Fortune 500 Rank: 93
CEO Start Date: January 2010
Do you expect to hire more new employees in 2011 than you did in 2010?
Overall, we had a tremendous year in 2010, and we plan to reinvest back into our workforce in 2011. We expect our hiring to remain consistent year over year. The areas where we are seeking top talent include customer service, project management (particularly Lean Six Sigma expertise) actuarial and financial, and we are looking for candidates with strong customer focus, keen financial acumen and the ability to think analytically. In addition, we are focused on building a more diverse workforce that reflects our increasingly diverse policyholder base.
What's the greatest challenge to growing your business in this current economy?
Perhaps the biggest challenge we face is the current state of the life insurance marketplace. Ownership of individual life insurance is at its lowest level in 50 years, and current economic conditions have strained household budgets. However, we see this as an opportunity to educate people on the value of life insurance and the role it plays as the cornerstone of any financial strategy. It's also an ideal time to communicate the value of our mutual company structure, which means we operate for the benefit of our policyholders, the expertise of our agency force of 5,000 professionals, and the importance of our core product, whole life insurance, which offers lifelong financial protection against the risks we all face.
What's the greatest opportunity for your business in 2011?
Among the biggest opportunities for us are the niche markets that have traditionally been underserved by our industry, including the small business owner, women and multicultural markets. We are focused on serving these areas and have made significant progress, from conducing research on small business owners and their financial needs, to developing financial literacy programs for women, to running ads in multiple languages. Building a diverse workforce and agency force is a tremendous opportunity as well. By 2040, the U.S. is projected to be a minority-majority country. It's critical that we build a diverse workforce that will enable us to better serve our customers both today and tomorrow.
What CEO "past or present" do you most admire and why?
As we approach our 160th anniversary in May 2011, I would have to say I admire Caleb Rice -- our first CEO -- who was at the helm of our company from its founding in 1851 until 1873. Rice had the courage and conviction to lead our company from its inception through the challenges and uncertainty of the Civil War, the first of many national crises that we have endured. He initiated the payment of an annual dividend to our participating policyholders that has been paid without exception every year since that first payment. Perhaps most importantly, as the first Mayor of our home city of Springfield, Mass., when it was incorporated as a city in 1852, he personified a commitment to community responsibility that remains to this day a fundamental character of our company.
NEXT: William Klesse
