Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY 6, 2022 9 ON THE RECORD | Q&A NUMBERS. PEOPLE. It takes balance. ©2023 CliftonLarsonAllen LLP. Investment advisory services are offered through CliftonLarsonAllen Wealth Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. CPAs | CONSULTANTS | WEALTH ADVISORS 860-561-4000 West Hartford CLAconnect.com We'll get you there. Here's what else O'Shea told HBJ. The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Q. How long has the company been in downtown Hartford and why did it choose Hartford in the first place? A. The original Connecticut office for Global Atlantic was actually in Sims- bury. We were in a portion of the old Chubb Executive Risk building. We ran out of space there in the fall of 2018, when we had about 80 people at the time. So, we had a decision to make around where we wanted our Connecticut presence to be. We looked at a few places in the suburbs, up in Windsor or other places in Simsbury. And then we looked at a few locations here downtown. We really felt like our brand is more of an urban brand and that there was a great opportunity for us to move downtown to tap into a more diverse talent pool. And so given the size and magni- tude that this company was achieving we felt it was important to have a Hartford presence. We decided in the fall of 2018 to move downtown here at the Gold Building. Our experience so far has been a really positive one, which, in addi- tion to Greater Hartford being the insurance capital, was the reason we decided to expand here. Q. What's involved with this latest expansion? What changes will be made to your office space? A. We're totally revamping the entire 10th floor and redoing parts of the 24th floor. The upgrades are focused around accommodating our future growth and expanding our workplace offer- ings with additional amenities and spaces for our employees to connect. That will include more collaborative and lounge spaces. There will be an expanded cafe and a multipurpose room that will open into the cafe for larger group settings. We are upgrading the reception area and adding a new on-site health clinic. Q. What's the strategy behind the way you're remodeling your office? A. We believe in the innovation that happens and the culture that can be built by being together in person. At the same time, we do know that there's the need for flexibility. So, we're right now in a hybrid model, where we have people coming into the office three or four days per week across all of our different locations. As we are encouraging people to be in the office, it's important to create an environment where people are not just doing heads-down work. You need to have an environment that is going to foster collaboration and innovation. That means having spaces where people can come together to work through some type of project, where they can take a break, sit down and have a coffee with one another. The thinking around all of this is that it's not sufficient to just have an office space with a sea of cubi- cles, because that really doesn't do much good in terms of innovation and collaboration. So we will have a balance of dedicated workspaces for people, with other areas where they can get together and be with one another to innovate and collaborate. Q. What's driving this recent growth? A. What's driving it is growth in our business, particularly in our individual markets business where we are selling life insurance or annuities through banks and broker dealers. That market has been really good and it requires more people to be able to process some of the business that's coming in. That's largely what's been driving our expansion here in Hartford. Q. What positions are you looking to hire in Hartford? A. Largely it's positions for our indi- vidual markets business, which runs the gamut from functional support to operational support, including certain levels of management. Q. How's the talent pool in Greater Hartford? A. We hired more people last year than we ever have. (The company has about 1,400 employees across all locations.) And the year before, that was the prior record. It's fun to be in a position, in an insurance industry that is more than 200 years old, to tell a growth story. We're able to tell a story that resonates with many people, all the way to the C-suite down to interns coming in. We've had great success in being able to get people excited about joining Global Atlantic across our different geographies and Hartford is certainly a shining example of that. Q. How important was the incen- tive deal from the state Depart- ment of Economic and Community Development to allowing the expansion to occur in Hartford? A. That certainly helped and we really appreciate the support, but it was not the driving factor in this decision. I think for us, it was really more around where do we want to invest strategically in our business. It wasn't about the last nickel or cent. If nothing else, it was sort of an encouragement from (DECD) to just continue our growth here.

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