Bordonaro of Protective Life leads public relations in changing times

Brittnie Bordonaro, vice president and head of corporate communications at Protective Life, came to the insurance industry from a background in public relations work in New York.

At first, she worked on campaigns for nonprofits, especially cultural institutions, but then moved into the financial services space. Working remotely, she had moved back to her home state of Alabama in 2017, and found an open role at Birmingham-based Protective. The insurance industry was new to her.

“It’s so interesting, and it’s so complicated, which I think sometimes gives it a bad rap, but I do think that’s part of the beauty of it,” she said. “I love that we’re in the business of providing protection to people and we are helping people really have that financial security and something that can give them peace of mind, so they can go out and do all the things they love and eliminate a little bit of worry.”

Bordonaro sought to emphasize the values inherent in Protective’s name. “We’ve stood for what our name stood for. People could rely on us. And so I’m really proud of that,” she said. “If Protective tells you they’re going to do something, they’re going to deliver on that and they’re going to do it. The values driven culture is something that I’m also really proud of, in addition to the financial strength and stability of our company. When customers buy products from us, they can count on us being here.”

Bordonaro’s role is both internal and external, building the corporate culture and engaging employees, but also getting the company’s efforts covered by media and handling some investor relations communications. (Protective was acquired by Dai-ichi Life Insurance in 2014, so most investor relations are done in Tokyo). 

Protective’s workforce went from 20% virtual before the pandemic to 65% virtual now. Bordonaro works to build a corporate culture in this distributed environment, and digital tools are useful for this effort. The company has grown through acquisitions in recent years.

“It’s helping people manage through change and helping to continue to manage our brand and reputation as we lead through change because change is constant, as we all know,” she said.

Bordonaro leads a team to keep pace with these changes. Its members have specific parts of the mission, such as financial communications, internal communications, internal campaigns, executive communication and more. “There’s definitely divided roles and responsibilities,” she said.

To Bordonaro, leadership in a time of change and with a distributed workforce means making sure work is completed, but also developing talent. Empowering teams supports this, she added.

“It’s making them feel confident to make those decisions and carry the work forward. Offering constructive feedback along the way in real time, so that we can continue to get better,” she said. “Then asking for feedback so that you can continue and I can continue to get better as a manager, because no one is perfect. And we all have work to do. But the more you can have that constant communication on these topics about what’s working, what’s not working, and continue to grow together, I think it’s really important.”