Change-Agent

Industry influencer Mike James shares his journey to inspire others to pursue opportunity

When Mike James took the platform as Finseca’s new chair at the organization’s 2024 annual gathering in Washington, D.C., it was a far cry from his early days at such industry events where he recalls, other than for the wait staff, being the only person of color.

As the first Black chair in the group’s more than 50-year history, James is the widely welcomed and popular face not only of inclusion but opportunity in an industry that is still working to elevate diversity to levels it wants and needs.

James has earned this position of influence and responsibility in the industry’s foremost advocacy group by combining a focus on self-improvement with a peripheral eye for how he might help others. His efforts have generated industrywide appreciation. Finseca CEO Marc Cadin observes that “when [Mike] walks in the room, everybody in there becomes a better version of themselves because he just has an electric charisma and connectivity.”

“MJ,” as he is widely known, “has this ability to draw people in,” Cadin adds. “At the same point, he’s got the ability to say, ‘I hear you, and I hear you, and I hear you, and I hear you, but we’ve got to get moving and we should go here.’ It’s a really unique combination of engaging people and leading.”

For his part, James acknowledges the significance of his Finseca appointment and hopes it augurs further progress. “What I enjoy the most is actually bringing people together, hosting groups that can learn from one another,” he says. “I do it every day in my job; now I can do it across our profession.” Speaking with Korsgaden Insights a few months into his chairmanship, James is pleased to have seen Finseca membership top 10,000 (“the growth is really important”) and attain more diversity through his ability “to partner and bring people together that historically had not been.”

Finseca now has the most diverse board of directors in the history of the combined organization, “with males, females, distribution leaders, different demographic groups that work different segments of the market,” James notes. “I like to think that when certain people see me in this position, they see the possibilities for themselves. It’s safe to go for it and they’re ready to step forward in new ways. So I’m excited . . . I know there’s a significance to [my role] and I try to lean into it.”

‘A game-changer’

James’ appointment recognizes his success in both the C-suite and the nonprofit committee rooms. After more than 14 years with John Hancock Life Insurance Co., he joined NFP in 2006. As executive vice president and chief sales officer, he is part of the leadership team responsible for advancing what Doug Hammond, the CEO of NFP (acquired by the global giant Aon in a reported $13 billion deal that closed in April 2024) describes as a collaborative, people-first culture focused on helping clients overcome their biggest challenges. 

On the professional development side, James served in various capacities with the former Association for Advanced Life Underwriting before it merged with GAMA Global in 2020 to form Finseca (whose board he joined).

His impact in the area of diversity has been considerable, including a formative role in Nationwide’s creation of the Financial Alliance for Racial Equality, which brings industry representatives and Historically Black Colleges and Universities together to promote recruitment to the financial services industry. His many honors include the National African American Insurance Association Corporate Leader Award (2022), Chinese American Insurance Association New Year Honoree (2024) and City of Hope’s 2024 Spirit of Life Honoree, where his campaign for prostate cancer (which disproportionately affects Black men) raised close to $1 million.

Pointing to industry events catering to different minority groups, he is encouraged by the way they are providing opportunities for professional development. “They’re not integrated into a lot of these other meetings that have been around a long time,” he says, “but they have their own, which is great, and so there’s a day coming where more of this comes together.”

James is big on providing opportunities for people because it was being given one that opened the door to a career in financial services for him. He grew up in Boston, the youngest of five children born to blue-collar immigrant parents from Central America; Mom worked in a nursing home and Dad was a merchant seaman away at sea for long stretches.

James and his siblings got to be part of a city program that bussed them out to schools in the suburbs. Though he was a straight-A student, “Boston could be a little rough,” James recalls. “All the trappings of an inner city were right in front of me . . . friends that were dealing drugs, friends that had gotten killed. Going to another environment was a game changer.”

Scoring a basketball scholarship to American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts, James originally intended to become an attorney (earning a degree in criminal justice). Then, in his sophomore year, he learned about an internship program in Boston that gave him a spot with John Hancock, which introduced him to the possibilities in the industry.

“I knew early on I wanted to be a professional,” he remembers. “I enjoyed public speaking, I enjoyed traveling, I enjoyed leading. Those things were inherent in who I am even before I had a career path. I knew I wanted those things and then it was a matter of what does it line up with and as I got into the insurance and financial services world, it lined up pretty cleanly.”

Importantly, he had some early Black mentors, which “helped me to understand that there was this professional track that people of color were in positions that I could see and ask, ‘Well, how’d you get there? How’d that start for you? And am I doing something that could potentially rise to that level, if I start here?’ And the answer was unequivocally yes.”

That experience may seem to contradict the notion that the financial services world needs more diversity, but not so. James says that when he attended conferences in the early years, he was often the only non-white in attendance, but that didn’t mean the industry had no diversity. As he progressed in his career, he came across numbers of other Black, Asian and Hispanic professionals. However, “they had roles, but their names weren’t on the door, and they weren’t running the business,” he says. “They weren’t in leadership.”

