Business Insurance Lifetime Achievement Award: Danielle Lisenbey
Danielle Lisenbey had already become the first woman on Crawford’s global executive management team when an ordinary boardroom routine gave her a striking reminder of what being “the first” could mean.
When she entered the meeting, the executives had taken their customary seats around the table, leaving no open chair. Ms. Lisenbey does not believe anyone intended to exclude her; people were simply creatures of habit and settled into the places where they always sat.
Still, the moment left her wondering how to respond.
“Because I earned being at that table,” she recalled. “I should be at that table.”
A teenage member of the Crawford family who was observing the meeting eventually stood, offered her his chair and asked the others to make room.
For Ms. Lisenbey, the episode was less about the intentions of the people in the room than about the subtle challenges that can confront someone entering a space where few people like her have previously been represented. She had spent years as the only woman in engineering classes, operations meetings and executive rooms, but the experience reinforced the importance of speaking confidently and making her presence count.
“I’ve got some work to do here,” she remembered thinking.
Over a career spanning more than 35 years, Ms. Lisenbey rose from an operations supervisor in medical bill review to president and CEO of Broadspire, where she helped turn the Crawford unit from a money-losing business into one of the company’s strongest performers and expanded its operations internationally before going on to lead MedRisk through operational and technological change.
She also became a prominent sponsor of women in the workers compensation sector, including as a founding member of the Alliance of Women in Workers’ Compensation.
For those achievements and more, Ms. Lisenbey is the 2026 recipient of the Business Insurance Lifetime Achievement Award and the first woman to receive the honor.
Business Insurance previously named her a Woman to Watch in 2013.
Like many in the industry, Ms. Lisenbey did not plan to enter the insurance industry. She earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Western Illinois University.
She began her career designing templates for printed circuit boards for Accutronics in Cary, Illinois, and later worked in technical support and team supervision for United Stationers in Des Plaines, Illinois.
In 1992, while browsing newspaper employment ads, she saw an opening for an operations supervisor at Medical Audit Services, a medical bill review and case management company recently acquired by Kemper Insurance.
Kemper wanted the company to expand its medical bill review and case management services from two states to all 50. Its leaders said they saw in Ms. Lisenbey a combination of humility, an ability to work with people and what she calls her “engineering brain” — a tendency to break a problem into steps and build a process to solve it.
She got the job and quickly found that the work suited her. Early days were filled with paper medical bills, data entry, quality checks and production targets, but the job also combined process improvement with people management.
“I genuinely fell in love with an industry that needed fixing, that was growing, and that was all about people,” she said.
As she learned more about workers compensation, the mission behind the work became more important. The industry was helping people and organizations after a critical event had happened, she said, and that purpose remained constant as technology and business models changed.
Ms. Lisenbey remained with Broadspire and its predecessor organizations for nearly three decades, advancing through increasingly senior medical management and operational roles.
She was promoted to vice president and eventually assumed responsibility for all medical management. After Crawford acquired Broadspire in 2006, Jeff Bowman, who later served as Crawford’s global president and CEO, watched Ms. Lisenbey take on increasingly broad responsibilities.
Mr. Bowman, now Atlanta-based CEO and owner of Arcarius Consulting, appointed her as CEO in 2012, and she later took on the role of president as well. “Danielle was an absolutely key person” in Broadspire’s recovery, he said.
In 2018, she became global president of TPA solutions.
The promotions came as Broadspire faced a difficult financial and operational period. In 2011, the business posted $235 million in revenue and an operating loss of $11.4 million. By 2018, revenue had grown to $405 million and operating earnings reached $37 million.
Under Ms. Lisenbey’s leadership, Broadspire consolidated five claims platforms into one in less than 18 months, built a sales organization, restructured its operations and expanded service delivery into 22 countries. It also established a 650-person Philippines operation supporting U.S. services.
“A lot of people talk a good game” about strategic planning, she said. “But if you don’t execute, truly execute on a plan, do you really get to the end game that you want to get to?”
Change met resistance. Employees accustomed to paper files and binders questioned new digital processes. U.S. staff worried that the Philippines operation would take away their jobs. Some of the hardest conversations were with bill review employees who had known Ms. Lisenbey since early in her career and felt personally betrayed.
