Kathy Quintana brings more than thirty-five years of experience, including an extensive background in operations and finance, to HUB International Insurance Services, Inc., which specializes in commercial, health, and personal insurance. Kathy currently manages the Los Angeles and Newport Beach offices for HUB and is responsible for all aspects of these operations. She serves on the executive committee for both the Los Angeles and Newport Beach offices.

Kathy has been with HUB International for fifteen years, where she has held various management, operational, and financial roles. In her existing role, she directly has management oversight for both the Employee Benefits and Personal Lines operations in Los Angeles.

Prior to working at HUB, Kathy served for twenty-four years at Sedgwick Insurance Brokers, which subsequently was acquired by Marsh & McLennan Companies. In her role at Sedgwick, Kathy was executive vice president and ran the Irvine and Orange, California, offices for the firm. There she specialized in operations and finance and directly managed the claims management services department for all national self-funded and high-deductible workers’ compensation programs.

Kathy is a native of Southern California and attended UCLA. She spends her free time as a founding member of the Global Women Foundation, the umbrella organization for the California Women’s Conference. Kathy’s management experience allows her to mentor, guide, and support young women coming into the business world by providing them with the tools they need to grow and develop in their careers.

Kathy lives in Huntington Beach, California, and is a member of Seacliff Country Club, where she enjoys supporting her local community.

There are always challenges and opportunities in everything we do in life, including our careers. Being a woman in a male-dominated industry gave me the challenge of breaking into the “boys’ club” that has dominated business and institutions for centuries. Women operate very differently than men, and that can be considered both a detriment and a benefit. It’s a challenge to break the old mold that so many are used to operating in. For those who dislike change, breaking through to a new way of doing things is uncomfortable and therefore not well received. A benefit of being a woman is that I can look at and evaluate things differently. It’s not that my way of seeing the world is right or wrong, but rather that there is value in a new and different perspective. Female intuition, when used appropriately, is the best asset a woman can bring to the table. It has served me well.

So has being myself. In a male-dominated industry, trying to behave like a man does not work—at least it wouldn’t have worked for me. It doesn’t come off as real unless that’s who you really are. Imagine a man coming into a female-dominated business and trying to act like a woman. What’s the point? The beauty of diversity in the workplace is that each gender brings something important to the table to round out the decision making.

I do believe my success is due in large part to the fact that I evaluate and handle things differently than my male counterparts. I do not come from the sales background that my male colleagues typically rose through. I come from a grassroots background and worked my way up from the bottom. I have sat in every seat on the bus. I can put myself in the other person’s shoes, whether he or she sits at the reception desk, at the service desk, in the accounting department, wherever. That has enabled me to advocate for those people who depend on me for their own career growth. I understand what they do and what they struggle with, and I can mentor them and help them understand the steps they must take in order to excel in their careers and achieve their goals.

In some ways, of course, being a woman has felt like a detriment most of my career. I just haven’t allowed it to get the best of me. That would have been the easier route many times. It’s easy to give up when you think you can’t make a difference or when you aren’t being allowed the same opportunities as men. So you need certain attributes: belief in yourself, validated by those who support you; persistence, so that if things don’t work one way you’ll figure out another; and a few good women and men who believe in you and mentor you along the way.

Most important, there’s no substitute for hard work. If you are serious about climbing high on the corporate ladder, then your time is not your own. It requires doing whatever it takes to get the job done. It requires coming in early and staying late. It requires earning someone’s appreciation by making her or his job a little easier. All of these things get noticed by those senior people who can make or break you. It’s your job not only to make your clients happy but to make your bosses look good. If you can do that and still keep your identity and power intact, then you’re going to be successful. The people who matter to your career will help you move forward. At least that has been my experience in getting to where I am today.

I am honored to have had the opportunity to be one of the female pioneers in my industry. This is still a business in which the majority of senior managers are men. I have cracked the glass ceiling but was never given the opportunity to break completely through it. The next generations of female executives will have that opportunity, provided those of us who came before them do not fail to guide, train, and enlighten them.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to mentor and guide those women who come after us. Men have learned the secret formula because they have had decades, even centuries, to figure it out. They support each other—the old boys’ club continues to thrive, decade after decade. They have learned how to nurture and promote each other. Women must learn to do the same thing. We need to teach younger women that it’s about respect and teamwork, not cattiness and jealousy. I don’t mean that all women are catty and jealous. I mean that healthy competition is good, and men have learned well how to play in that arena. Women are still learning the ropes, and it’s up to those of us who have succeeded in that arena to help the younger ones figure it out.

And we can do that well. Women bring a “sisterhood” of understanding that men cannot. We can talk about things and just understand each other and where we’re coming from. We bring a sensitivity to employee issues that, I believe, goes a little deeper than a man’s ability to understand. Maybe it’s that nurturing instinct. Although I have never been a mother, I know that I nurture others without mothering them. I’m not sure you find that skill in many men.

Which women nurtured, influenced, and inspired me? The first one is going to sound hokey, but it’s true. When I was a teenager, Mary Tyler Moore had a show in which she worked in the big city of Minneapolis. That show fascinated me, and from that point forward, I knew I wanted to be in the corporate world and experience the big city. I won’t say the character Mary Tyler Moore played influenced me, but the concept of a woman working in a corporate environment did.

Once I got into the corporate world, there was only one woman who deeply influenced me. I was in my twenties when I met her, and I was already a supervisor. I was captivated by this woman’s polish and grace, combined with her ability to do the tough stuff. I knew that skill set was what I wanted to emulate. I can look back now and say I believe I accomplished that.

When I first began to supervise others, I had a female boss who took me under her wing and taught me a lot about the technical side of the business. She was strong and very intelligent. I was and am extremely grateful to her. She believed in me enough to stand up for me in this very male-dominated industry. She was the pioneer woman who saw the skills and abilities in me that I hadn’t yet seen in myself. She touched me deeply, because she took the time to believe in me until I grew and strengthened my own belief in myself. Because of her, I had the confidence and skill to replace her when she left the firm. That was my first management job. Even more important, she gave me the conviction that it is my responsibility to pay it forward to other women who follow after me.

Paying it forward consists mostly of helping women grow and advance in my industry, but there are some general principles I’d suggest to any young woman in business.

Above all, be yourself. You are a beautiful being with a lot of inner strength—none of us truly realizes how much lies within ourselves until we have to tap into it. Do not try to be something or someone you are not. Everybody sees a phony for who she is. And always remember that there’s nothing more beautiful than a woman who shows vulnerability and strength in one package. That’s something only a woman can do. Embrace it and use it to your advantage.