Our People
Our People
Kathleen Trautmann
Assistant Vice President, Middle Market & Programs Marketing
Everybody has their bad days, but if you’ve spent any time with Kathleen Trautmann around Zurich North America’s headquarters, it’s almost hard to imagine her in a sour mood. A 22-year Zurich veteran, Kathleen brings a lot of positivity to the workplace and is always ready for a good laugh. She is a native of McKeesport, Pennsylvania (a steel town outside of Pittsburgh), a Penn State graduate, and a proud Steelers fan who admits to owning more than one “Terrible Towel.”
In her role at Zurich, Kathleen works with Program Administrators on marketing efforts to promote and drive leads for their program. She’s been involved with our ZProgramsMatch platform from its inception and is responsible for all lead-generation activities around ZPM, including conducting webinars, setting up continuing educations classes, readying outreach emails and more. She also works closely with Zurich’s Business Development Leaders and Middle Market Underwriters to explore new opportunities or answer questions about the Programs business. This year, her role expanded to also include working with Middle Market industry sector leaders.
Kathleen lives with her husband and son in McHenry County, Illinois, and spending time with them and sharing some laughs is her favorite way to unwind away from the job. We asked her to share a bit more about herself and her work with Zurich.
What do you like about your job and why is it a good fit for you?
This sounds cliché, but I really enjoy working with my colleagues at Zurich, as well as our Program Administrators and the brokers that do business with us. Every day is different. There are new challenges that come up and I enjoy trying to find a solution. I like making connections.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role and how do you overcome it?
A challenge for me is not having the in-depth product knowledge that our Underwriters and Program Managers do, so I lean on them and I just continue to ask questions so I can build my product knowledge.
What behavior or personality trait do you most attribute your success to?
I recently completed Gallup’s strength assessment and my top strength was responsibility. When I’m asked to work on a project or an assignment, my colleagues know that I will work diligently on it.
Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?
Different people have influenced me over my career. One person, in particular, was the mother of my boyfriend when I was in college. She was a nurse, but found a special calling working with families who wanted to adopt a child. She would share different stories and was so passionate about her work. I share a similar passion with the work that I do at Zurich and the advocating I do for special needs families. I have a son who is on the autism spectrum, so I am his advocate, as well as being involved in different activities within our school district to help other families.
What has been the biggest thing you’ve seen change during your time with Zurich?
Seeing how nimble and adaptive we became because of COVID.
What’s something, big or small, that you’re really good at?
Helping and advocating for others. It’s something I do in both my professional and personal life.
What energizes you outside of work?
I’ve developed an interest in weightlifting. Since the start of COVID, I wanted to make sure I kept myself mentally and physically healthy. I’ve been working with a trainer and I’m pushing myself physically, but it’s also good for me mentally.
What’s the best advice you were ever given?
“Never burn a bridge.” I can’t remember who first told me this phrase, but it’s something I’ve learned that is so important to keeping the connections that you make both personally and professionally.
If you could trade places with anyone in the world for just one day, who would you choose?
My son…to gain a better understanding of how he perceives the world, being on the autism spectrum.
What’s the top destination on your must-visit list?
I’ve been lucky that I’ve had a chance to travel to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. There are two places that I would like to go. My mother had a chance to visit Auckland, New Zealand, so I’ve heard how beautiful New Zealand is and I’d like to go there. My son doesn’t ask for much, but he really wants to visit Paris, France to see the Eiffel Tower.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Having a piece of tiramisu!
Mike Maher
Vice President, Marketing, U.S. Middle Market
Successful careers are often built on unexpected turns, with connections in seemingly unrelated fields leading to new opportunities. That’s certainly the case with Mike Maher, who describes himself jokingly as a “recovering entrepreneur.” After starting out with Baxter Healthcare, Mike moved into the entrepreneurial phase of his career, working for a small internet consulting firm during the internet boom of the late ‘90s and early 2000s. That company built some of the first websites and intranets for some of the largest companies — including a certain insurance company named Zurich.
As Mike recounted, “We launched their first intranet site, Channel Z, which I now log into every day as an employee.”
However, there were a few more stops in his work life journey before Mike found a home at Zurich. Mike and his partners sold their internet consulting business to a larger company. His entrepreneurial ride continued as he founded a talent acquisition platform for healthcare workers and a resume-ranking technology using artificial intelligence to rank and score job candidates. When the latter business was sold to a publicly traded company, Mike had a realization: “It’s a lot easier to make a sale if someone who is interested in what you are selling initiates the sales process by calling or emailing you, versus knocking on doors, trying to get them to buy.” That realization taught him the power of marketing and how it can enable sales, generate demand and impact the business significantly. He has been in marketing ever since.
Mike saw how his experience aligned with the needs of other businesses. “If I shared my knowledge of marketing strategy with a heavy dose of digital marketing to businesses, I could help them grow,” he explained. So, he was in a great position when he was running his own consulting business and was introduced to the Head of Marketing at Zurich North America. The door was open to a whole new career path at Zurich. In his current role, Mike works closely with leaders in Middle Markets and Programs to create and execute strategic marketing campaigns to help our businesses and our Program Administrators grow.
Born and raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Mike still lives in the area with his wife and four children, with most of his immediate family living nearby. We sat down to talk a bit about his life in and outside of Zurich.
What do you like about your job and why is it a good fit for you?
Just like in my consulting days, I love to see customers succeed, meet and exceed their goals. There is nothing more satisfying than looking back and seeing how a good marketing plan can help a business grow.
What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role and how do you overcome it?
Directly demonstrating the impact of marketing to the business results. Marketing professionals know that there are always some people we run across that think of marketing as simply websites, brochures and events, versus a key contributor to business impact through value proposition development, demand generation, sales enablement, thought leadership, customer insights and the overall customer experience. You change that perception by demonstrating your impact. We’ve also come a long way in marketing analytics, so we can measure so much more today than in the past to show our impact.
What behavior or personality trait do you most attribute your success to?
I listen and I ask a lot of questions. I feel I really need to understand a business, a program or an initiative as well as possible to give the marketing campaign the best possible chance to succeed.
Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?
Early in my career, an owner of our consultancy lived by the motto “don’t be afraid to fail” and it has really encouraged me to have that entrepreneurial mindset in everything I do.
What’s something, big or small, that you’re really good at?
I think I’m really good at coaching youth baseball. I did it for 10 years and it was one of the most rewarding experiences I could have ever imagined. To get kids excited about playing sports, building confidence and succeeding is a wonderful thing, and winning the league World Series with my son on Father’s Day last year — with my father and brother in attendance — was a very special day for me.
What energizes you outside of work?
My family. We have four children; two of them have special needs and two of them are very active in athletics and extracurriculars, and they definitely all energize both my wife and me in different but wonderful ways.
What’s your favorite way to unwind after a busy day?
Go for a swim!
What would we most likely find you doing on the weekend?
Playing, coaching or watching sports. Between my two high-schoolers, they play five sports.
What are the top destinations on your must-visit list?
Ireland is a big one for me. And my wife and I both want to get to Italy.
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12 PROGRAM LEADER