How WIIN Accelerator Program is Closing Gender Gap in Insurance

By: WE Staff

In a world where the insurance sector plays a crucial role in global stability yet remains one of the least gender-balanced ecosystems, a bold new force has emerged to rewrite the narrative. Women in Insurance (WIIN) is not just a forum; it is a movement, a structured accelerator, and a talent engine conceived to bridge the industry’s widest and most persistent gaps. Built for women navigating the complex acceleration stage of their careers, often the “leakiest pipeline”, WIIN brings together skill development, leadership readiness, research-driven insights, and future-of-work preparedness under one cohesive umbrella.

The WIIN Accelerator Program stands at the heart of this mission. Designed as a 12-week fully virtual journey, it empowers women across India’s deepest pin codes with essential tools in business fundamentals, financial literacy, negotiation, personal wealth-building, leadership maturity, AI enablement, and global cultural fluency.

Co-Founders Eima Azim and Soni Srivastava, drawing from their global experience across Singapore, India, and the Asian risk landscape, envisioned WIIN as a catalyst that would not just include women in insurance but elevate them into visible, influential, future-ready leaders.

In an exclusive conversation with Women Entrepreneurs Review Magazine, Eima Azim, Co-Founder of Women in Insurance India, shared her insights on the WIIN Accelerator Program and the future it is building for women in insurance.

How did the idea of Women in Insurance (WIIN) first originate?

The idea of WIIN emerged almost two years ago, during a period when both Soni and I were deeply engaged with the global risk and insurance ecosystem. I was based in Singapore, working on advisory assignments, and Soni was on the board of PARIMA, representing India across the region. Through our interactions in 2021–22, we noticed a widening gap despite industry progress; women were still significantly underrepresented in strategic insurance roles. The DEI focus globally remained limited to sales, HR, and marketing, while insurance itself is the intellectual backbone of risk conversations that help businesses survive and grow.

When I moved back to India in 2023, Soni suggested expanding WIIN as an India chapter. The soft launch received exceptional encouragement as if the industry had been waiting for something like this. We saw that while customer, tech, and in-house talent efforts existed, integration was missing. That became WIIN’s starting point.

What gaps did WIIN identify in the careers of women in insurance?

Through 2023-24, we conducted deep conversations with CEOs and more than 300 women across the insurance value chain. One concern was unanimous: the acceleration stage between 5 and 13 years is the leakiest pipeline. Women struggle with caregiving responsibilities, mobility constraints, and the fact that insurance is rarely a “career of choice,” but more a career of chance. Women also told us that removing biases is not the same as enabling success. They wanted visible sponsorship, clearer pathways, and a better understanding of how to grow beyond increments and annual cycles.

Another critical gap was the pace of change in the industry, AI, digital distribution, and new risk categories, requiring women to pivot faster with stronger skills. We also found gaps in corporate financial literacy, negotiation, and women's relationship with money. These insights helped us shape WIIN’s mission: build skills, generate insurance-specific talent research, and co-design the future of work with regulators and employers.

How did these insights shape the WIIN Accelerator Program?

Based on all these insights, we spent months designing a rigorous, relevant, industry-first Accelerator for women in insurance. We consulted Harvard, INSEAD, ISB, and multiple IIMs to understand what they assume emerging leaders already know when they enter advanced programs. We realized many of these “assumed skills”, like financial acumen, risk literacy, enterprise thinking, negotiation, and personal wealth planning, were exactly where women needed structured support.

We built a 12-week, fully virtual program to reach women across every pin code in India. The curriculum has three modules: Business at the Core, Women at the Core, and Future of Insurance. It integrates fundraising, ERM, compliance, situational leadership, gender intelligence, AI enablement, and global future-of-work dialogues.

Along the way, we built a strong coalition of male allies, a powerhouse volunteer team called WINCorps, and a growing WIINN volunteer community. Today, our first cohort of nearly 30 women is already live and undergoing this deeply immersive journey.

How do you ensure that WIIN continues attracting facilitators who match the vision, rigor, and the needs of the women served?

When we began designing WIIN, one of our biggest concerns was the sheer crowding in the professional and impact education space. Everyone is trying rightly to solve the fractures created by workplace dynamics and social conditioning, especially around women in core STEM and leadership roles. We scanned the globe for facilitators who not only brought expertise but could genuinely connect with how women today learn and grow, along with evaluating the value alignment. This helped us bring together founders, investors, negotiation experts, financial literacy specialists, and leadership builders from India, Zurich, Singapore, and beyond.

How can WIIN further strengthen this impact-driven model to ensure women not only learn, but truly transform their professional journeys?

What also sets WIIN apart is how deliberately we have engaged professional learning with measurable impact. Unlike any other program, we start with a baseline assessment, take women through immersive modules, offer access to global facilitators, and then conduct an endline assessment that feeds into two scorecards, one for organizations and one for ourselves. Six months of mentorship, shadow-board opportunities, peer reviews, simulations, and future elective pathways for deeper learning. All of this ensures that women don’t just feel inspired, they act with clarity, confidence, and capability.

What surprised you most about the kind of women leaders who joined the first WIIN cohort?

When we started WIIN as a B2B program, we were honestly a bit anxious. We were asking CEOs to nominate women, and we worried they might choose only the “usual suspects” women who were already doing well and already had access to opportunities. But we were pleasantly surprised. Our first cohort is one of the most vibrant, diverse groups imaginable. While the experience range is consistent, around five to fifteen years, their backgrounds span across the entire insurance and healthcare ecosystem.

We have doctors shaping healthcare frameworks, women in facultative and treaty reinsurance spaces where very few women exist, and brilliant leaders from claims, sales, policy design, and portfolio management. The geographic spread is equally strong, with participants from Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Pune. We are committed to bringing in more women from tier-2 and tier-3 cities because the program’s language, empathy, and impact are truly universal.

How do you envision the WIIN Accelerator evolving, and what new pathways are you designing to prepare women for the future of insurance?

The Accelerator was built with a clear intention: real growth can’t be compressed into a one-day capsule. Women need a sustained, practical toolkit to truly accelerate. As we gather feedback and watch the market evolve, the Accelerator will keep improving. Beyond this, we are already conceptualizing a dedicated tech program because insurance is rapidly becoming tech-first and tech-adjacent. If we want to scale efficiently and meet India’s vision of “Insurance for All by 2047,” women must understand technology, buyer behavior, and digital-led decision-making.

We are also exploring a second program designed specifically for women founders in insurance. Even as employees, women need a founder’s mindset to build new business lines, attract investors, and navigate acquisitions. With insurance now sitting at the intersection of risk, healthcare, payments, logistics, and digitization, the opportunities are vast. Our goal is to create evidence that good intent, when structured well, becomes meaningful action and tangible industry outcomes.

What message would you like to share with the next generation of women looking to build meaningful careers in insurance?

My message is simple and consistent: insurance is an industry that offers dignity, longevity, and genuine opportunity parity. Unfortunately, we haven’t fully tapped into this potential yet, much like many other industries. But insurance remains one of the most vibrant and promising spaces for women, both within India and globally.

For women who are not yet in the sector, I encourage you to study it, explore it, and understand the possibilities it holds. For those already here, this is the time to step into more pivotal roles and lead conversations around equity and long-term growth. Insurance is truly a sunrise industry, and women have a powerful role to play in shaping its future for themselves and for the generations to come.