‘A deliberate strategy’

James shares his experiences and achievements—speaking to the Financial Alliance for Racial Equality for a 2024 Black History Month leadership profile, for example—not to brag but to offer encouragement and inspiration to others. “I’ve kind of paid my dues,” he says. “I kind of walked the walk. And so it feels good to say to young people, ‘I’ve done it. And no one stopped me.’”

That’s not to say he hasn’t faced obstacles. “Did some things have to change to have me there? Yeah, of course they did. People had to listen to a perspective that wasn’t what they were used to.” But James is less concerned about why things were the way they were back then than the trajectory of things today. “Our history knows what was deliberate and what was not in this country,” he says of inequality and injustice. “I just think that we live in a world now, and I grew up in an industry over the last 33 years, that I’ve seen change because there were deliberate strategies to invite that change, and that’s what I love about it.”

He wouldn’t be in the position he is now without a diversity initiative, he notes, referencing his internship introduction to John Hancock. “That was a deliberate strategy to bring young people like me into this profession, frankly, and to retain them in the city of Boston, because if they went on to higher education in other cities, oftentimes wherever they went to school, they would lose them to those cities. And so it was an inducer, an enticement to bringing us back.”

For James, increased diversity isn’t just the right thing; it’s a strategic imperative as the industry faces a widely anticipated ageing-out crisis. But in addition to more minorities and women filling those spots, James sees an opportunity in building pipelines for second-career professionals coming into the sector with related experience as CPAs and attorneys.

“The positioning of products and services is different,” James notes. “We have less career companies that recruit and bring people into the business, but we have lots of adjacent financial institutions that are developing people—wealth management, retirement—every day who sell and distribute our industry’s products. We have to think differently about how we bring people into the profession.”

‘A badge of honor’

James’ success has been marked by a spirit of determination and a sense of duty. When he earned that early internship, he turned up for it carrying a briefcase (“It didn’t have much in it, at least to start: a Boston Herald, a pack of Juicy Fruit and a Reese’s Cup or a Snickers bar.”) because he wanted to appear professional.

Plus, he was cheered on by people in his community who saw him heading off to a job in downtown Boston, which was “a badge of honor.” “Every day I stepped out the door, there were parents and people on my street that were like, ‘You go, man, you look great. You go downtown and you show them where you come from.’” The bus driver would tell James he was proud of him. “I got that at every turn, because it wasn’t something that was natural to see. And so I had built-in encouragement just stepping out the door. That empowered me, fueled me, and eventually that briefcase had life insurance illustrations in it, had brochures in it, had notes and memos in it.”

That personal anecdote illustrates another quality Cadin observes in James—his ability to balance having big dreams with being OK with taking small steps toward achieving them; an atypical leadership harmony borne out of his own experience. “He’s never somebody that’s like, ‘Hey, let’s try to boil the ocean and try to get everything done all at once,’” Cadin says. “Mike’s a guy that says, ‘OK, wherever you are in your journey’—and you’ll hear him talk about his journey a lot—‘has put you where you are. Now, the question is, where are you going? And how do you take another step and another step and another step and not try to bite it all off [at once]?’

“If you can just acquire a bit more perspective, another skill, some broader balance, if you just do that a little bit every day and just continue to grow in your journey, then it’ll take you to amazing things.” 

‘Full circle’

 Though he’s now far removed from the daily details of premiums and claims, in his big-picture leadership role James is still fueled by the impact financial security has on individual lives and, in turn, families and communities.

James lost his father when he was a freshman, but a life insurance policy and a pension “powered our family after his death.” More recently, James mourned the passing of a couple who had been longtime dear friends to him and his wife, Jessica. During a conversation before their deaths, James had encouraged the husband to increase his insurance, saying, “God forbid, if anything happens to you, you’ve got to have coverage for [your] kids; they’re in college, you just have to.”

The friend took the advice, while James was able to help secure life insurance for the man’s wife, whose health condition restricted her options. Not long after making those changes, the couple died within four months of each other.

“It was those two decisions that powered that family,” James says. “Paid the mortgage off, paid off their tuition, paid their living expenses, kept the kids in the house . . . So this business came full circle for me when I was able to do that and see the power of these resources.” That personal anecdote then becomes a teaching moment as he adds, “And that’s why you don’t know which conversation, which decision, which move is going to be game-changing to somebody.”

 Each year James speaks to the same intern program that set him on his career path and supports other community initiatives in Boston, including a basketball-centered afterschool program, No Books No Ball, and the YMCA. “These are similar to the places that got me off the street. I believe that if you’ve got the ability to positively impact underrepresented groups, you should,” he says.

James returns to that thought in response to the last question of this interview: what hasn’t he been asked that perhaps he should have been? “What’s nice is that you didn’t ask me about money, wealth, because that doesn’t matter,” he answers. “The success I’ve had in this business is being returned back to the same places that helped empower and put me where I am.” Sure, he has been rewarded for his success, “but it’s not just the material things that I’ve been able to acquire or enjoy; it’s the exponential placement of what I can put back into the places that helped bring me to where I am.”