Lincoln Financial Names Ellen Cooper to Succeed Glass as CEO

What You Need to Know

Dennis Glass has been the company's CEO since 2007.
Cooper came aboard in 2012, from Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
She is an actuary, and, earlier in her career, she had an insurance consulting role at Towers Perrin.

Lincoln Financial Group — a 116-year-old company with $380 billion in assets — has picked Ellen Cooper to succeed Dennis Glass as the president and CEO.

Glass, who has been Lincoln’s CEO since 2007, plans to become the chairman in May 2022, following the company’s next annual meeting.

Current Lincoln Chairman of the Board William Cunningham will stay on the board and serve as the lead independent director, the company said today.

Glass said in a statement that he’s thrilled to see Cooper succeed him as CEO. ”She is a gifted, experienced executive with a proven track record of success,” Glass said.

Cooper said she looks forward to continue Lincoln Financial’s long history of providing products that can help Americans plan, protect and invest.

Ellen Cooper

Cooper has been an executive vice president at Lincoln, the company’s chief investment officer and the head of the annuity solutions group. She moved to Lincoln in 2012, after serving as the global head of insurance strategy at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Earlier, she was chief risk officer at Aegon Americans. She got her start as an insurance consultant at Towers Perrin and Ernst & Young.

She has a bachelor’s degree from Temple University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Fellow of the Society of Actuaries professional designations.

Dennis Glass

Glass got his start in insurance at Northwestern Mutual and Protective Life. He began working for Jefferson Pilot in 1993, as that company’s CFO, then became Lincoln’s chief operating officer in 2006, when Lincoln acquired Jefferson Pilot.

Lincoln Financial

Cooper is on track to lead a company that’s a major player in the U.S. life insurance, annuity, mutual fund and employee benefits markets.

The company has also helped develop and expand the market for life insurance policies designed to provide long-term care benefits.

Lincoln reported $642 million in net income for the second quarter on $4.9 billion in revenue, in spite of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on life insurance claim costs and earnings on investments in bonds. The company ranks 172nd on the 2021 Fortune 500 list in terms of revenue, and 21st in terms of assets.

Like many other life and annuity issuers, the company has emphasized efforts to decrease its vulnerability to fluctuations in stock prices and interest rates.

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