Good morning! Linda McMahon is Trump's pick for Department of Education secretary, Comcast's spinoff plan gives Donna Langley a higher position, and Fortune’s Alicia Adamczyk sat down with Principal Financial Group's first female CEO.
- Principled leadership. As a math and economics major at Northwestern, Deanna Strable took an actuarial internship at Principal Financial Group in the late 1980s. An Iowa native, Strable felt at home at the Des Moines-based insurance and benefits company; when she graduated, she kept comparing potential employers to Principal and finding them lacking. She stuck with Principal, moving up the ranks over the past 35 years from intern to actuarial assistant to COO and CFO, with about a dozen other roles in between.
Starting in January, the former intern will be 145-year-old Principal’s first female CEO and president. Strable is succeeding Dan Houston, president and CEO since 2016, a close friend, mentor, and colleague she has worked side-by-side with for years.
