Ann Collins isn’t just executive vice president and chief financial officer at EMC Insurance Cos. She’s also a farmer.

She and her husband grow corn and soybeans and also raise beef cattle in Adel, she said. 

Collins, 54, who is the Business Record’s 2026 Deloitte CFO of the Year, said during harvest, she’ll go to work in the morning, come home in the evening and work on the farm until 9 or 10 p.m. 

Collins serves on the EMC Inclusion Council, and she said the farm reinforces the values she experiences at work. 

“When we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, when we think about the farm and how it feeds people of all nationalities, it doesn’t matter necessarily where you live or what your background is, what we’re doing is providing sustenance. … The world depends on where it goes. It’s a nice feeling to know that our personal values of making that important just ties right in with the EMC values and what is important to EMC.” 

The Deloitte CFO of the Year award honors an individual for outstanding performance in their role as corporate financial steward. Nominations are accepted from the community and the honoree is chosen by Business Record leadership.

Collins joined EMC as senior vice president and CFO in 2021 and was promoted to executive vice president in 2022. According to her nomination, she has been instrumental in driving a turnaround in EMC’s profitability through her financial stewardship. EMC’s policyholders’ surplus grew from $1.57 billion at year-end 2023 to $1.88 billion by mid-2025 and net income rose to $241.8 million in 2024 after a net loss in 2023.

Outside of work, Collins serves as treasurer of the board of trustees for the Des Moines Symphony Association. She also chairs the audit and finance committee on the Adel DeSoto Minburn school board and serves on the Honor Ministry Committee and as church treasurer at Adel First Christian Church. 

Collins sat down with the Business Record to reflect on her career. 

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

You oversee units that include over 1,000 team members, and you have a lot of direct reports who are senior leaders. How do you communicate your vision and your priorities when leading large teams?

I try to modify my communication based on who I’m talking to, so the senior leaders, they’re in lockstep. We are involved together with setting that direction, having that shared vision, so they have that same message that I do. It’s not like I’m having to say anything really all that different to them, but when I am talking to team members or having quarterly town halls, then I do try to modify that, depending on what department they’re in, or what their functions are, or how they tie into the financial results, then I modify that so that they can feel that connection to the EMC results.

What’s your process for preparing to appear in public and public speaking?

I definitely like to feel prepared and to feel like I know the information. When I’m talking about financial results, those come fairly easily to me, because I understand the numbers, and can explain it to team members. But if I’m talking about other things, and I want to make sure that I feel really prepared, I just feel much better about it that way. It also [is] really being committed to what our company vision is, what our company values are. All of that ties together so well. So it’s not like it’s new information, it’s just how we want to communicate it.

You have a commitment to operational discipline, and you’ve driven a significant turnaround in profitability. Can you tell me what operational discipline looks like for you? 

The biggest thing starts with the data and understanding data and making decisions based on data, so that we understand, whether we’re making underwriting decisions, whether we’re making expense decisions, we need to understand how that impacts us and what we’re engaging to do so that we understand what the impact to EMC will be. Data is first and foremost what we have to start with, and then after that, it’s more about evaluating how have we done things in the past, and can we do things differently, or should we make different decisions based on that new data that we might have, or based on that collaboration? We’re a very collaborative company, and so [we] 100% encourage that cross-discipline, communication and collaboration so that people understand [how] their decisions … might impact some other department or team. Cross-company collaboration is super important for people to understand that.

Can you tell me a time when you have made a decision based on data that you’re proud of?

I will go back to last year, when we were making our decisions on how to structure our regions and structure our new business units. A lot of that was based on data, and that is setting us up so that we have a foundation for the future. I was really proud about how much data we used in making those decisions to make sure that we were setting EMC up for future success.

So how do you decide which areas to cut costs?

It’s not necessarily cutting costs, but it’s deciding on where to put our emphasis and where to put our focus. In reducing high exposure risks that we have out there, that was evaluating policy by policy, the accounts that we have, to make sure that we’re comfortable with the exposure. So if there was some significant loss, are we ready to be able to pay that claim? And so we want to make sure that we agree with all of the exposures and all of the risks that those insureds have. It’s more about understanding what we have and making sure that we feel comfortable with it.

