First-of-its-kind approach to female leadership development co-designed and co-delivered by major insurer, AND-E, and Durham-based The Deprogramming Company wins Training and Development Award
Newcastle, 20h July 2026 – AND-E (Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Europe), one of the largest employers at Quorum Business Park in Newcastle, has won the Training and Development Award for the Elevate programme at the 2026 British Insurance Awards – the UK insurance industry’s most prestigious awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 8th July in front of some 1,400 industry leaders.
The12-month leadership programme for mid-senior women, co-designed and co-delivered by AND-E and The Deprogramming Company, is a first of its kind in the insurance industry. Both North East businesses, the award win is a great example of the empowerment of women and girls being championed by Combined Authority Mayor, Kim McGuinness in the region.
The programme won for delivering measurable change in confidence, leadership and retention. It is a significant moment for AND-E which has been part of the North East community for more than fifteen years.
Elevate was created to tackle a challenge felt right across the insurance industry: losing talented women at mid-senior level. Co-designed and co-delivered by Organisational Psychologist Michelle Minnikin, author of Good Girl Deprogramming, and Pamela Avornyo, AND-E’s Head of Organisational Development, the programme goes beyond conventional leadership training to address the behavioural, gendered and systemic factors that can undermine authority, progression and retention.
“Winning the Training and Development Award at the British Insurance Awards means a huge amount to everyone involved in Elevate,” said Pamela Avornyo. “Most women’s leadership development builds skills; Elevate goes beneath skills to address the systemic factors that undermine authority, progression and retention. To see that approach recognised on the industry’s biggest stage – and, more importantly, to see the difference it has made to the women who took part – is incredibly rewarding.”
Michelle Minnnikin added: “The unrealised potential of women is the greatest untapped resource in business today. Most leadership development stops at skills – confidence, visibility, strategic thinking - and never asks why so many talented women still over-deliver, under-negotiate, and step back from opportunities they’re more than qualified for. That’s because the problem was never the women. They’re doing their best inside cultures and structures that were never built with them in mind. Fix the woman and send her back into the same environment, and you haven’t developed her; you’ve just handed her better coping mechanisms for a broken system. Until we tackle the conditioning and the culture together, the talent pipeline will keep leaking exactly where it always has. This is the work we’re doing at AND-E. “
The award caps a landmark year for AND-E in the North East. In January, the company announced a major expansion of its Newcastle Claims Centre of Excellence, with the number of claims managed set to double by the end of 2026 and headcount in the claims team expected to grow by around 30%, creating significant career opportunities for people across Newcastle and the wider region.
Warren Hetz, UK CEO, AND-E, said: “Our ambition is to make Newcastle a national hub of digital and insurance expertise, and that only happens if we invest seriously in developing our colleagues – whether through Elevate, our Excellence Framework in claims, or the hundreds of new opportunities we are creating this year. Elevate not only equips participants and our wider leadership team with the skills they need; it also fosters allyship, collaboration and mentorship, empowering everyone to uplift others.”
Sarah Brown, who achieved promotion to Head of Claims Support and Control while on the first cohort of Elevate, said: “Elevate has played a significant role in my recent promotion by giving me the confidence and clarity to advocate not only for myself, but for my colleagues and my team. It fundamentally reshaped how I think about leadership and, more importantly, who I am as a leader.”
Following the success of the first year, the second cohort of Elevate began in April 2026, with 13 colleagues joining from AND-E operations across Europe. Anyone interested in career opportunities with AND-E in Newcastle can find current vacancies at careers.and-e.uk.