Starting in January, the former intern will be 145-year-old Principal’s first female CEO and president. Strable is succeeding Dan Houston, president and CEO since 2016, a close friend, mentor, and colleague she has worked side-by-side with for years. Strable is a fount of business knowledge, meeting with the Fortune team earlier this week to discuss everything from her advice to early-career workers—”For your hard skills, lean into your strengths. For your soft skills, lean into your weaknesses,” she says—to the growing trend of CFOs becoming CEOs. But one of the most striking parts of the conversation was her reflections on all of the men who have stepped up to support her throughout her career. Houston reconfigured his own career and retirement timeline so that she could be in the running for the top spot. Her husband, who was also an executive at Principal, retired ahead of her promotion (he would have reported to her, which Principal does not allow). Other bosses throughout her three-plus-decades at the company pushed her outside of her comfort zone and told her she was capable of more.“I needed a little nudge most of the time” says Strable of taking on increasingly senior roles. And when she did move on, “it was never about a particular job. It was more about, do I continue to feel challenged? Am I learning every day when I come to work? Do I enjoy who I’m working with, and do I see us, me, contributing to the company in a positive way?”Strable also emphasized the importance of finding a work environment that encourages—and helps facilitate—employees to move around and try new things. She was given the opportunity to transition from technical roles to leadership ones, and worked in different departments across the company throughout her career, including a stint abroad in Brussels. All of those teachings have helped propel her to becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company (Principal is currently 310 on the list).Of course, Strable owes just as much credit to her own work ethic and strategic thinking. Over time, she created a leadership mantra for herself: “I’m going to try to work myself out of a job.” Much like the mentors who pushed her, that meant preparing her team to take over for her while solving as many problems as she could. By doing so, she could signal to more senior leaders that she was ready for the next opportunity, whatever that might be. But it has other benefits for Principal as a whole.“It really helped me reinforce how I was leading my people, how I was delegating to them, how I was teaching them,” she says. “It did help me be considered for opportunities, because if the organization can see you have a good successor, they’re going to be more willing to move you to another role.”Strable has plenty of plans for her time as CEO, but one of her priorities will be to continue to mentor the next generation of workers at Principal. After all, the next transformative executive just may be the current intern.Alicia Adamczykalicia.adamczyk@fortune.comThe Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.ALSO IN THE HEADLINES- Cabinet news. GOP donor and former Small Business Association administrator Linda McMahon is Donald Trump's pick to serve as secretary of education. 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VoxThe unusual power of VW’s union boss is being put to the test Wall Street JournalPARTING WORDS“It is time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it looks at rape.”— Gisele Pelicot addressing the court for the third time at her husband’s mass rape trialThis is the web version of MPW Daily, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
