Chairman of The Principal to Retire

Larry Zimpleman, chairman at The Principal, will retire from the organization on January 4. He will continue to serve on the board of directors as non-executive chairman.

Zimpleman drove a number of significant advancements for The Principal during his 44 years with the organization, says Dan Houston, president and chief executive officer at The Principal. “He was instrumental in developing our international pension and long-term savings strategy, and in exporting our expertise to high potential markets around the world,” Houston says.

Zimpleman joined the company in 1971 as an actuarial intern. From 1976 to 2006, he served in various management and leadership positions at the officer level, mostly in the U.S. retirement business. He was named president and chief operating officer of The Principal in 2006; president and chief executive officer in 2008; and president, chairman and CEO until August 2015.

For his extraordinary contributions to the retirement plan industry, Zimpleman was given the PLANSPONSOR Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 at PLANSPONSOR’s annual Awards for Excellence ceremony in New York.

Zimpleman also played a critical role in launching the firm’s initial public offering in 2001, according to Houston, who also cited Zimpleman’s leadership through the Great Recession as most noteworthy.