Western & Southern Financial Group has announced the promotion of John H. Bultema III to president and chief executive officer of The Lafayette Life Insurance Company, a member company of Western & Southern. He will succeed Bryan C. Dunn, who is retiring, effective Dec. 1. Bultema will continue to report directly to Jill T. McGruder, Western & Southern chief marketing officer.
“Bringing more than two decades of financial industry and leadership experience, John has successfully led our institutional markets team for the past two years,” said John F. Barrett, Western & Southern chairman, president and chief executive officer. “He has tremendous leadership qualities and is uniquely positioned to lead Lafayette Life to effectively meet the needs of our clients, customers and policyholders.”
Bultema joined Western & Southern in 2017 as the senior vice president of Institutional Markets with responsibility for building institutional relationships in the pension risk transfer, bank-owned life insurance and other markets. He has been developing solution suites that deliver group retirement and personal protection products to small businesses. This work will continue in his new role with Lafayette Life and will provide further opportunities to leverage the highly regarded retirement services capabilities of Lafayette Life.
Prior to joining Western & Southern, Bultema had a 22-year career at Fifth Third Bank and Old Kent Bank, where he held a variety of leadership positions, including regional president and chief executive officer – Central Florida; regional president – Western Michigan; executive vice president – Business Banking Group; and executive vice president – Currency Processing and Treasury Management. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Grand Valley State University and an MBA from Western Michigan University.
Dunn’s retirement will conclude a distinguished career in the life insurance industry and 24 years of service with Western & Southern. Dunn began his career with Prudential Life Insurance. He joined Western & Southern as senior vice president and director of agency for W&S Agency Group in 1995. He was promoted to senior vice president and chief marketing officer in 1996 and to president in 2004. Dunn was named president and chief executive officer of Lafayette Life in 2012.
“We welcome John to his new role and wish Bryan many happy years in retirement,” Barrett said.
About Western & Southern Financial Group
Founded in Cincinnati in 1888 as The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, Western & Southern Financial Group, Inc. (Western & Southern), a Fortune 500 company, is now the parent company of a group of diversified financial services businesses. Its assets owned ($57 billion) and managed ($26 billion) totaled $83 billion as of Sept. 30, 2019. Western & Southern is one of the strongest life insurance groups in the world. Its seven life insurance subsidiaries (The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, Western-Southern Life Assurance Company, Columbus Life Insurance Company, Gerber Life Insurance Company, Integrity Life Insurance Company, The Lafayette Life Insurance Company, and National Integrity Life Insurance Company) maintain very strong financial ratings. Other member companies include Eagle Realty Group, LLC; Fort Washington Investment Advisors, Inc.;1 IFS Financial Services, Inc.; Touchstone Advisors, Inc.;1 Touchstone Securities, Inc.;2 W&S Brokerage Services, Inc.;2 and W&S Financial Group Distributors, Inc. Western & Southern is the title sponsor of six major community events every year, including the Western & Southern Open, a premier event in the U.S. Open Series played each August by the world’s top-ranked professional male and female tennis players.
1 A registered investment advisor.
2 A registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC.
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