A decade away was a strong pull for Mary M. Fay to return to Greater Hartford. The East Hartford native is glad to be back.
“I love Hartford,” said Fay, who has joined Actuarial Strategies Inc. in Bloomfield as executive vice president.
These last 10 years she has hopped around the country from Richmond, Va., to Dallas, Texas, to Wellesley Hills, Mass., with increasing responsibilities in the financial services industry. Her most recent position was senior vice president and general manager of the Annuities Business with Sun Life Financial.
What has made the multiple moves tolerable is the practice of planting roots wherever she made her home.
“I always get involved in the community I live in,” she said. “I want to do that now that I’m back home. I would love to be more involved in the community.”
Fay praised her previous employer for its community involvement.
“Sun Life had a very strong culture of senior executives giving back to the community … so I hope to do that here, too,” she said.
Her move to privately-owned Actuarial Strategies (ASI) can be viewed as a career divergence.
“I’ve always worked for very large Fortune 100 and Fortune 250 companies. ASI is very entrepreneurial. We want to grow,” Fay, 47, said. “This is a chance for me to get out there and use the skills I’ve developed on a consultative basis.”
In her new role, she will focus on expanding the company’s penetration of the retirement market. She also will lead ASI’s marketing and strategy development and operations, as well as contribute to product and business development.
She candidly admits that she didn’t grow up in East Hartford dreaming of a career in the insurance industry.
“I’m the first person in my family to even go into insurance and still the only person in my family in it,” she said.
After graduating Skidmore College in 1983 with a degree in accounting, it was either banking or insurance.
“I stumbled my way into an insurance company,” she said.
There’s an underlying passion in Fay’s voice for her career path.
“Insurance is an important product that really does help people individually manage their risk,” she said.
