After 23 years with The Principal Financial Group in the Des Moines area, Dawn Wolfgram became managing director for the Kansas City office of the company’s Midwest Region Business Center in July. She’ll manage the leadership team and oversee regional advisers for The Principal, which offers retirement planning, insurance, business benefits planning and other services. The firm had 2009 revenues of $8.8 billion, and it employs 14,000 people.
Q. What is it that most intrigues you about the Kansas City market and the challenge of your new role?
A. I’ve worked on both the manufacturing side and the distribution side, if you will, and with people throughout the Midwest Region Business Center, which includes Kansas City, since 1987. So I knew the challenges that we would be up against here, and what this market looks like, and I felt like I knew what I was walking into. I’ve always loved to come to Kansas City and spend time here, me and my family, because it has the same Midwestern values I’m used to in Des Moines. It’s just been a fantastic and very easy transition.
Q. What would you say is the one thing about your management style that really defines you?
A. What I hope stands out, what I hear over and over again from people, is my work ethic. I hope my advisers see that and appreciate it, and know I’m not just punching a clock. I put my whole heart and soul into building the company.
Q. Where did that drive come from?
A. Both of my parents are deaf, and being raised in a household where nothing came easy to my parents, they still made ends meet. They worked hard, and I think that example is what I try to incorporate into my everyday life. Great things can happen if you just make them happen. My parents didn’t have anything, and were limited in what they could do. But on the flip side, they were very successful that what they could do. So I may not have a master’s or a doctorate, but boy, I work hard. I think that’s extremely important.
Q. What about how your experience with the company has prepared you for this role?
A. I’ve been very fortunate to have had a variety of different roles, in the home office as well as the sales office. As a result, that has allowed me to fully understand what the company’s value proposition is. Being in the sales office for nine years, I can take that value proposition and deliver it to our advisers and to our clients.
Q. What do you see as the emerging opportunities for The Principal here?
A. Gosh, there are so many. The reason Kansas City appealed to me is because of the amount of those opportunities. There are thousands of small- to-medium-size businesses here, and that’s really what we do. One of our niche markets is helping the small to medium businesses market plan their financial futures. Honestly, The Principal has not had a big footprint here in the Kansas City area, so I believe the opportunity is tremendous.
Q. What is your assessment of the competitive environment here?
A. It’s very competitive here, and that’s confirmed the more I get out and talk to people—a lot of great companies are doing a lot of great work. But The Principal is different, I think, because not all companies can be all things to everybody. We do a great job of knowing who we are and what we do well. Helping that small business market—not only the business itself, but its owners, executives, employees—managing risk and assets. It’s competitive, but I believe wholeheartedly that The Principal will be a player in this market.
