Jessica Yarbrough, CIC, CISR, AFIS

Jessica Yarbrough doesn’t just teach operational excellence. She has built it in the real world.

Her career grew from CSR to COO in under a decade, and today she is the first female owner of an independent insurance agency founded in 1915. Under her leadership, the firm has been named a Best Employer in North Carolina every year since 2023 and earned the Best Practices Agency designation from Reagan Consulting in 2025. She has spoken to audiences of more than 550 insurance professionals on practical AI and automation strategies that drive measurable results inside independent agencies.

Jessica is also a founding member of IIANC’s Women in Insurance Network (WIN). She joined the group in 2020 when the very first WIN meetup was held virtually through an app called Blitzer-- complete with technical hiccups and the kind of early-pandemic chaos we all remember. It was imperfect, energizing, and memorable. Years later, she is still friends with several women she met in those awkward virtual breakout rooms on that very first day.

At the core of Jessica’s work is helping agency leaders design operations where technology amplifies people, processes strengthen culture, and growth moves from accidental to intentional. As both a practicing COO and founder of Agency Ops Advantage, she equips leaders with practical frameworks to strategically align technology and talent so their agencies can scale profitably for years to come.