We Are Cortex | Irina Shalinskaya

Suppose your business wants to add a golf cart shuttle for clients from your parking lot to your front door. Irina Shalinskaya, from her desk at AON, might have some ideas and advice about how that could affect your company’s insurance risk.

In the past five years, Shalinskaya has risen from a risk management internship while studying economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis to her recent promotion to account executive at the global firm.

Shalinskaya says the massive global firm, which bills itself as a partner with clients to help them make better business decisions, fits right in with Cortex. Not only is AON positioned to work with other innovators and entrepreneurs as they grow their businesses, but the company is innovating itself with tools to bring new data-driven insights to those businesses.

“Clients can view their responses year over year, and from that we can extrapolate the changes that have occurred with their risk exposures,” Shalinskaya said. “It's a really cool tool. Rather than start from scratch every year, clients can see their development year over year.”

For her, that energy of innovation — both within AON and among her neighbors — makes Cortex an exciting place to work every day. That, and the sense of community and diversity that Cortex fosters.

She loves the special events like community clean-up days or district-wide lunches, as well as the chance to meet people from different backgrounds, industries and roles.

“I like working at Cortex,” Shalinskaya said. “It does a good job as being a microcosm for the greater St. Louis area. St. Louis is a super diverse city with people of all kinds of backgrounds. And it's apparent in this district. There's a whole bunch of different kinds of people working here from all different backgrounds with different experiences.”