New York Life, America’s largest1 mutual life insurer, announced the appointment of Wykeeta Peel as Market Manager of the company’s African American Market Unit (AAMU). The AAMU is New York Life’s team of managers and agents focused on financially empowering and uplifting Black communities by creating generational wealth. Ms. Peel will be responsible for developing and executing New York Life’s targeted recruiting, sales, and marketing campaigns within the Black community on a national scale. She will continue to lead the Women’s Market strategy for New York Life as well.
“New York Life has a long history of hiring, training, and developing successful Black agents and managers, and today has one of the largest African American sales forces in the life insurance industry,” said Ms. Peel. “The AAMU’s mission centers on raising financial literacy in our local communities, many of whom are underserved, and increasing the understanding of financial tools and strategies that have been underutilized and underleveraged within our market for decades.”
New York Life’s AAMU supports and develops agents in a variety of ways. This includes developing culturally relevant material, mentoring, facilitating study groups, and hosting workshops and conferences that build camaraderie, share best practices, prepare personal business development plans, and enhance networking.
In 2017, the AAMU achieved the group’s goal of creating $50 billion of transferrable wealth through life insurance benefits to help reduce the racial wealth gap and the company continues to build on this mission-driven growth. New York Life and the AAMU recently launched “RISE: The Empowerment Plan for the African American Market.” Standing for Reach, Inspire, Secure, and Empower, RISE was founded to help change the financial future of Black America and help close the wealth gap by focusing on three key pillars: financial empowerment, educational empowerment, and community empowerment.
“The AAMU continues to play a major role in the success and growth of New York Life’s field force,” said Mark Madgett, New York Life’s Head of Agency. “Building on the AAMU’s momentum is vital and in Wykeeta we have a proven leader who has a keen understanding of the financial issues most relevant to the Black community. She also brings insights gained from her work as a core member of our Social Justice Steering Committee over the past 18 months. We know she will bring that same spirit, innovation, and leadership to her new role as head of the AAMU and that she will continue to be driven by a passion to bring insurance and financial products, services, and wealth education to the African American community.”
Ms. Peel takes over the AAMU role from Eric Jackson, who now serves as Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Agency where he leads efforts focused on equity and inclusion, talent, and more effectively advancing the cause of social justice specifically within New York Life’s industry leading agent force2 of over 12,000 financial professionals.
New York Life’s AAMU is part of the company’s differentiated Cultural Markets strategy that has, for decades, delivered holistic advice, human guidance, and dedicated service to African American, Chinese, Korean, Latino, South Asian, and Vietnamese communities across the United States.
