Wendy Peterson was working as a retail manager when her mother suggested that she interview at her company: Farm Bureau Financial Services. She started a career there in property pricing in 2006 and was supporting the actuarial team around 2015. That's when a new buzzword – insurtech – began proliferating across the industry. By 2018, she had transitioned into the innovation manager role, then was promoted to innovation director in 2021 and given an opportunity to create the innovation program at the company.
In May, Farm Bureau aligned its strategy team with innovation under Peterson's purview as well, creating her current role of strategy & innovation director of Farm Bureau Financial Services. She said both teams now partner across the enterprise with various leaders to help them create a vision.
"I feel like I'm in a role that's really having an impact on our company and the industry and so I'm excited to continue to be in that space, having that seat at the table to help," Peterson adds. "It depends on where leaders are at and what the specific need is. As they're building out these roadmaps, can we leverage the innovation program to explore some things? On the other side, my innovation team is out scouting and consulting to look for new opportunities and solutions to help the business."
Peterson says that one of the biggest challenges in starting the innovation program was to get people on board with trying and failing.
"You're not always going to get it right," she says. "You have to be willing to try because if you're not failing, you're not learning. That's hard for people, because we're taught that you don't fail, and that it's not okay [if you do]. But it is in the innovation space."
Peterson adds that innovation is embedded into the business now – but that isn't limited to technology. There's also a cultural component.
"Sometimes it really is simply thinking different and doing something different than you're doing today," she says. "Every day is different, I come in and there's no script for what I'm going to do. It's some of what comes up, and some 'I have this idea, let's go see if someone wants to look at that.'"
For example, the company looked specifically at digital communications in claims and helped them adopt a texting platform and such tools as smart forms.
As a leader, Peterson says she strives to be open and listen to her team. She wants to be responsive so they know she cares about their success. A manager she worked on early on with the innovation team had what she calls "infectious" energy, and she wants to duplicate that.
"A leader has this energy that's contagious and that people naturally want to be around and they want to follow their cause," she says. "It's just this different vibe – I want to bring that to the rooms that I'm in so that people think [work] is going to be exciting and fun. My success is from my team, so when my team is successful, I'm successful."
