Beyond the Challenge

Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Paul Quaranto, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President at Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company about the challenges and opportunities facing insurance organizations and the need for innovation to stay relevant.

Under his leadership, Boston Mutual Life has achieved solid financial results and positioned itself for future success as a niche provider in the individual and workplace insurance markets.

Mr. Quaranto serves on the Board of Directors for the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), including as a member of the Board of Directors’ Executive Committee and the CEO Steering Committees for Prudential Issues, Consumer Issues, and Taxation. He was appointed Chair for the ACLI Forum 500 Board of Governors in October 2019 in addition to serving as the ACLI’s Political Action Committee (PAC) Chair. He is the past Chairman of the Life Insurance Association of Massachusetts (LIAM). Mr. Quaranto is on the Executive Committee of The Cook Family Charitable Fund, located in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Mike DeKoning, SVP Thrivent Financial about the challenges and opportunities for fraternal organizations and the need for both transformation and innovation to thrive.

Mike is responsible for developing Thrivent’s portfolio of insurance and annuity solutions. He oversees the life, health and annuity product lines and is accountable for the integrated go-to-market strategy for Thrivent’s insurance solutions.

Mike leverages his deep industry experience to work across Thrivent, ensuring market delivery of best-in-class product solutions by partnering with Thrivent’s Distribution, Operations, and IT teams. He has a passion for innovation and brings extensive product, underwriting and customer engagement knowledge to his role at Thrivent.

Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Rino D’Onofrio, President and CEO RBC Life Company about staying relevant, embracing new technology and reimagining product design.

Rino sits on the Board of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association and is also a member of the Standing Committee on Marketplace Relations and the Product Sanding Committee. Rino is the past Chair of the LL Global Board of Directors for 2017. He is also past chair of the Canadian Association of Financial Institutions in Insurance. Rino previously served on the Insurance Bureau of Canada’s Solvency and Capital Committee as well as its Governance Improvement Committee.

Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Cynthia Tidwell, President and CEO at Royal Neighbors of America about the challenges faced by fraternal carriers and her experience as an executive woman in the insurance industry.

Cynthia is a visionary leader, and expert in organizational turnaround, revitalization, and transformation.  She has a long history of inspiring staff and colleagues to passionately adopt concepts and goals as well as develop a personal investment in executing and delivering extraordinary results. Cynthia is focused on building organizations for long-term success through talent development and cultures of execution.

In this episode, Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Pat Foley, COO at Ashton Thomas Private Wealth about his insights on how some carriers are struggling to stay relevant while others are embracing new technology to help scale, cut costs and grow new distribution channels.

Pat is an action-oriented visionary with progressive leadership experience in world-class insurance organizations. Pat is adept at developing and driving highly profitable growth strategies, by integrating multiple sales channels and consistent product strategies within highly matrixed environments.

Pat’s extensive experience includes independent and captive distribution development, efficient operations management, product development, in-force management, and strategic planning with P & L responsibility.

Pat has held executive roles at OneAmerica, Genworth Financial, Allianz, and Prudential.

In this episode, Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Bill Wheeler, President, Athene Holdings about his insights on how carriers can stay relevant and the opportunities he sees for the insurance industry through mergers, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships.

Bill is responsible for Athene’s overall strategic direction. In particular, Bill oversees all of Athene’s business units, which includes its retail and institutional operations, and its corporate development and risk activities. Prior to joining Athene, Mr. Wheeler was President of the Americas group for MetLife Inc. (“MetLife”) where he oversaw the insurance and retirement business in the United States and Latin America.

In this episode, Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Tom McInerney about his insights on how carriers can stay relevant and the opportunities he sees for the insurance industry in the next three to five years.

“Tom” J. McInerney is President, Chief Executive Officer, and a Director of Genworth. He joined Genworth in January 2013 from The Boston Consulting Group, where he served as Senior Advisor since June 2011, providing consulting and advisory services to leading insurance and financial services companies in the United States and Canada. Prior to that, Mr. McInerney spent more than 30 years working in various senior executive roles with ING Group NV and Aetna Inc. For many years, he has been active with the American Council of Life Insurers board and Chief Executive Officer Committees.

In this episode, Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Richard DeSousa, SVP Strategic Partnerships with SCOR about his insights on how carriers can stay relevant and the opportunities he sees for the insurance industry in the next three to five years.

Richard leads a team developing new client solutions which are focused on helping end consumers get relevant protection offerings. His team is also responsible for orchestrating important partnerships to contribute to SCOR's growing ecosystem. As part of his role, he also oversees client marketing and communities.

In this episode, Kevin and Sandy Dougherty talk with Ian Jeffrey, CEO of Breath Life, an InsurTech organization offering a unified distribution platform for the insurance industry. Ian offers his insights on how carriers can move from a traditional insurance carrier to an insurer of the future through digital transformation.

Sandy Dougherty talks Terri Kallsen CFP ®, COO with Wealth Enhancement Group about challenges facing Registered Investment firms and the opportunities she sees over the next three to five years. Terri was the named The Financial Woman of the Year in 2019 by the Financial Women of San Francisco.

Terri served most recently as Executive Vice President, Investor Services at Charles Schwab in San Francisco. She previously held senior leadership roles at First Command, USAA and Thrivent Financial. A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional, Certified Wealth Strategist, and member of the Financial Planning Association, she is highly regarded in the industry and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC, Investopedia and Kiplinger’s.