CFO
Several years before I retired, I applied for and was a finalist for the CFO position where I worked. In case you didn’t know, a CFO is an acronym for “Chief Financial Officer.” Even though I had worked there for years and was known by the CEO, they made both of us finalists, submit a resume and an application and then interview with the CEO.
One of the questions the CEO asked me in the interview was what I was most proud of in my tenure at the insurance company. There were lots of projects I was involved with that were significant to the company. For example, my department was a big lead in interpreting and strategizing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. I need to explain this to help you understand the magnitude of the work.
In 2010, under President Obama, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. Now, as a bill it wasn’t called that but I’m skipping to the final that was signed into law. What the ACA did was regulate health insurance and build an online marketplace to buy individual and small group coverage. Each aspect of the law, such as the preventive benefit mandate, required the government to create draft rules which each insurance company had to read, comment on, figure out how to modify how they do things to make it work and then adjust for whatever changes were made when the final regulations were released. The draft regulations for each thing might run thousands of pages of government and law legalese. Myself and my staff became street lawyers reading and interpreting with other areas the draft regulations and brain storming how to implement them. It took every bit of the 3 years from the signing of the law to the implementation of the law in 2014 to get it all done.
But that, or any other project we had worked on, wasn’t how I responded. I answered that my most proudest accomplishment was, working with HR, to revise the Actuarial Student program. The Actuarial Student program is the support that the company provides actuarial students to study for and pass their actuarial exams, ultimately resulting in credentialed actuaries. Since credentialed actuaries, besides having mastered all the actuarial concepts, are needed to sign filings with the state insurance department (no one else but a credentialed actuary can sign them). During my tenure, we had developed 3 people with the highest level of credentials (including myself), and several that had either achieved a lesser level of credentials or were on the verge of getting their credentials. In other words, I was most proud of developing my staff.
“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” - Proverbs 16:1-4 ESV
“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” - 2 Timothy 1:6-7
I didn’t get the job and, in retrospect, was probably better off. I ran into that CEO at the grocery store after both of us had retired. He told me I was looking good and then let me know that he had enjoyed working with me and always felt that he could trust what I presented to him.
Not quite as good as “well done my good and faithful servant,” but pretty close from a secular perspective.
“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’” - Matthew 25:21
I yearn much more to hear such words from my savior.
