Ron Keller joined Iowa Network Services Inc., now Aureon, as president and CEO in 2011. Prior to joining INS, Keller was senior vice president for Aviva North America and spent 27 years at Nationwide Insurance as vice president of IT and strategic planning. Keller is a board member for iWireless and Ripple Effect, an economic development program for rural Iowa. He is also a community board member for Bankers Trust and a member of the Des Moines Rotary Club.

Are you an Iowa native? 
I was born in Fort Belvoir, Va., when my father was in the service, but only lived there for six months. So the rest of my life has been here. I grew up in Urbandale and graduated from Urbandale High School in 1970. … I always thought I might end up someplace else, but the more exposure I’ve had to other parts of the country, the more I’ve realized this is a great place to stay and raise a family. 

How did you get started in your career?
I actually started with Allied Insurance (now Nationwide) as a methods analyst, looking at work measurement, work processes. I moved from that into a newly created planning department, to do strategic planning and operations planning for the company. That in turn led me to doing an array of different things for the company. We started up a personal financial planning service, a tax preparation service and a brokerage firm. … Ultimately I was in charge of IT, but continued to retain responsibility for strategic planning and mergers and acquisitions. When Nationwide acquired Allied, (CEO) Steve Rasmussen and I were the ones responsible for making sure the integration occurred and that the goals Nationwide had for the acquisition were achieved. 

What did you do at AmerUs/Aviva? 
I reported to Roger Brooks as senior vice president. My only job description was to change things. As it turned out, shortly after I arrived on the scene we were involved in some merger and acquisition activity. … I did quite a bit of work again looking at strategically what was the direction of the organization. It was right about that time that the financial crisis hit, so expansion plans into South America were put on hold. That was a fascinating time to be part of that culture and part of a very large global operation. 

How did you come to INS?
I was contacted by a recruiter about this opportunity. My predecessor was retiring from the role, so they were looking for someone to fill his spot. I was very candid with the board that if they were looking for someone with a very strong telecommunications background, that wasn’t me. But I think in the end they felt like there was already the technical expertise in the organization. There was and still is a lot of uncertainty in the telecommunications industry; I think they wanted an outside perspective to look at things differently and question why are we doing things this way? 

What are the key things you’re focusing on at Aureon? 
For us, not only was a change in strategic direction needed, but it’s also a huge cultural change expanding into these other businesses and moving out of what was on the telecommunications side very heavily regulated. Some of the employees didn’t like me saying this, but when I first arrived I shared that we might have grown complacent. We had been so successful in the past, it was easy to sit back and continue to do things the way we’ve always done them and see the same results, and that’s not the case. … I wanted to change the focus to being one of continuous improvement. 

How do you see yourself influencing the company’s culture? 
In a lot of different ways. Senior management’s role is to provide the vision for the organization and to create the organizational structure and provide the resources, and then just get out of the way. The first thing from a cultural perspective is creating this vision of the future. For a lot of folks, you’ve got connect the dots. Why do they need to change? What’s behind this? I’m a firm believer in open, honest communications. 

Challenges ahead? 
There are some undeniable facts about households not having landlines anymore, about the nature of the technology completely changing, the fact that our core business is in rural Iowa … so we’re fighting demographics. The households we serve are above average age, below average household income, not a real recipe for success. Our centralized equal access revenues have declined because of that; it’s a fact. If you don’t do something, there’s nothing automatic that’s going to make that turn around. … I spend a lot of time telling people there’s a huge opportunity here if we think differently. 

How do you address those challenges? 
I felt like this really needed to become a performance-oriented organization. That meant setting goals both for the company and for individuals. Making sure our compensation plans are aligned with that. I’m a big believer in incentive compensation and rewarding people for the results of the organization and their individual contributions. And that we are hiring top talent. If you don’t have the right people, you’re not going to survive, even if you’ve got the best plans in the world. 

Tell me about the Ripple Effect. 
We have a program here called the Ripple Effect. It’s a partnership we have with the Iowa Area Development Group in which INS has agreed to offer some loans and grants to companies across Iowa. We do this hand-in-hand with our phone companies, or it may be our communities trying to accomplish a project like an industrial park. I’ve found that to be real rewarding to be able to see the organization and the shareholders support those kinds of initiatives. 

Outside interests? 
I make my attempts at golf; I’ve done that for a long time. The other members of my family have sucked all the golf talent away. My wife used to be a scratch golfer when she was in high school. My stepson was a professional golfer for a number of years, and my daughter was on the state championship golf team at Valley. They were fortunate to get all the golf talent; I don’t have any.