News & Insights
People who do business with us may not realize that our name stems from the original team at Penn Mutual, our parent company. John Hornor founded The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1847. So while our 50th anniversary is significant, our roots actually date back much further, nearly two centuries.
The end of the year is a natural time for reflection, and as 2019 comes to a close, I wanted to share what lessons have inspired me during this anniversary year at HTK.
No matter how many years you have been working or your company has been in business, perhaps these takeaways may resonate with you as we begin a new year, and a new decade.
Learn from the leaders before you.
I started in my role as president and CEO at the end of 2017, and joined HTK five years prior. Over the course of five decades, HTK has had other leaders, some of which I had the pleasure of working with. Good leaders never stop learning — from each other, or from those who have come before them.
I have learned that being a good leader means being a good listener. When you listen to others, you can uncover unexpected insights, and it also means taking time to collect your thoughts to respond and not react.
The best leaders I know all have one common characteristic: personal and professional integrity. Integrity is the foundation of effective leadership. At HTK, that is one of our core organizational values, shared with Penn Mutual.
It’s never too late to refresh and improve.
We started out the beginning of 2019 with a new logo, and that was just the start of our whole new look at HTK this year. But more than the visuals, our rebrand gave us an opportunity to bring new life to HTK, to showcase our value and reinforce how becoming a trusted partner to financial professionals has been 50 years in the making.
Our anniversary also inspired a new “50/50” initiative, spearheaded by our managing director of operations, Tracy Zimmerer. We encouraged our home office associates to make 50 Improvements in 50 Weeks. It was inspiring to see our associates fully embrace the program and to come together across the departments within HTK to make small changes that would help both the home office and our financial professionals be more efficient in their work every day. We’re ending the year with more than 60 improvements implemented across the organization. This is just the start, and we continue to always look at how we can make it easier and better to do business with HTK.
It’s all about the people.
I attribute the success of our company to the people — many of which, associates and financial professionals included, have been part of the HTK team for 10, 15, even 25+ years. That speaks volumes to me about the culture of our organization, and I am grateful to all of our financial professionals and associates for their years of dedication and service.
In September, we held a new national conference for our financial professionals, HTK Discover19, here in Philadelphia. We received positive feedback about the presenters and training opportunities, but the number-one comment I heard was how valuable it was for our financial professionals to meet with the home office associates in person. Many of them have talked for years over the phone or email. Even in this digital era, there is no substitute for the face-to-face connection.
Without a doubt, a lot has changed in 50 years, and that’s to be expected in the next 50. We’re always evolving to stay current with the latest technology, solutions and services for our finanical professionals. But we also know that some things won’t change. That relationships matter, and the people will always be the focus of our business.
