Annuity Issuer Names New CEO

Georgette Nicholas has taken over as the CEO of Midwest Holding, a small life insurer with big ambitions for growth in the U.S. annuity market.

Nicholas, who has been Midwest Holding’s president and chief financial officer, succeeded A. Michael Salem.

Salem has resigned from a post as one of the Lincoln, Nebraska-based company’s co-CEOs.

The other co-CEO, Mike Minnich, is giving up the co-CEO title and becoming the company’s president.

The Thinking

John Hompe, the chair of the company’s board, said in a comment, included in the announcement about the realignment, that Salem has made valuable contributions to the company and led it through a period of growth and innovation that leaves it in a position to build upon.

The Midwest board believes that Nicholas has the business and financial acumen to help drive Midwest forward and give Minnich more ability to focus on key operational and investment initiatives, Hompe said.

Midwest Holding

Midwest is a public company, with stock that trades on Nasdaq.

Company executives say Midwest has the ability to write annuities, manage assets, run sophisticated information technology systems, and use capital efficiently and that these capabilities will help the company build a big annuity business from the ground up.

The company recently added a multi-year guaranteed annuity aimed at RIAs.

Georgette Nicholas

Nicholas began working for Midwest earlier this year.

She previously was the CEO of Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia.

She spent about 15 years at Genworth and Genworth affiliates. Before that, she was a director at Deloitte.

Nicholas said building shareholder value is a priority.

“The business is strongly capitalized, and we will work to improve our performance and build on the foundation in place,” Nicholas said.

Pictured: Georgette Nicholas (Photo: Genworth)