Heidi Sirota says her job as SVP and chief pet officer at Nationwide is the "best job ever."
"I'm really passionate about making sure that pets get the care that they need and families can bring pets into their families and keep them healthy," says Sirota.
Sirota's path into insurance wasn't linear. She wanted to do marketing when she got out of school and most of her career was in marketing, moving between financial services and health insurance companies before landing at Nationwide in their retirement plans business. Later, when the pet insurance leader left the company, it was turned over to her.
"I saw that as an opportunity to run my own P&L, run my own business and that's really what my ultimate goal was," Sirota says. "I wanted to be the person that could set up, how do we run this business, how do we go to market, how do we serve our customers. So, this role gives me that opportunity and I get to dabble in marketing a little bit."
Sirota says she has worked with a range of leaders over her career, and she's learned that a good leader paints a picture of the future for the people they work with.
"Setting the future vision, getting the followership and clearing the way to help people get there. I like to be inclusive, listen to and welcome diverse ideas. I don't want to only hear from people like me or people who sit on my leadership team, I want to dig a little deeper and hear from all sorts of people," she says. "I value when people can just be straight with me and say, 'Here's a different path you might want to take, here's where you messed up.' I try to surround myself with people that do that and have the courage to do that. I try to be a person that'll take that in and be coachable regardless of where that coaching is coming from."
Part of leadership includes modernization and Sirota says that the company is launching new comprehensive and flexible products to deliver care across a spectrum of needs and access. Only about 3% of pets in the U.S. are covered by insurance protection, she notes.
"It's really for the people, that's been a theme throughout my career whether it's working in human healthcare or financial services or now in pet insurance, ultimately it's all for the wellbeing of people and that's something I enjoy working on."
Mike Mahaffey, executive vice president, chief strategy & corporate development officer for Nationwide says Sirota is an action-oriented, visionary leader:
"As the leader of the nation's first and largest pet insurance company, she has overseen impressive growth, new strategic partnerships, innovative new products and services, and enhanced customer experiences to grow the category. She has sustained and extended our industry leadership with a passionate focus on customers, while delivering both top- and bottom-line performance improvement. Heidi is a role model to many as a transformative leader who thinks innovatively and demonstrates leadership excellence in the insurance industry."
Sirota says it's other people who help her maintain energy around her work.
"I really thrive on people who bring energy to their work, it helps give me energy but importantly it gets them noticed. It shows that they have a passion and typically people who bring that energy, they think about possibilities, not barriers and that's really important to grow a business," she explains.
