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Jay Fishman Stepping Down As CEO Of Travelers

This article is more than 8 years old.

Jay Fishman announced on Tuesday that he will be stepping down as chief executive officer of Travelers in December, ending a remarkable run at the only insurance company that is part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Fishman has been battling a neuromuscular illness that he believes to be a variant of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis that was first disclosed publicly last year. After his initial diagnosis, Fishman decided he wanted to keep doing what made him most fulfilled and remained CEO of Travelers, continuing to show up for work each day—the only difference being that he used a cane to help him walk. But the illness has progressed in recent months. Alan Schnitzer, who currently runs one of Travelers’ biggest units, the business international insurance group, will become the company’s next CEO and Fishman will remain its executive chairman.

“At every company there comes a time for new leadership,” Fishman said in a note to Travelers employees on Tuesday. “Because of the progression of my neuromuscular condition, this time has come a little earlier than I had hoped.”

In an era of Wall Street excesses and irresponsible financial behavior, Fishman stood out for his decency and restraint. He emerged with Sandy Weill’s gang at Primerca after Jamie Dimon convinced Fishman it would be a good idea. Fishman first ran Travelers in 1998 before becoming co-chief operating officer of Citigroup in 2000 along side Chuck Prince. Fishman quit about a year later, leaving Weill and the rest of Wall Street to wonder how history might have been different if Fishman had chosen to remain.

Instead, Fishman went to Minnesota and became CEO of the St. Paul Cos., turning it around with the help of his ex-Citi colleague, William Heyman, who became the insurer’s chief investment officer. Fishman bumped into Heyman on the streets of Manhattan just after Heyman had quit his position at Citi and offered Heyman the job. Fishman bought Travelers in an $18 billion deal in 2004 and the company, which did not take a bailout, sailed through the financial crisis unscathed while rivals like AIG imploded.

Over the last ten years, Travelers’ stock has outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index; it has also outperformed Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Fishman appeared on the cover of Forbes Magazine in 2011. Fishman and Heyman helped popularize a strategy in the insurance industry that sees the investment arm's purpose as supporting the writing of insurance and prudent investing, particularly in the company's stock, as opposed to having insurance premiums become the source of capital to invest boldly.

"It is important to me that I let each of you know that I get way too much personal credit for the success we have experienced together,” Fishman told Travelers’ employees on Tuesday. “The credit for our success is to be shared by everyone here."

Fishman kept things light while hosting one of his last conference calls as CEO on Tuesday, starting out by talking about what the next CEO of Travelers had taught him. "Alan Schnitzer taught me a while ago that the day breaks down to two portions, there is the caffeine portion and the alcohol portion," Fishman said. "I am sitting here with a glass of wine and am well into the alcohol portion."