When Warren Buffett praises your strategy—even as the owner of rival Geico—it’s tempting to take a victory lap. Progressive CEO Tricia Griffith resists.
“It doesn’t influence my thinking,” she says, though she concedes the veneration fuels her resolve. “You can fall from grace easily if you get complacent. You have to stay paranoid.” That mix of humility and vigilance, she argues, has defined her rise—from crawling under cars as a claims representative to becoming the first woman to lead the 88-year-old insurance company, now a Fortune 500 powerhouse with more than $75 billion in revenue.
