the new finance chief have strategic vision, acquisitional expertise and an instinct for streamlining. Those, it seems, are the qualities needed to keep the

$2 billion-revenue company focused on growth, and those are the qualities that Allen W. Ritchie brings.

Strategic Shedding

"Protective was not looking for a typical CFO," explains Ritchie. "They were

looking for someone to be a partner to [soon-to-be CEO John D.] Johns and the board, someone with a bit more strategic perspective than your typical

custodial CFO."

In fact, Protective's No. 1 and No. 2 executives were as brand new to the

industry when they joined the company as Ritchie is now. But that was never a problem for them and won't be for him, notes Ritchie, because current CEO

Drayton Nabers Jr. and COO Johns, lawyers by training, have always cultivated and relied on the people around them. "We have a world of deep

insurance talent here," Ritchie says.

That means he can start doing what he's done before and does best: helping

the company drop non-core areas and strengthen core ones. Protective's subsidiaries provide life insurance, guaranteed investment contracts and other

retirement savings and investment products. The company also sells specialty insurance through financial

institutions. Having grown by acquisition and

buying existing policy blocks, the company is now shedding non-core

businesses.

Turnaround Artist

In July Protective said it will sell its dental benefits division for about $300

million and exit other health insurance lines to focus on life insurance, retirement savings and credit business. It is also buying two U.S. life units

from Dublin-based Irish Life & Permanent for about $250 million. When those transactions are completed in the fourth quarter of this year, the company will

plow the freed-up capital back into existing businesses, says Ritchie.

Before taking his current post, the 43-year-old was CEO of Per-Se

Technologies, an Atlanta-based health care technology and services company that had been losing money amid lawsuits, government investigations into its

billing practices and high employee turnover. Ritchie pared its operations from seven divisions to three and returned the company to some level of profitability

before leaving in 2000. "That was a clear turnaround, a survivability issue," he

says.

Before that, Ritchie had stepped up from CFO to president of Duluth,

Ga.-based farm equipment maker AGCO, where he helped acquire several struggling companies, boosted operating margins by about 10% to 12% and

increased sales to about $3.3 billion from $250 million. "Much of what I did at

AGCO and Per-Se was both strategic and financial," he says.

Now, he says, he expects to help Johns chart future strategies when Johns

turns CEO at year-end, replacing Nabers, who will remain chairman. "Our [future] growth strategy is more of the same: internal growth supplemented by

acquisitions, with a focus on earnings and return on invested capital."