She told them the changes were necessary for the broader organization to survive and evolve, and she promised that strong performers would have opportunities.
“Truly being human and getting in front of the people and listening and explaining the why” was essential, she said.
Mike Hoberman, Berkeley Heights, New Jersey-based CEO of U.S. operations at Crawford, has known Ms. Lisenbey since 2004, when Broadspire was still taking shape. He said she helped build not only the operation but also a culture where employees could challenge ideas and remain focused on clients.
She brought an engineer’s discipline without losing sight of people, he said.
“She had a process mind, but she was never just a process person,” Mr. Hoberman said.
At first, she sometimes tried to conform to expectations set for male executives, even changing how she dressed. She eventually decided that fitting in should not require losing herself.
“You need to be your true self when you walk in that room,” she said.
The experience reinforced the importance of sponsorship. Mentors can offer advice, she said, but sponsors advocate for someone when that person is not present and can change the trajectory of a career.
Ms. Lisenbey benefited from executives and board members who did that for her, and she has tried to do the same for others.
“There’s probably not enough women out there advocating for other women like the guys do,” she said. “I’ve been afforded the opportunity, so it’s my turn to give back.”
Her leadership style also drew from her father, a Marine veteran and human resources executive. His message was to find a way forward, remember where you came from and bring others with you.
Ms. Lisenbey carried those lessons while raising four children.
“They graciously shared me with an industry that often demanded more time of me than they wanted me to give,” she said.
By 2020, Broadspire had become a well-established operation, and Ms. Lisenbey began considering whether to finish her career there or take on one more challenge.
Kenneth Martino, a former Broadspire CEO who was then at MedRisk, encouraged her to join the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based managed care company. MedRisk needed to modernize technology, strengthen talent management and prepare for a change in ownership.
Ms. Lisenbey joined MedRisk as president in November 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was promoted to co-CEO in March 2022 and was serving as CEO when she retired in May 2023.
She oversaw an $815 million business, helped restructure the information technology organization, expanded analytics capabilities, developed an overseas operation with more than 400 employees and maintained client retention above 95%.
The pandemic tested her in ways that balance sheets could not capture. The emotional toll reinforced Ms. Lisenbey’s longstanding message to claims and medical management staff: Remember who is on the other end of the phone.
“It’s somebody’s mother, brother, aunt, uncle, grandmother,” she said. “Do it well and do it with empathy and compassion. The balance sheet will show up if you do the right things.”
Ms. Lisenbey retired from MedRisk in May 2023 after her husband had retired and grandchildren and travel began pulling her toward a different pace.
She found a new balance through consulting, mentoring and board service. Through Atlanta-based Insightful Edge, she advises private equity firms and insurance-related companies on claims management, medical management, operations and leadership.
She also serves on the boards or advisory groups of Dane Street, WRMC, Crosstie (formerly Gain Life), Carisk Partners and Cadence Rx.
She remains focused on the industry’s future. Insurers and service companies need to recruit beyond traditional college pathways and introduce high school students to claims, technology, medical management and other careers, she said.
And while artificial intelligence can remove administrative work, she believes complex and consequential claim decisions must remain with people.
“We are in the human business,” she said.
Her goal was always to build strong teams, work hard and leave organizations better than she found them.
But she does not view her retirement from full-time work as a conclusion.
“I might be finished in the traditional sense,” she said. “But because I feel like I was afforded such an opportunity, I have this very strong sense of still wanting to give back and having an impact. I don’t feel like I’m done.”
ABOUT THE AWARD
The Business Insurance Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes an individual whose outstanding contributions have had a lasting impact on the insurance and risk management sector. The honorees are also inducted into the Business Insurance Hall of Fame. The award was first presented in 2017.
2017 HONOREE
Patrick G. Ryan, Ryan Specialty
2018 HONOREE
Maurice R. Greenberg, C.V. Starr
2019 HONOREE
Martin P. Hughes, Hub International
2020 HONOREE
Kevin Kelley, Liberty Mutual
2021 HONOREE
Brian Duperreault, American International Group
2022 HONOREE
J. Patrick Gallagher Jr., Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
2023 HONOREE
Alan Jay Kaufman, H.W. Kaufman Group
2024 HONOREE
Dave North, Sedgwick
2025 HONOREE
Mark Wilhelm, Safety National