SPECTRUM VIRTUAL VIDEO
Salene Hitchcock-Gear
Salene Hitchcock-Gear is president of Prudential Individual Life Insurance. Prudential Individual Life Insurance is a business unit of Prudential that offers competitive solutions to meet the needs of consumers through the manufacturing and distribution of a diverse portfolio of life insurance products. An insurance industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience, Hitchcock-Gear joined Prudential in 2017 as chief operating officer of Prudential Advisors, the company’s national sales organization with more than 3,000 financial professionals, advisors and fee-based financial planners who offer clients a broad range of financial solutions. She was appointed president of both businesses in 2018. Previously, Hitchcock-Gear served as president and CEO of Ameritas Investment Corp. and president and CEO of Acacia Life Insurance Company. Hitchcock-Gear represents Prudential as a director on the Women Presidents’ Organization Advisory Board. She also serves on the board of trustees of the American College of Financial Services. Hitchcock-Gear has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law, as well as FINRA Series 7 and 24 securities licenses. She is a member of the New York State Bar Association.
Senior vice president of Inclusive Solutions at Prudential Financial and chair of The Prudential Foundation. In these roles, Reddy harnesses the power of capital markets to drive financial and social mobility. By combining diversity strategies, impact investments, philanthropy, corporate contributions and employee engagement with Prudential’s full business capabilities, she helps position the company to promote inclusive economic opportunity and sustainable growth. Under Reddy’s leadership, Prudential became one of the first institutional investors to grow and manage an impact investing portfolio with $1 billion in assets under management. Additionally, she oversees a yearly grant-making budget of $40 million through The Prudential Foundation, and a $20 million corporate contributions budget.
Ellen is an award-winning journalist, and covers race, culture and leadership in a daily column for Fortune called RaceAhead. Her reporting has taken her inside the C-Suites of Facebook, Nike, Twitter, Intel, Xerox and Cisco; on the campaign trail with Barack Obama, and across Africa with Bono to study breakthrough philanthropy. In the past, she’s written for Time, Money and Fast Company, where she wrote or contributed to more than twenty cover stories. Back when the web was young, she was the founder of a financial website for women called “Cassandra’s Revenge,” and established similar sites for AOL and Oxygen Media. Ellen was the lead editor for Your First Leadership Job, a book published by Wiley in 2015. She attended Brown University and is on the board of L’Ecole de Choix, an elementary school in Mirebalais, Haiti.
