You Need Diversity to Grow: Ako Founder Nnaji Talks Success Strategies

The future is diverse and community is key.

That’s the message from Ngozi Nnaji, founder and managing partner of Ako Insurance Consultants. She started the agency in response to the growing need for the insurance industry to increase the representation of Black professionals.

Nnaji recently visited OnPoint with Peter Van Aartrijk to talk about proactively creating a more diverse industry to serve a rapidly changing insurance market.

In her 25 years in the insurance industry before starting Ako, Nnaji held various roles, including underwriter, production, business development and service roles with global insurance carriers and brokerage firms. Today, her independent insurance agency educates clients about insurance as a wealth-building tool and does outreach to those interested in careers and career development with the hope of diversifying the industry.

“We focus on creating equitable opportunities, and we do that through talent management and talent recruitment,” she said. A lot of that is accomplished through culture work, by working with organizations to create those equitable opportunities for their talent internally, she said.

“But then also we look at what is the external impact of creating equitable opportunities,” Nnaji said. “So, through that, our clients are usually the insurance employers and stakeholders within our industry. And so, working with them, we also work with the talent themselves.

“We believe that especially with BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] talent, there is this lack of understanding, kind of the preparation needed, and the intentionality needed, around creating and identifying your career path,” Nnaji said.

“And, so, not leaving it for chance, but really being, creating foresight and identifying what the next five to 10 years look like for yourself and being able to articulate that. So, we work with talent to help set the stage right for meaningful conversation when they’re looking for positions and jobs and opportunities.”

Nnaji is driven by being a mother, the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and by being an advocate. When she was in high school, before she was even considering a career, her father told her that she would be an actuary. “I owe my love and my passion around insurance to my dad,” she said.

After a short stint as an actuary, she found her personality was better suited to a role that would connect her to people and the community, so she became an underwriter. She worked as an underwriter for 20 years.

“I was managing a team and really was faced with some challenges around me being able to be authentic and who I was as a Black woman, as an insurance professional, as a mother, all those things, in the corporation that I was with,” she said.

One of the benefits of the insurance industry is the opportunity to change roles within the industry, she said.

“You can kind of redefine yourself, hone skill sets that you hadn’t honed before, and still be an insurance professional,” she said. “That’s what I love about our industry. I probably will pivot five more times after this and still be in this industry.”

She started looking at other options and ways to redefine her purpose. Because of her father’s influence, giving back to the community was important to her, she said. Becoming an agent offered the hands-on interaction she was looking for.

As an agent, she knew she could not only reach business owners and families and educate them about their best insurance options but also recruit them into the industry.

“I really feel like I was directly impacting the wealth generation and the asset protection that these tools of insurance kind of benefit and offer us. And so, I was like, I’m going to do it.”

But even with a degree in actuarial science and 20 years in underwriting, the switch presented challenges, including access to capacity, markets and appointments, access to money and access to know-how.

“Like, there wasn’t anyone out there kind of saying, ‘Hey, Ngozi, this is how you do it. This is how you build an agency,'” she said.

“I mean, here I am, 20 years in, and I’m having these problems. I wonder what’s happening to those that are two years in or just doing it, you know, really from scratch,” she said. “I need to advocate for others and help them identify the resources they need and connect them to the resources that they need to be successful.”

That drove her to her next step, opening Ako to focus on creating equitable opportunities for individuals in the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities.

“We believe that if you look back in time, U.S. insurance history, you’ll know that Black Wall Street across the country was built off the giveback, the reinvestment of Black insurance companies into Black communities,” she said. “And those Black insurance companies couldn’t have done that work without the blood, sweat and tears of Black insurance agents.”

Black Friday Network

Ako’s Black Friday Network is the first Black-owned, multidisciplinary network of Black-owned independent insurance agencies. “We wanted to create this space where they had the undivided attention of these individuals, these stakeholders, these carriers, so they can tell their story,” Nnaji said. “There are 20 of us that exist across the country to date, and we leverage our market share in the industry community, but also create a space in place that Black agents can thrive.”

“Our goal is to ultimately have insurance companies recognize the opportunity when you diversify your distribution,” she said. “When you start to diversify your distribution, you know, the business imperative around creating equitable opportunities is now you have access to markets that you hadn’t even focused on before.”