Deanna Strable
Chair, President and CEO
2025 – Present
1 year (current)
Key Decisions & Impact
Strable joined Principal in 1990 as an actuarial assistant and held more than 15 roles across the organization over three-plus decades, including building the company's Specialty Benefits division as its first leader and integrating it with the life-insurance business, before becoming a business-unit president in 2015 and CFO for nearly a decade. She was named president and COO in August 2024, then president and CEO effective January 7, 2025, succeeding Dan Houston, and added board chair in September 2025.
Legacy
Strable's rise through actuarial, business-unit, and CFO roles gave her direct operating knowledge of retirement, benefits, and asset-management businesses before taking the top job, positioning her to lead Principal across all three at once rather than favoring the specialty she came from. Yes.