When Rekha Skantharaja (pictured) joined Tangram Insurance Services at the age of 31, she didn’t have the traditional toolkit most new CEOs come armed with. She also didn’t have a spouse, a child, or much in common with the small-town California team she was suddenly leading.
What she did have was curiosity, work ethic, and an openness to learn, spending the last 15 years converting these traits into a transformative leadership philosophy at Tangram.
Under her leadership, the Petaluma-based insurance agency has built a majority-female executive team, brought veterans and minorities into leadership roles, and grown its market presence.
But as Skantharaja told Insurance Business, the road to transformation has been anything but linear. “The journey has been winding,” she said. “It’s been humbling, challenging, and one of the greatest teachers of my life.”
Skantharaja came to Tangram from a mid-sized, male-dominated insurance company. Arriving in Petaluma, at an eight-person office surrounded by pastureland, felt like stepping into another universe, and she had to unlearn much of what the corporate world had taught her.
“I had to learn functions I hadn’t touched before and build trust with a team that didn’t necessarily relate to me,” Skantharaja recalled. “The degrees, the suits – they didn’t care about any of that. In fact, it separated me from them.”
What followed was years of navigating leadership through trial, error, and reflection. Looking back, Skantharaja said she grew in her role not by mastering perfection, but by embracing vulnerability: learning when to ask for help, how to build authentic relationships, and how to make decisions from a place of strength rather than fear.
“You don’t become CEO because you’ve done everything right. You’re chosen because someone sees potential. Then it’s your responsibility to grow into it and close the gaps.”
Soon, Skantharaja began assembling an executive team that reflected not only her belief in potential but also her defiance of industry clichés. “It wasn’t intentional at first,” she said. “I just gravitated toward people with skill, chemistry, and heart. Many of them happened to be women.”
Tired of hearing leaders claim there weren’t enough women ready for senior roles, she set out to prove them wrong, placing women in high-impact roles across finance, strategy, underwriting, and sales.
“Ironically, people now say that my ‘diversity hires’ should be white men,” Skantharaja said. “And I get it – I’ve moved strongly in one direction. But it’s because there’s still such a long way to go.
“I still want the best people. But if I have a choice between someone from a historically privileged background and someone equally skilled from an underrepresented group, I’m going to lift the latter.”
Despite her determination to create a majority-female executive team, the CEO said she initially felt pressure for Tangram to deliver strong results.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel it,” Skantharaja said. “The pressure to prove we deserve to be here is real. But over time, that pressure moved to the back of my mind. It doesn’t dominate me anymore.”
For Skantharaja, the question isn’t whether diverse talent truly exists in insurance, but whether companies are doing the work to find it, nurture it, and put it in positions of power.
“You don’t move the needle by hiring a woman or person of color into a marketing role and calling it a win,” she said. “You move the needle when you give them influence, when they run a P&L, when they build teams, when they shape strategy.”
Despite strides in diversity and equity, most executive teams in insurance still look much the same as they did decades ago, which is why Skantharaja is calling on her peers to think bigger and act bolder for the next generation of professionals.
“Put people like me in power,” she said. “Not just in a corner to check a box, but in real positions of authority where we can hire, influence, and build.
“If you want your organization to reflect the world we live in, you have to trust people from different backgrounds with real power. And when you do, we’ll pay it forward. We’ll pull others up the ladder. That’s how you create real change.”
While Skantharaja isn’t finished growing – “Ask me in another eight years,” she quipped – she said her journey as a female insurance leader can serve as a path that others can walk.
“There’s no playbook,” she reflected. “But if you show up with heart, curiosity, and a willingness to grow, you can build something powerful, not just for yourself, but for everyone who comes after you.”
