By Scott Wooldridge // Photos by Jonah Light Photography
As an elite college soccer player at UCLA, Edwige Ligonde was at the top of his game when a series of stress fractures ended his dream of playing soccer professionally. Ligonde, who had played the “rover” role for his team, was used to adapting to challenges on the field; after the injury, he knew he had to shift his focus to something new.
Ligonde was interested in training as a financial advisor, and was accepted into an internship program at Northwestern Mutual Life. The program required interns to apply for an insurance license, and so Ligonde unknowingly took the first step toward his future career—and toward becoming our 2021 BenefitsPRO Broker of the Year.
Ligonde, who is now the vice president of employee benefits and technology at Nielsen Benefits Group, based in Westlake Village, California, has been a key part of the firm’s recent success, bringing in more than $1 million in revenue during his first year. He has also earned accolades from the business community, including the San Fernando Valley Business Journal’s awards for Client Service, Most Trusted Advisor and Outstanding Contribution.
Finding his voice
In the beginning, Ligonde admits that he struggled with self-confidence in the business world. His injury setback had come just as he was fielding calls from European soccer clubs, and the end of that dream was a big blow to his confidence.
“I went into a bit of a social isolation,” Ligonde remembers. “I had a tough time comprehending it. Luckily, my roommates and my parents helped give me the confidence I needed.”
He says the support of his parents was especially helpful, as they reminded him that his success in soccer was a relatively recent development in his life. “My mom said, ‘Soccer was not what got you into UCLA; it was your brain.’”
Still, early on, Ligonde found it challenging to become comfortable in the business world. He describes himself as a 22-year-old kid who was meeting with CEOs and VPs and asking them to open their financial books to him.
“I was uncomfortably shy,” he says. “I was a Black person with dreadlocks during an economic downturn. It was like a triple whammy.”
Ligonde looked at several other career opportunities, including the medical device field, before a suggestion opened a door for him. “A good friend of mine who was a broker said, ‘You already have your license; why don’t you try the group side of insurance?’”
Ligonde joined his friend’s brokerage, where his background with Northwestern Mutual provided some expertise in the life and disability side of insurance. But he still lacked confidence and too often tried to simply copy what he saw the firm’s top sellers doing.
“It took a couple years for me to get my feet under me,” he says. But over time, he realized the key to success was to focus on his strengths and begin to find his own way. “That’s when I started to figure it out.”
A multi-dimensional player
One breakthrough came when a colleague fell ill just hours before a presentation. To make matters worse, the CEO of the firm was traveling at the time, so Ligonde was asked to step in. “I had never created a presentation before; never quoted a group. I looked at other presentations, made some tweaks, and put something together. The client said, ‘This is one of the best presentations I’ve ever seen—you might have a knack for this!’”
The role that Ligonde eventually settled into was in some ways comparable to the “rover” position he played for his soccer team. He learned to adapt to different positions and show a wide range of skills. “I became more of a hybrid,” he says. “Instead of just being an account executive, I was also an account manager. Because technology was important to me, I also became the tech guy at the organization, which became a good differentiator for us.
“I was kind of all over the place,” he adds. “I think that built my foundation and helped me understand the overall benefits business.”
A day in the life
These days, Ligonde starts his day at 4:30 a.m., with exercise. “For a while, I let too much time go by without focusing on fitness, and I think it had an adverse effect on my work. So, my wife and I put together a regimen. That’s been great; it frames my mind for the day.”
The next few hours are taken up with emails, preparing for the day, and family life. “Once the kids are off to school, I usually try to have my first calls around 9 a.m.” During the pandemic and remote work, he has also put more emphasis on touching base with his teammates. “We don’t see each other every day, so I take those morning hours to text them and say, ‘How’s it going with the family?’ just to try to build a little more of that camaraderie.”
The rest of the day is a mixed bag, often spent pursuing new business opportunities. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” he says.
Evenings, on the other hand, are a time to recharge. “It’s important for me and my team not to spend evenings working. It’s time to shut the laptop off,” he says. “I think that’s a skill you have to develop. It’s a mindset shift and it’s still something I struggle with.”
Pandemic and DEI present new challenges and opportunities
Overall, the dramatic change caused by the pandemic created an opportunity for brokers, Ligonde says. Even as emails and calls about some issues dropped off, new opportunities, such as teleconferencing with employees about benefits, became more popular. He says his company tried to respond creatively, noting that policies such as the CARES Act provided ways for health plan enrollees to save money—information that his company was able to educate their clients about.
Another recent development, the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) movement that became more prominent after the death of Georg Floyd, has also had a big impact on Ligonde. He says that as the son of immigrants, he has experienced bias. But he notes that recent events and the resulting awareness provide an opportunity to address an old problem in new ways. “I happen to be in a position of influence in my current company, and I realize there are people like me who are continually passed up for opportunities because of the way they look or their beliefs,” he says. “So many employers are missing out on so much amazing talent.”
He says that one way that companies can address inequities is to provide opportunities that weren’t available in the past. He credits his Northwestern Mutual internship with allowing him to see the insurance field as a place where someone who looks like him could succeed. “They always made me feel like I could crush it, just like the CEO. They gave me all the resources to help me succeed.”
Ligonde adds he would like to see a lot more focus on internship in the benefits world. “This is a people industry,” he says. “There’s so much opportunity for people who may have gone down a completely different path to come to this point. And if some of them come with a completely different set of ideas and thoughts, we could see a massive shift that might steer the industry in a whole new direction.”
Efficiency—the future of the workplace
In addition to Ligonde’s life experiences, his generational perspective is also important. “As a millennial, I hate paper,” he says. “I’m like that, and I think other millennials are, too. We’re in this digital age, we’re used to doing things more quickly.”
While this desire for efficiency drives younger employees, all generations want to get information in an efficient, timely manner, Ligonde notes. Technology presents some key ways to address this problem.
“How do we find a way to deliver boring information, make it more attractive, and communicate it in a way that people can understand?” Ligonde asks. “We decided to try to find things that weren’t necessarily built for our industry, and figure out ways to make them work for us.”
For example, Ligonde works with a text messaging firm that helps companies communicate with customers. He consulted with the company, EZ Texting, about ways to use this technology to communicate with employees about their benefits. “It’s not an end-all, be-all solution, but it’s an additional outlet that gives the HR team another way to effectively communicate with employees,” he says. “A lot of people like to receive information in bite-sized pieces. Text messaging was key for us; we could effectively communicate information remotely, which was especially useful during the pandemic.”
The benefits of being an employee
Ligonde was glad to see mental health treatment become less stigmatized as the pandemic revealed the stress and anxiety that many Americans were dealing with. It’s something he says the industry has been slow to address. “I think we’re late on that, but I’m so glad it has recently become less of a taboo subject. We should be able to bring in support solutions from a mental health perspective. With every employer we speak with, we talk about mental health.
“Employee benefits isn’t necessarily about how great the benefits are, but how great the education and communication are,” he says. “Employees want to know what they have.”
“For a long time, I’ve been preaching that it’s all about the employee experience,” he says. “I think the pandemic was a sort of catalyst to make clear that employee benefits aren’t just about insurance. Employers now have the opportunity to create the ultimate employee experience.”
Credits:
Jonah Light Photography