistently held technology and non-technology roles throughout her 30-year career.

Harris is one of two women being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Women in Insurance Leadership (WIL) Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, and is a previous WIL honoree.

Making a difference
Her innovative thinking and strong leadership in multiple initiatives have led to her involvement in The Hanover’s GRID Mentorship Program which matches mentors and mentees to help them navigate their careers and overcome barriers, and continuously fosters a positive and empowering work environment throughout the company.

Giving back to the community is also one of her major priorities, as evidenced by her role as a founder of a group focused on Women in STEM at The Hanover, where she is instrumental in creating opportunities to encourage women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Harris shares a story of how a woman at Hanover came to her and said she wanted to create a group for Women in Technology (WIT). At the time, Harris was the only female executive on the leadership team, and she told her leader that she wanted to have a community of women to support women. She gathered several women together and they partnered with an external coach and created environments that were undeniably about women in IT. “We would talk about things like navigating your career, setting goals, finding a sponsor, and how to diminish some of the patterns that have been in existence.” The women were encouraged to give space to and invite other women to the table, and to amplify other women when they spoke. “When you’re at the table, don’t ask for permission to speak and don’t qualify what you have to say. Women do that all of the time. Own your space. Don’t speak just to speak, and when you have something to say, say it unequivocally.”

She also serves on the board of directors of Girls, Inc. of Worcester, the longest-standing group focused on young women in Worcester, Mass., which has a program that exposes young women to STEM opportunities beginning in eighth grade with externships and targeted programming. When the girls graduate, the group throws a college shower to send them off. (The organization has a 100% graduation rate.) “Our Women in IT group helped decorate for the college shower, and we created baskets for each of the graduates,” says Harris. Her hope is to see Girls, Inc. become a local source of technical talent for the company.

Harris also serves as an executive sponsor of Mi Familia, a Latino Business Resource Group, where she promotes inclusion, diversity and equity within Hanover, and also inspires Latino professionals.

Seeing transformation from the inside out
Her extensive experience in insurance has given her a front row seat to see how technology is transforming the industry. She says the improved access to the third-party data market has supplemented the decision-making process and allowed agents to assess risk faster and create a better experience for customers. “The key is how you use the third-party data and how you mine your own. We can dive into it and use it in different ways,” she advises.

She also says that digital engagement has had a tremendous impact on the industry. “The world changed because of Amazon, and it’s funny to think how that has changed even our industry. But customers expect that same ease of experience when they purchase their insurance. No one wants to spend a lot of time with their insurance company.”

The value of insurtech became even more prominent during the pandemic. In 2019, Harris was asked to be the IT person to help transition 4300 people into a remote work environment. She praises the peers who stepped in and worked with her to execute this change. “We didn’t miss a beat in the company,” she says. “Many people had not used Teams before and had to learn it overnight. We shipped monitors and laptops to people and made sure it was a good experience for our people and our customers.”