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Scott Davison has been CEO of OneAmerica Financial Partners—which offers retirement plans and products, life insurance and long-term care benefits—since 2014 and board chair since 2017. He leads a company with more than $3 billion in revenue and more than 2,300 employees.
Davison is chair of the Indiana University Health board; co-chair of the local organizing committee for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials; and a member of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, Ascend Indiana and Business Equity for Indy boards.
On leadership
Growing people is incredibly rewarding. The only way to achieve results as a leader—and to do so repeatedly over the course of a career—is to inspire others to reach their full potential, meeting them where they are and coaching them along the way. It’s fulfilling to mentor people and to see them transform from early-career professionals into leaders and even top executives who develop their own highly effective teams.
Hobbies
I’m a lifelong swimmer. For me, it presents the right mix of physical challenge, mental focus and fun. And as much as I like my time in the pool, I also enjoy coaching youth teams and introducing people to the sport.
Helping revitalize the Natatorium [at IUPUI] and restore it to a world-class space for amateurs and elite athletes alike was a passion project of mine. Now with the 2024 Olympic Swim Trials on the horizon in Indy, I’m viewing this as an opportunity to introduce even more members of our community to all aspects of swimming—including water safety and swim lessons for all ages.
There are very few sports that can truly be lifelong hobbies and be enjoyed by people of all ability levels. Swimming is unique in that way, and that’s part of the draw.
Advice for young people
Make it a priority to be accountable to others and to yourself—and learn to think of accountability as a big book of knowledge, with every chapter representing a valuable lesson learned either through achievement or failure. Both are important, and both can help guide you as you progress.
Too often, I see people who decide early in their career to treat accountability as a heavy weight. They lug it around, recounting and dwelling on every mistake they ever made. The sooner you can develop a growth mindset, the richer and more fulfilling your career will be.
Favorite civic contribution
Developing and sharing our OneAmerica Pathways Program with nonprofits, local government agencies and businesses in our home community—and now nationally—has been a highlight of my career.
What began as an idea in 2018 has grown to become a sustainable-wage initiative, work-based learning and mentoring for high school students, modern apprenticeships and co-op opportunities for local college students. It has enriched our culture and deepened our community connections in ways we never could have imagined. And I’m incredibly proud that we continue to share this program in an open-source format with other organizations that may be able to benefit from our learnings.•
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