Chairman of MetLife Financial Services to Speak at UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – C. Robert Henrikson, chairman, president and CEO of MetLife Financial Services, will speak to students and faculty of The University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Commerce Friday, Nov. 14, at 11 a.m. in Alston Hall, room 40.

MetLife is the nation’s largest insurance company and has its world headquarters in New York. The company was founded in New York in 1863.

Henrikson’s visit is part of the business school’s Lowder Lecture series, which brings prominent business people to campus.

Dr. William Rabel, professor of finance and head of the UA insurance program, said Forbes Magazine listed MetLife as “the best managed insurance company in the U.S. in 2008.”

“In the wake of the economic crisis, this is a rare opportunity to hear from one of the financial industry’s pioneers,” Rabel said.

Appointed CEO and chairman in March and April 2006, respectively, Henrikson has led MetLife record financial results. In 2007, MetLife earned $54 billion in annual revenue, grew total assets to exceed $550 billion at year-end and ranked 43rd on the FORTUNE 500®.

Henrikson is a board member and chairman-elect of the American Council of Life Insurers, Chairman of the Financial Services Forum, and a board member emeritus of the American Benefits Council. He also serves on the National Board of Advisors at the Morehouse School of Medicine, the board of directors of The New York Botanical Garden and the New York Philharmonic, and is a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History.

Henrikson, a Birmingham native, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Emory University School of Law. He serves as chairman of the board of Wharton’s S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education and as an alumni trustee of Emory University.

He lives in Connecticut with his wife of more than 30 years, Mary. They have two grown sons and a grandson.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was established in 1919, and, in 1929, it became the 38th school to earn admission into the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business. The excellence of the UA business school has been acknowledged on a national level. The undergraduate program is ranked 29th among public universities by U.S. News, and the Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 15th among public universities by U.S. News. The graduate accounting program is ranked 15th, and the undergraduate program 14th, by Public Accounting Report. The entrepreneurial program is ranked 20th nationally.