My Travelers Journey – Sarah Haugaard
Sarah Haugaard, Sr. Director of Business Process Management on the Enterprise Operations Effectiveness (EOE) team, never imagined herself in the insurance industry. She studied liberal arts at the University of Minnesota and intended to pursue law, supporting victims of violence.
Life had other plans for her.
Sarah was introduced to property & casualty insurance while working in an administrative role for a law office. She left to join The St. Paul Companies, one of the firm’s clients, as a Claim customer support representative and then a workers compensation claim adjuster. St. Paul’s merger with Travelers in 2004 brought her “under the umbrella,” where she joined Operations (Ops) as a billing and receivables manager.
“Operations provided me the opportunity to dip my toes into leading people and leading projects, and my career development really took off from there,” Sarah said. She was able to pursue these interests, thanks to her leaders’ encouragement to try out different roles and take on new responsibilities.
“If you demonstrate that desire for growth and development, they will do anything in their realm to help you.”
She cultivated skills on the job – learning by doing, partnering with mentors, seeking new opportunities, exploring Travelers’ career development resources, having the courage to pitch ideas on process improvement (and not being afraid to learn from occasional failure) and seeking support from colleagues.
As Sarah reflects on her career, she shared, “I can’t tell you how much I have learned from people in various departments across Travelers. Everybody is so willing to help you, encourage your development and provide feedback. They genuinely care and want to see you grow.”
Sarah is now at a point where she can pay it forward – and does so regularly. “I love to help people. I try to provide support, advice or encouragement to make challenging situations and change a little more palatable.”
The EOE team of seven – which ultimately impacts more than 4,000 employees across Tech & Ops – partners with Ops business and functional areas to drive strategic initiatives, ensure business readiness and manage change. The team also helps Operations by optimizing analytics reporting practices and protecting Travelers through business resiliency.
Sarah is excited about being part of a variety of project teams leading ongoing strategic efforts where she has the opportunity to partner with many subject matter experts on a variety of different topics. One recent project includes an increased focus on learning and development for Operations professionals.
She explained, “The work we are doing will help support Ops employees in reaching professional goals. It includes focusing on opportunities to increase employee engagement and taking a holistic approach to development at the Enterprise Operations level.”
On the personal side, Sarah loves to travel, especially Italy. At home, she loves gardening, party planning, baking, spending quality time with her family and “project-managing everything” (according to her kids), including her Christmas shopping list, which is an Excel spreadsheet organized by person, item count and dollar amount, and her meticulously documented bathroom remodel.
She enjoys slapstick comedy, especially films starring Will Ferrell or Jason Sudeikis. One of her favorite movies is “Horrible Bosses” – something she is confident she will never encounter at Travelers.
