PEOPLE
CAREER PATH
LEARNING NEVER CEASES Suzette Huovinen is always looking ahead and always willing to discover something new
While Huovinen grew up working weekends and summers at her father’s brokerage, it wasn’t until university that she truly discovered actuarial science. “I’d heard about being an actuary from my dad but didn’t understand what that meant. When I was doing interviews as a senior, I realized all the things actuaries could do: consulting, back-end analytics, insurance – a wide variety of companies wanted to interview me.”
1995 FINDS
ACTUARIAL SCIENCE
1999 MOVES INTO MANAGEMENT When the head of the tax department approached Huovinen with an idea to make her job an actuarial position, it gave her the opportunity to take on a broader role in management. “That was my transition into supervising; it whet my appetite for the idea that being a manager was what I wanted to do. I liked working with people, seeing them grow, seeing them succeed.”
2009 EMBRACES A NEW CHALLENGE Huovinen’s foray into enterprise management, where she held the position of second vice-president, presented her with another exciting challenge. “That was a great experience – enterprise management was very new; it taught me a lot of what we needed to do to continue to evolve our vision and keep the company strong. My focus is always about learning from bad things that happen.”
2019 BECOMES CEO OF PREMIER Huovinen was part of the acquisitions team prior to Securian’s 2017 purchase of Premier; her knowledge of the Canadian marketplace and her willingness to take the next step came in handy when she was named Premier’s CEO. “We’re figuring out what’s next for Canadian Premier: what business lines we want to do, what we’re going to build out. Building things is a big passion of mine.”
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1997 DISCOVERS HER CORPORATE ‘HOME’ Right after graduation, Huovinen came to work for the company that eventually became Securian – but not quite in the way she expected. “I liked the values and the family atmosphere – it was where I wanted to work, but I didn’t get offered an actuarial job. I graduated on Sunday, interviewed on Monday and on Tuesday went to Europe with the school orchestra for a three-week trip – they called me at the hotel, offering me a position in the tax department.”
2005 TAKES THE LEAD Huovinen’s willingness to expand her skills and duties landed her the opportunity head up a new project, creating Securian’s first enterprise risk management framework.
“I’ve always been very vocal about being open to new responsibilities. That experience started my love of creative things and being a driver for change, for starting from nothing and figuring out where you’re going” 2015 JOINS THE C SUITE Thanks to the incremental increases in her responsibilities over time, Huovinen was eventually appointed Securian’s chief actuary and chief risk officer. “Things came full circle – I became chief actuary after not being hired to be one in the first place. I had a lot to learn; what gave me confidence was the relationships I had in the company.”
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