Patrick Kinney

You grew up in Philadelphia. Which neighborhood?

I grew up in a neighborhood called Kensington, which is north Philadelphia. My dad was a Philadelphia police officer.

He must have had stories.

Dad was disabled as a cop at 44 years old. He came out of Korea and became a Philadelphia police officer. He did 25 years and was disabled early 1979, when I was a senior in high school.

Can I ask what happened?

He got jumped in a project in Philadelphia. He and his partner were beaten with bats, and he had a massive heart attack. And they had a gun incident, where he lost his left eardrum, and then he had another heart attack. They pushed him out on retirement…and he became a bartender in the inner city in Philly.

You described your father as bigger than life. Tell me about him.

Six feet four, 250 pounds. He was always the life of the party. He just came into the room and had a personality that could completely take it over. And he was big, and he was handsome, and he was a cop. He was easy to look up to.

And tell me about your mom.

My mother filled out the application for me to go to Penn State. I was kind of drifting in the late ’70s in the world of alcohol and things that you shouldn’t be doing (I celebrated 36 years of sobriety on Feb. 1). But my mother thought I had a lot of potential, and she didn’t want me to waste it.

She came to get me in Wildwood, New Jersey, August of 1979. She came by bus and basically said, “I got you into college.” I said, “I’m not going to college.” And she said, “I filled out the application, and you’ve gotten into the Penn State Hazleton branch campus. We need to go tomorrow to orientation.” And I said, “No.” And she said, “If I buy you a case of beer, will you get on the bus with me and go to Hazleton, Pennsylvania?” In 1979, I would’ve followed a case of beer anywhere. And I went to Hazleton and ultimately changed my life.

Ahead of our call, you sent me what you call your guiding principles. Tell me about those.

When I was retiring from Travelers, I was given the pleasure of addressing the whole company, and I thought I should put together what I learned over the years. There’s just basic, practical knowledge of how you get through life.

There’s one, for example: “Never be afraid to surround yourself with the best people. Support them and let them shine.” So many of these are about collaboration.

I don’t think you can accomplish anything by yourself. I see managers fail because they think they need to be good at everything and they tend to be afraid of hiring better talent than they are for pieces they don’t know. I learned long ago that I’m not a finance guy [so] hire the best finance guy…and then weave that team together so that they fit together, and you will have wild success.

What three words would your co-workers use to describe your management style?

Collaborative, inclusive, and demanding.

If you could change one thing about the insurance industry, what would it be?

Bringing in more diversity and inclusion and people of color. As an industry, we’ve chased that holy grail for 40 years. I’d like us to continue the effort.

What gives you your leader’s edge?

I think what makes me an effective leader is trying never to bring bias to the problem. I think what I bring to it is, “OK, let’s put our head down. Let’s understand the problem. Let’s put one foot in front of the other and we will work our way through this.”