You’ve been a proponent of using technology and you talked about data to enhance underwriting and pricing decisions. Can you talk about that and what technology you’ve implemented? 

It’s a great partnership between underwriting and actuarial and data, because what they are doing is they’re looking at accounts before they write it, and saying, ‘OK, what kind of exposures do we have, and where should that be priced compared to other accounts that we already have?’ So really making sure that we are pricing that appropriately in comparison to what we already have on the books, and we know how that’s performing so we can use that as our baseline. We’re using predictive analytics to predict how profitable that account will be, and then we can price it accordingly.

Is predictive analytics using AI?

[We’re] using some components of AI in it, but a lot of it has to do with just that underlying data that we have already on our books, and just using that to [look] at the different probabilities of how much a potential claim might cost us depending on their exposure. A lot of people geek out on all of that data, because there is a lot at our fingertips.

How else is EMC using AI right now?

I would say that AI, you’re starting with it in some customer-facing areas, in our claims area, maybe based on the types of claims that are coming in. We’re using it in data entry type positions where using more of a robotics-type application to fill in data entry things so that a person doesn’t have to manually do that. We’re seeing it in our mail room. The equipment scans the piece of mail that comes into us, and then it makes a prediction on where it should be routed based on the type of information that’s in there. If it says something about a claim, or if it says something about financial results or whatever, then it will route it to the appropriate team. 

I’d like to learn more about your leadership style. You were described as a servant leader.

Scott Jean, our president, models that servant leadership very, very well, and so that servant leadership is really about empowering our teams and being there to support them and to guide them, and allowing them to be empowered to make decisions. … Servant leadership also then focuses on development of future leaders, really making sure that we have the right mentoring development plans in place for those people who want to continue to move up within EMC. 

How do you create environments that encourage collaboration? 

That tone starts at the top. And if team members and other leaders see the senior leadership team collaborating, I think that sets a really good example. We want to model that it’s OK to have different opinions, but we have to think of EMC first. I think it’s really good to just model that and show that throughout as we work on  our annual plan, projects or initiatives. Each team is probably made up of four to six people, all from different areas, so that we make sure that we’re thinking about all of the impacts [of] those initiatives and what the required resources will be. 

I’d love to hear about who you mentor and who mentors you.

I meet weekly with Scott, our president. I also have an executive coach that I meet with on a monthly basis, quarterly basis, where we talk through whether it be specific problems or things that I’m concerned about, or if it’s more about my development. It’s a well-rounded coaching session for me. And then I meet with all of my direct reports and embed some coaching in there. But then I also offer skip-level meetings so that it’d be like one person down from my direct reports. I’d say that I probably have roughly 10 or 15 people that don’t directly report to me. We meet, we develop that relationship. We talk about business. We talk about personal things and coach and mentor that way as well.

What do you learn from mentoring? What do you get from that relationship?

I think mentoring is so valuable because I get their perspective. I get to hear what they’re worried about or what’s keeping them up at night, and so then that really allows me to think about the company more holistically, instead of just my point of view.

You serve on the inclusion council. What inspired you to join that and what have you learned from that experience?

That council is so important, because that supports all of our business resource groups. We have multiple business resource groups throughout the company that have different events or publications or communications with all team members, so that council really supports those groups and encourages people to participate, to support and make everyone feel included, whatever their resource group might be. We have a military group, we have a women’s group. We have different race groups. And so it’s really important people can be on multiple ones. … It’s so important to make sure that everyone feels included, because they’re going to give their best to EMC if they feel like EMC values them.

What are your goals going forward, in your position?

My goal is to set the foundation for EMC to have long-term strength, financial strength and stability, so that when I retire, I know that EMC is in good hands. We have set [EMC] up from a strategic perspective so that it can be financially successful for many more years to come. Also, part of that vision, then, is to create business leaders so that they have good financial acumen so that they’re going to make those good business decisions as they continue to move forward as well.

Is there anything that you wanted to add?

This honor is a great recognition, but it’s recognition for EMC and all of the growth and financial success that they’ve had over the last few years, and that it’s all a collective effort based on all of the team members and the other leaders.