Pacific Life's Laurie Fitzgerald focuses on people: Women in Insurance Leadership 2022

Laurie Fitzgerald, CFO for retirement solutions at Pacific Life, brings over two decades of experience and expertise to her role. She currently oversees the risk management, valuation, finance, and actuarial and quantitative modeling teams, and her responsibilities include duties in financial strategy, actuarial modeling and valuation, risk, and compliance.

In her time with the company thus far — she joined in 2017 as a VP — Fitzgerald introduced Pacific Life’s first interactive financial reporting tool, implemented a financial hub that reduced 45% of manual accounting and 25% of functional spending, and sponsored and led the development of an actuarial system training program. She says talent management and strategy are a near-term priority.

“I first focus on the people and the talent strategy, because people are worried – and you don’t want to lose your best talent,” Fitzgerald explains. “I spent quite a bit of time focused on what is that talent strategy, and how do we protect that greatest asset in terms of retaining folks and growing people. Because if you lose even one person, it’s a cost to the company.”

Her success in driving positive change stems from her “one company strategy” and point of view – Fitzgerald operates her vision by ensuring that her employees all share an aligned mindset and goal, which can typically be a challenge early on in the process.

“Within that talent strategy is really making sure that everyone across the enterprise is aligned and we’re moving in the same direction. And that’s hard when people are first hearing about a transformation… Nobody likes that uncertainty, particularly as to their career,” says Fitzgerald. “The next big piece is the process – making sure we really understand the end to end process, what that funding looks like, and what we want that net benefit to look like… I always lead with the people in the process, and then, I can enable that to be faster or scalable through the technology and data strategy.”

“She’s a visionary,” Young Thai, VP of Risk Management at Pacific Life, adds. “She creates the vision and then she aligns the right people, both in hiring them and then partnering with all the people around her, to ensure that that vision is implemented.”

Fitzgerald is a director on the Foundation Board at Pacific Life, which serves the communities of company employees and gives in areas including art and culture, economic development, education, and health services. The foundation gave over $7 million to local communities in 2021. She is also an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and serves as the co-chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Group and a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Council. 

“We want to make sure that when somebody arrives at the door, they know they have a career here – and we’re able to retain them and we’re able to grow them. That is why I believe in DEI. It’s not just a buzzword for me,” she says. “I love being on the foundation because I get to hear what people really find important in life and what they’re actually doing to make a difference. It definitely pulls at your heartstrings. There’s so much need out there. And I love the fact that Pacific Life actually cares.”