N.C. mutual CEO puts a premium on profit.

• Author: Roush, Chris
• Position: PEOPLE

When James H. Speed Jr. was a student at N.C. Central University in Durham in the early 1970s, he would go downtown to North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. headquarters, where his sister worked. Once inside, he would hit her up for a small loan. "She never got paid back though," he says, laughing.

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Speed, 51, is back and still looking for money. President and CEO since January 2004, he's trying to push N.C. Mutual back to profitability. The nation's largest black-owned insurer, with $175 million in assets, was in the red in 2002 and 2003 because of a disastrous expansion into student-accident insurance. He says it will break even this year and should be profitable in 2005.

The 106-year-old company was founded by John Merrick--its first president--and Aaron Moore, Durham's first black physician. It sold insurance policies and collected premiums for decades by going door to door in black neighborhoods. It was a cornerstone of Durham's black business district, known as "Black Wall Street." Speed is only the third president with no relation to the founding families.

An Oxford native, he studied bookkeeping as a high-school senior, and his teacher encouraged him to pursue a career in accounting. In college he learned about certified public accountants. "There weren't many African-American CPAs at that time. But one was Bert Collins." Collins had joined N.C. Mutual in 1967. A well-known figure in Durham and in black business, he became CEO in 1990. The company was profitable under Collins until 2002.

Speed earned a bachelor's in accounting from NCCU in 1975 and moved to Pittsburgh to work for glass and chemical manufacturer PPG Industries. He returned to school in 1977 and earned an MBA from Atlanta University. He then spent 12 years with Deloitte &amp...