Deanna Strable considered living in many places other than her home state after graduating college.

But she said the “versatility of opportunities” she discovered at Principal during an internship ultimately brought her back to Des Moines, where she has built her life and career over the last 35 years.

The Warren County native was named Tuesday as Principal’s next president and CEO.

Strable grew up in Prole, a small village south of Des Moines, which she describes as a “gravel road with about 10 homes.”

Her parents paved the way for Strable and her siblings to be first-generation college students, sending them to Sacred Heart School and Dowling Catholic High School.

“I think they prioritized [education] partially because they didn’t have the same opportunities. … We weren’t Catholic, so it was really an educational decision that allowed me to have exposure to different classes and open my eyes to some of the opportunities that could be after that,” Strable told the Business Record.

Passionate about math, Strable learned of the actuary profession from a teacher and weighed the different possibilities as she attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Her introduction to Principal left an impression that steered her into the field. She said she got to do “real work” as an intern, and most importantly, had the different opportunities for an actuary — from technical to business roles — laid out in front of her.

“When you’re 21 years old you really don’t know what you want to do, so what I really liked was seeing that those options were out there within one company,” she said.

Those opportunities for new experiences are why she has stayed at Principal her whole career.

“I always felt I was learning. I always felt I was making an impact,” she said. “I enjoyed and respected both the people I was working with but the company as a whole. I’ve always been proud to say that I worked at Principal.”

She shared more about her personal and career passions and discussed the upcoming transition as she prepares to step into Principal’s top leadership role. Her responses have been edited for clarity and length.

How did getting experience in different parts of the business help you grow personally and professionally?
During my 35 years here I think I’ve had nearly 15 different roles, and they were early on technical in nature. I had the opportunity to move to Brussels, Belgium, very early in my career and spend 18 months working there. I was loaned out to a company that Principal worked with at the very early onset of when we were looking at business outside the U.S. That experience was really monumental in my development both personally and professionally. Then I chose to move outside of the pure actuarial realm and I spent the lion’s share of my career running a portion and ultimately leading our insurance business here in the U.S. I used my actuarial background but was applying it in a much broader way. When I was asked to come back and be our chief financial officer, I could leverage that huge experience I had running business and use it as I’ve worked with Dan from a strategy perspective but also from a financial execution perspective.

In a 2021 story in our Fearless newsletter, you shared how you made it a priority to bring your unique traits and personality to an executive role. What does that look like for you as you become CEO?
It’s always been critical to me to be authentic in how you bring yourself to work and how you approach your role. Ultimately, Dan has different strengths than I have, and we’re going to be very different leaders grounded in some very foundational similarities. We both love this company. We both love and have passion for what we do. We approach it from a team-based perspective, but ultimately, how I’m going to approach it will be different than he has. The great news about Principal is we went through many cycles and we have not had a cookie-cutter approach of who our CEO is. It’s very important that you don’t sacrifice your authenticity and use that to be even more effective in what you do. I think it’s so critical in every role I’ve had that you personally connect with the people you work with. I want them to be authentic, and if you want them to be authentic, you need to bring that same authenticity as well.

As you step into this new role, what are you passionate or curious about?
There’s a business passion and curiosity and then there’s just an inherent personal passion. For a professional perspective, I’m super passionate about what we do for our customers, how we attract and retain top talent to meet the needs of our customers, and then the importance of our culture and the importance of the community, because having a strong community is foundational for having a vibrant employee base. It’s the mix of all those that I have passion about.

The work we do isn’t that complicated. I had a leader tell me the other day her job here is very similar to the same job she did at another company, but the environment is so significantly different it allows her to love her job, and that’s what I’m passionate about. At the end of the day, you want a customer to thank you for making a difference, and you want an employee to thank you for what the company has provided to them, and to me, that’s foundational as well as continuing to lean into our strong culture but finding the places where we can make it even better.

You mentioned community. How are you thinking about Principal’s involvement in the Greater Des Moines community moving forward?
Our commitment is not going to change. I think Des Moines is an incredible community.
Principal has been such a huge part of giving back to the community and it’s going to continue to be our global headquarters. We have the most concentration of employees here, the most history, but also it’s a community where you can really have impact. We invest to help make the community strong, which gives you a community that allows you to attract and retain top talent, and those things will continue to be important for Principal as we go forward.

Under your leadership, what are specific ways you want to see Principal have an impact on the community?
I think it’s a combination of places we choose to have community backing and what we do day to day to drive employee involvement. The Principal Charity Classic is a perfect example. It brings the community together, it allows us to showcase to our top customers as well as distribution partners, but most importantly, it gives dollars back to charities that we have passion about. But what’s as important is creating an environment where our employees know that it’s important for them to give back as well. As an example — Dan was the orchestrator of this — it is our 145th anniversary, so we want to have employee volunteer hours of 145,000 hours over the next year.

What is important to you outside of work?
My kids, my family, my faith are all very important to me. I’ve also found a number of places where I can give back. To me, it’s important to choose places where you have a passion, and I’d rather focus on a few where I feel I can be really impactful than spread myself wide over a lot of things. United Way has been one, both here in Central Iowa and I was on the worldwide board as well. Whether that be through their Women United initiative or being an advocate within Principal, because to me United Way is just an incredible community resource. I’m also on the Simpson College board of directors and I currently serve as our treasurer. That comes back to education. It’s in Warren County, which is where I grew up. It’s the combination of all those that really are some of the passions outside of work.

How has your connection to Des Moines changed throughout your life here?
Obviously, Principal was a draw for me. The other draw was the ability to take vacation and go other places versus if I had chosen, for example, to live in Hartford, Conn., most of my vacations would have been coming back to Des Moines to visit family. There was a great advantage of being close to family but also providing opportunities to travel and do other things. I’m a huge fan of Des Moines primarily because it has allowed me to be, hopefully, a great mother, and in a dual-income family Des Moines makes that easy. When my kids were little, the ability to go and see them sing at their music concert and be back at work in 45 minutes — you can’t do that in New York City or Boston or Hartford. I’m just entirely grateful for how I’ve been able to have both that personal success and company success.

For a global company like Principal, what opportunities does an executive leadership transition present?
The great news is Dan and I have worked so closely together and have co-architected our growth strategy, so unlike someone new coming from the outside, I’m fully behind that strategy. It will need to morph. It will need to adjust as the environment changes, as our competitor changes. He has put together an incredible team over his nine-year tenure that is solidified, and I was a part of that process as well. So I think from a strategy and a team perspective, I’m not walking in saying there’s all these dramatic changes that have to be made. Our performance has been very strong, so I think what that allows you to do is lean much more into the opportunities and instead of focusing on what we’re going to do, make sure you’re creating an environment where our execution is at an excellent level.