In an email addressed to “Team USAA” sent Monday morning just before noon, USAA President and CEO Wayne Peacock announced that he would be stepping down as CEO, a position he’s held since 2019.
Peacock described taking on the role with the idea that it would be a “three-to-five-year assignment.” With the five-year mark approaching, he wrote, “I will retire in the first half of 2025, once a new CEO is selected.”
USAA serves roughly 13.5 million members and employs about 37,000 people worldwide. Of those, 17,000 or so are based at the company’s San Antonio headquarters.
Peacock led the company through the COVID-19 pandemic, moving 360,000 employees to work from home; its first loss in its 102-year-history and its return to profitability in 2023. During his time as CEO, USAA responded to an increasing number of more severe natural disasters, and a concomitant rise in insurance premiums. He increased the company’s minimum pay and enhanced benefits to include mental health and family support aid.
In 2022, USAA announced it would vacate its downtown offices by the end of the year, with 500 or so employees moved back to the company’s sprawling headquarters in Northwest San Antonio. Peacock at the time noted that the pandemic-related shift to hybrid work pandemic “have changed our real estate need.”
“There’s never been a time when there’s been this much change going on, and this much uncertainty,” said Peacock as part of a panel on the future of work hosted by the San Antonio Report and Greater:SATX in May. “And the velocity of the change has never been this fast.”
Peacock has spent a total of 36 years with USAA, beginning in 1998. He has led strategy, marketing, member service teams, technology, shared services and corporate real estate, according to the announcement posted on USAA’s website Monday. Prior to serving as CEO, he was president of the property and casualty insurance group.
Peacock was the first civilian CEO to lead the organization, which was started in 1922 by a group of U.S. Army officers and later expanded to include dependents and enlisted members of the U.S. armed forces.
“Wayne has always answered the call to serve and the board is thankful for his leadership,” said retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Jim Zortman, USAA’s board chairman. “He is thoughtful and strategic and has never wavered in doing what’s right for the association.”
The board is evaluating a list of internal and external candidates, Zortman continued, “and Wayne will stay onboard to ensure a smooth transition.”
While the board works through the selection process, “I’ll continue to lead from the front, as I have always done, to help each of us be at our best and deliver on our commitment to our members, our trams and each other,” Peacock wrote in his email.
“I have full confidence in our leadership team and in Team USAA’s path forward.”
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Correction: The number of USAA employees based in San Antonio is roughly 17,000, per the company, not 19,000 as previously reported.
