Meet 2025 Executive of the Year Kristin Wall


    It would be strange if Kristin Wall didn’t spend the early morning hours forwarding a blitz of news items to her executive team. The LWCC president and CEO—and Business Report’s 2025 Executive of the Year—starts every workday devouring local and national headlines, trade journals and industry reports, hitting ‘send’ on anything she finds relevant to LWCC’s mission—which is a lot.

    As detailed in the latest issue of Business Report, economic forecasts and technology trends catch Wall’s eye, as do site selection wins across the state that signal fresh fleets of Louisiana jobs. Natural disasters and calamitous events are also on her radar. In countless stories—even ones where it’s not obvious—she spots an insurance throughline.

    “That’s the kind of stuff that makes my brain fire,” Wall says. “I think about the jobs, direct and indirect, that flow from companies moving in. Or if I’m reading something about a disaster, I think about the risk side of things. Insurance companies are only as good as their planning and their financial ability to pay.”

    Wall sees information as a divining rod that could help her chart where the notoriously turbulent industry is heading. She’s a disciple of the Wayne Gretzky maxim to “skate to where the puck is going,” part of a worldview that balances big picture thinking with acute market awareness.

    Her strategies have worked.

    Under Wall’s leadership and career-long involvement, LWCC has become the state’s largest workers’ compensation carrier, providing coverage to 18,500 Louisiana businesses, many of which are considered high risk. Sound fiscal stewardship has enabled LWCC to return more than $1.4 billion in dividends to its policyholders since 2003.

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