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September 9, 2025|Leadership

The Nexus Profile: Zinnia's CEO on Building the Rails for Financial Longevity

How Zinnia is Transforming Insurance from the Ground Up

Building the Infrastructure for Financial Security

How Zinnia is Transforming Insurance from the Ground Up

In a recent profile with Future Nexus, Zinnia CEO Michele Trogni shared her vision for reimagining the infrastructure that powers life insurance and annuities. The conversation reveals how Zinnia is tackling one of the industry's most fundamental challenges: creating the technology backbone needed to make financial protection accessible to every family in North America.

“Our goal is to ensure that every family in North America has the financial longevity to match their wellness and health longevity,” Trogni explains. It's an ambitious mission that requires rethinking how insurance technology is built from the ground up.

Starting at the Source

The key insight driving Zinnia's approach is deceptively simple but profoundly impactful: you can't fix an industry's data and technology problems by patching systems in the middle of the process.

“I strongly believe you cannot fix data and technology from the middle down. You have to start at the origination point.”

— MICHELE TROGNI, CEO OF ZINNIA

This philosophy shapes everything Zinnia builds. By creating data standards and connecting them end-to-end across the entire insurance lifecycle, Zinnia enables the industry to work more efficiently—for carriers and consumers alike.

Building the Connected Platform

Zinnia's approach combines strategic acquisitions with organic innovation to create a comprehensive technology ecosystem. The acquisition of Policygenius brought consumer-facing capabilities that complement Zinnia's carrier infrastructure, while the purchase of Ebix's Life and Annuity business expanded market reach significantly.

But scale alone isn't the goal. The real transformation comes from making insurance products easier to understand, purchase, and manage—transforming what has traditionally been an opaque and complex process into something transparent and accessible.

Protection Gap
51%
of American adults owned at least one life insurance policy as of 2024

Technology as an Enabler

Throughout the profile, Trogni emphasizes that technology isn't about disruption for its own sake. It's about enabling better outcomes—helping families secure their financial futures, making advisors more effective, and allowing carriers to serve more customers efficiently.

“If you can create the data standards—and connect them end-to-end, the entire industry works more efficiently, for carriers and consumers alike.”

— MICHELE TROGNI, CEO OF ZINNIA

This vision of technology as an enabler rather than a disruptor reflects Trogni's background in banking and her deep understanding of financial services infrastructure. The goal isn't to replace existing relationships but to strengthen them through better tools and clearer information.

Read the Full Interview

Want to dive deeper into Michele Trogni's vision for the future of insurance infrastructure? Read the complete profile on Future Nexus to learn more about Zinnia's journey and what comes next.

Read the Full Profile on Future Nexus