You’ve maybe heard or seen us talk about our Holmes Murphy purpose statement — “Caring for Your Unique Potential is Our Soul Purpose!” Those nine words speak to the organization we strive to be for our employees and clients each and every day. Our employees truly care, and their commitment and dedication to the unique challenges our clients and industry face makes me incredibly proud to work alongside them. We feel so strongly about the work our employees do that we developed the “Game Changer” award in 2015.

Our Game Changer award is a client experience award that annually honors employees who live our aspirations each day. There’s a nomination process by Holmes Murphy leaders, and an award winner is chosen from our client experience areas of the business. With more than 1,000 employees, winning the award (or even being nominated for it) is incredibly prestigious.

We recently named and honored our 2021 Game Changers. They are five incredibly deserving individuals — Bailey Ballsrud, Ashley Brooks, Dani Sims, Danielle Sterzenbach, and Erin Velo.

If you’ve had the pleasure of working with or meeting any or all of these individuals, you know they epitomize what it means to be Game Changers. They are your greatest advocates and work tirelessly to ensure you have what you need, when you need it. Allow me to give you a little insight into each.

Bailey Ballsrud

Bailey is the Chief Operating Officer for ACAP HealthWorks, a Holmes Murphy affiliate, and is based in Dallas. In a year where there was such incredible change for some of her ACAP team, Bailey was the rock of stability. She’s a constant source of guidance, calm, and strength. She’s also a cultural leader, a solver of challenging problems, and an agent of business transformation. Bailey is a great role model to all our Client Experience team members as to how our clients should be treated. She never takes the easy way out of a situation and always goes above and beyond for those around her. Bailey is the consistent go-to leader on the ACAP team. She does a great job of connecting the possibilities of innovation to the reality of execution through people and process. I can’t say enough about her dedication to those all around her.

Ashley Brooks

Ashley is a Human Resources Business Partner for the Employee Benefits portion of our Enterprise Services team. With every interaction, Ashley makes the person she’s talking or working with feel like they are her only priority. Though she is located in Dallas, Ashley supports leaders throughout the Holmes Murphy enterprise, and they often comment they weren’t aware of the scope of her role because they receive her full attention. Ashley is intentional about building relationships, has invested time into proactively connecting with all those around her, consistently helps others reach their unique and full potential, and has a passion for building a strong talent base to ensure our clients are getting the best service. Ashley is always positive (even in tough situations) and has an effective ability not only to support but challenge the status quo, when needed. She is truly amazing at her job.

Dani Sims

Dani is based out of Dallas and is a Clinical Consultant on the Employee Benefits side of our Brokerage Services team. Dani’s expertise, especially over this past year, has been invaluable. She provided our Holmes Murphy client experience teams with the most critical solutions around COVID-19, pharmacy, and mental health — three of the top issues of 2021. COVID-19 continued to be a major disruptor, and Dani’s connections with vendors allowed Holmes Murphy to have numerous offerings to meet our clients’ needs — from a screening app and an onsite vaccine to bulk testing and an exemption process solution. Those who work with Dani know she will go above and beyond to provide an explanation, a creative slide deck, jump on a Zoom call, or whatever it may take to help the team be their best. Holmes Murphy is a better place with Dani here!

Danielle Sterzenbach

Danielle is the AVP, Target Market for our Property Casualty Client Experience team. She consistently understands what needs to be done and finds a way to get results. Her passion for creating the best client experience, ensuring our team is developing using everyone’s unique and full potential, and finding new and better ways to deliver results makes her a great leader on our team. She recently led the service transition to a new document management system and worked to create workflows that give us better insights into the execution on our processes as well as carrier connections. Over the past year, Danielle has been instrumental in not only bringing in new talent, but ensuring there have been opportunities for our existing team to grow and move to that next level for the betterment of our clients. I know Danielle will continue changing the game at Holmes Murphy!

Erin Velo

Erin Velo is a Sr. Claims Consultant for CSDZ, a Holmes Murphy company, and is based in Minneapolis. Erin has an unending dedication to seeing our organization and those around her — both clients and teammates — succeed. She builds trust very quickly and creates an emotional connection with each and every one of her clients on a deep and personal level. Erin knows their business, cares about who they are, roots for and supports their drive for success, and is always focused on how she can support them both personally and professionally. She is always in search of alternative ways to achieve the best outcomes for our clients. She’s also creative and exhausts all angles before simply accepting the status quo. Holmes Murphy is not just a company to Erin, it is a family. We are so fortunate to have Erin on our team and a part of our family!

Living Out Our Aspirations

I love the Holmes Murphy culture, our employees’ engagement with our clients, and how they consistently live out their purpose and offer up their unique talents to make Holmes Murphy better. I hope you see this same level of service each day you work with us!

P.S. If you see or work with Bailey, Ashley, Dani, Danielle, or Erin, I encourage you to congratulate them. We are proud of their efforts, and we hope you are, too!