What It Takes to Turn a Company Around - A Conversation with Dave Anderson

https://vimeo.com/insurex/meet-dave-anderson

When I think about the kind of leaders who make a real difference in this industry, I think about people who have actually put in the work and made the tough decisions - not just once, but repeatedly, across different organizations, different circumstances, and different degrees of difficulty. Dave Anderson is that kind of leader, and I'm proud to welcome him as our newest Partner at Insurex.

I've known Dave for years, going back to my time at M Financial when he was leading TIAA-CREF. I've always admired how he carries himself - direct, humble, and completely focused on the people around him. So when we sat down recently to talk about his career and what brings him to Insurex, I wasn't surprised that his answers kept coming back to the same thing: the team.

Build the Right Team. Then Get After It.

When I asked Dave to describe the throughline across a career that has taken him from Thrivent Financial to TIAA-CREF to InsPro to Merit Life to Andesa Services, his answer was immediate: build the right team. Get them aligned around a compelling vision. Then execute.

It sounds straightforward. It isn't. Most leaders know this in theory - Dave has made it work in practice, across organizations that were in very different situations when he arrived - some growing, some struggling, and a few that most people had written-off entirely.

At InsPro Technologies, for example, the company had been unprofitable for nine consecutive years before Dave took over. He turned it to operating profit in each of his five quarters there. At Andesa Services, he came in as Interim CEO, drove record profitability, and led the company through a successful sale. These aren't flukes. There's a method to his success.

Stop Doing Things That Don't Add Value

I pushed him on the turnaround question specifically, because I think it's where his thinking is most useful for the clients we work with at Insurex. His answer was characteristically clear…

First, get the right people in the right chairs. Then, as a team, look hard at what the organization is doing that isn't adding value - and stop. Look at what it isn't doing that it should be - and start. That combination, Dave said, has been the engine behind every turnaround he's led.

I asked him which was harder: doing something new or stopping something old. He didn't hesitate. Stopping is always harder. People have been doing things a certain way for a reason, and it takes real leadership to help a team step back, reassess, and let go of something that no longer serves the organization - even when it once did.

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Things

There's a line I've heard Dave say more than once over the years, and I've always loved it – “Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things when they're aligned around a compelling vision.”

I finally asked him where that belief came from. His answer took me back to his early days at AAL - the organization that would later become Thrivent Financial. Built by a lot of smart, hardworking Midwesterners with a clear mission and a compelling vision for what they were building together. It worked. And it left a mark on Dave that has never faded.

That same thread runs through everything he described about his time at TIAA-CREF - finding allies inside a trillion-dollar asset manager, keeping a sixteen-billion-dollar life insurance company focused on its own story, gathering the resources and the relationships needed to do great things inside a complex organization.

Why Insurex?

When I asked Dave what drew him to Insurex at this point in his career, his answer was the one I hoped to hear. He's at a stage where he can choose who he works with. He knows several of our other partners, and his read on the people around this table was the same one I'd give: good people, smart people, hardworking people.

“Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

That's exactly what we're building at Insurex, and having Dave Anderson at the table - someone who can look at a leadership team, a set of processes, and an organization's full system from top-to-bottom and find where the value is hiding - makes us meaningfully better at what we do for our clients.

Welcome to the team, Dave - I couldn't be more excited.