We have had a few important personnel announcements in various areas of the company that we wanted to share. The individual memos from executives are below.
Message from Mehran on changes in the Customer Innovation Group
I am pleased to announce the promotion of Matt Frazee to Senior Vice President of our Customer Service Center, which includes all life and annuity operations for new and inforce business.
Matt leads the Welcome Center that is at the heart of our Customer Innovation Group. The Welcome Center focuses on the first impression made to both our buying and selling customers. Under Matt’s leadership it is becoming a critical differentiator for us. Matt’s creative energy and strategic thinking have helped build a common business model that will help us meet our 2020 Vision of 1 million delighted customers.
Matt came to National Life in 2011 after 11 years with Deloitte & Touche to serve as our Controller. In 2014 he was named Chief Accounting Officer and was responsible for National Life’s Treasury, Controller and financial planning functions. At the beginning of last year he assumed his current role overseeing our life and annuity operations. This is a fine example of leadership reaching across our enterprise.
It has now been 18 months since we created the Customer Innovation Group. During that period we have made improvements to the original concept. As part of that learning and growing we are announcing today some further changes to our customer service organization. Each of the changes is designed to better align our resources and to ensure that the business is running smoothly for our buying and selling customers.
Kristin Cook will assume the leadership role for all of New Business. Kristin’s leadership, her focus on our people and her dedication to the field and our customers make her well suited to lead our Life and Annuity new business teams through the incredible growth we continue to experience.
Oran Blumenfeld will take on a new role in Operations called Business Optimization. Oran will be focused on bringing consistency across the organization and ensuring that our training is laser focused on where we need to improve. He will be responsible for our DMS team, Quality, Analysis and Training.
Damian Woodard will lead Field Services. This role will include her current responsibilities of Contracting and add to that our Commissions and Debt Collection areas. These functions are interconnected and belong under one leader.
Tre Vollet will be responsible for our Customer Services areas. Her responsibilities will include all things customer related, including our contact center, title and contract changes, conservation and inforce illustrations and Claims. We believe that all of these functions originate with a customer request, and aligning them under one leader is critical.
Mark Farrell will be combining our Billing and Disbursement areas into a centralized Payment Center. Bringing together all aspects of handling money will allow us to build a center of excellence around our customer’s money.
Paul Greene will continue as our Chief Underwriter. Our underwriting team continues to be focused on the growth we are experiencing and looking for new ways to efficiently assess the risks of our business.
A critical element of our 2020 vision is to implement the comprehensive consumer engagement project as recommended by our STI Capstone team. This initiative will increase and modernize our enterprise-wide interactions with buying customers. In order to achieve this essential strategy, I have asked Angela McCraw to take the lead on this strategic initiative. She is uniquely qualified based on her leadership of our Customer Care Shared Services area along with more than 17 years of operations experience with us. You will hear more about this important initiative as it unfolds. Angela will report directly to me on this project.
We have learned a great deal since we first started brainstorming two years ago about the unification of life and annuity operations. These changes take advantage of that learning and better align our services with our customers
Message from Matt Frazee and Greg Woodworth
As we reach for our 2020 Vision, we strive to be the insurance company of choice for our selling customers by providing exceptional service.
For that reason, we are launching an initiative the focus of which is to modernize and simplify our processes. It is vital that we have a more flexible and innovative reward and recognition model that will not only make it easier for our existing relationships, but will help us to continue to attract new relationships. Kerry Jung will lead this important effort, reporting to Matt Frazee. We are excited about redefining who we will be as a distribution partner in 2020 and beyond.
While spending the majority of her time on this initiative, Kerry will also return to her role as Corporate Secretary and continue to report to Greg Woodworth.
Please join us in congratulating Kerry on this new assignment.
Message from Achim Schwetlick and Sean Woodroffe
As you saw from Mehran’s note last Friday two Business Innovation Group leaders have participated in and successfully graduated from the Strategic Thinking Initiative Program. As both are returning to everyday business we are excited to announce their future roles:
Eric Plasse will be leading the implementation of the recommendations of the Workforce Capstone effort he developed alongside Kerry Jung and Ken Weliczka. In this capacity Eric will be assigned to the People Center working directly with Sean. Robin Cannon will continue to serve as the interim leader of the Enterprise Solutions Delivery Office (ESDO).
Elizabeth MacGowan will be assuming a new role as VP of Strategy and Business Development. In this capacity she will be working directly with Achim and be part of the BIG Leadership Team.
Please join us in congratulating Eric and Elizabeth on their new roles.