Thomas McInerney and the art of playing the long game

Thirty-five feet is an awkward distance from which to settle an argument. At Pinehurst in March 2014, Thomas McInerney faced an uphill birdie putt in a charity golf playoff. Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen and energy executive Larry Coben had finished tied with him. McInerney left himself a short putt, made par and won. Gary Player handed over the trophy. Habitat for Humanity in Richmond and Raleigh was the beneficiary of his victory.

A tap-in makes an unusually tidy ending. Much of McInerney’s working life has involved outcomes that took considerably longer to arrange. He entered insurance in 1978, moved through Aetna and ING, advised Boston Consulting Group, and became Genworth Financial’s president and chief executive in January 2013. Along the way, employers changed, responsibilities expanded and one proposed corporate marriage spent more than four years failing to reach the altar.

Asked in 2026 what he would tell his teenage self, he began: “Be patient.” Coming from an executive whose career has crossed nearly five decades, the advice has the advantage of a long trial period.

An education in promises

His first paid work was delivering newspapers at 12. There is something pleasing about a future insurance executive beginning with a business in which the customer expects the promised object to arrive, reliably, at the promised time. He recalled the newspaper route when asked about his first job.

McInerney graduated from Colgate University in 1978 with honors in economics. That June, he began as an insurance underwriter at Aetna. In 1982, he earned an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, concentrating in finance and investments. The combination gave him a route through both the individual decision and the larger financial organization.

Underwriting places a person close to the basic transaction of insurance: deciding which risks a company can accept and on what terms. Later executive titles can obscure that beginning. His was a career that started inside the work, before it expanded into responsibility for the people doing it.

At Aetna, his jobs included vice president of strategy and, eventually, president of Aetna Financial Services. Those positions involved different questions. Strategy asks where an organization should go. Running a business adds the rather persistent matter of getting it there.

When the employer changes around you

In December 2000, ING acquired Aetna Financial Services. McInerney, then its president, joined the Dutch financial group. His next employer arrived by acquisition, an instructive complication for anyone who imagines a career as a series of doors opened strictly from the outside.

At ING, he led businesses across the Americas, including pensions, retirement services, insurance and investment management. He later became chief operating officer of the group’s insurance and investment management operations worldwide and served on its Management Board for Insurance. The scale and geography had changed substantially since his first underwriting job.

His public explanation of the business remained direct. In a 2010 interview, he said: “The financial services industry helps people achieve financial security.” He described the satisfaction of hearing that clients had reached their financial goals. The vocabulary was noticeably less elaborate than the product catalogue.

He also argued that community involvement mattered to employees and customers, making it relevant to shareholders. Education, financial literacy, diversity and environmental sustainability were areas he discussed. These were explicit priorities in his public account of corporate responsibility, years before his later university gifts.

From June 2011 through December 2012, McInerney worked as a senior advisor to Boston Consulting Group, advising insurance and financial services businesses in the United States and Canada. The period sits between operating roles. In January 2013, he returned to the chief executive’s chair, this time at Genworth.

The deal that used up four calendars

The Genworth years are difficult to compress into a smooth ascent. A central episode ended with the abandonment of a plan on which the company had spent years working. In April 2021, Genworth terminated its merger agreement with China Oceanwide.

The board concluded that the proposed transaction could not close within a reasonable time. More than four years of effort had preceded the decision. Shareholders, employees and customers had waited through a lengthy approval process. A transaction can occupy an organization’s attention long before it changes its ownership.

McInerney publicly thanked Oceanwide’s chairman for the partnership and acknowledged the work both sides had put into navigating obstacles. The company still needed a workable course. Ending the agreement removed uncertainty over its ultimate ownership and allowed it to pursue a revised strategy.

One route involved the mortgage insurance business. In September 2021, Genworth completed the minority initial public offering of Enact Holdings, which began trading on Nasdaq under ACT. After the IPO and a concurrent private sale, Genworth retained 81.6 percent ownership. McInerney became an Enact director that September.

The arrangement brought in proceeds while keeping most of the subsidiary within the group. Genworth’s subsequent annual filing described using proceeds to repay an AXA promissory note and, with existing cash, redeem other debt. These were concrete consequences of changing course. The company had moved from waiting for a buyer to arranging part of its own future.

“Be patient.”

Thomas McInerney, on advice to his teenage self, 2026

The arithmetic of another chance

The Enact decision continues to matter because ownership can produce cash long after the transaction announcement leaves the news cycle. During 2025, Genworth received $407 million in capital returns from Enact, through dividends and share repurchases. Genworth itself repurchased $245 million of its common shares that year.

In September 2026, the board authorized an additional $500 million for share repurchases. McInerney connected that decision with the company’s financial position and expected capital returns from Enact. Those words describe a management judgment about resources and priorities.

The distinctions matter. Cash already received, shares already bought and permission for future purchases are different things. An authorization leaves discretion over timing and execution. It is a useful discipline when assessing any executive to keep completed actions separate from plans that remain subject to conditions.

A family introduction becomes a fellowship

McInerney’s educational philanthropy supplies a different measure of his interests. His own degrees came from Colgate and Dartmouth. His relationship with William & Mary grew through his daughter Erin McInerney Smith and her husband, Chris Smith, both members of the university’s class of 2007. Chris co-founded The Virginia Beer Co.

Richmond businessman Jim Ukrop encouraged McInerney to become more involved with the university. In 2021, he joined its Reves International Advisory Board. The following year, he gave $1.5 million to establish a postdoctoral fellowship at the Global Research Institute, supporting international research, teaching and mentorship.

A fellowship is a particular sort of gift. It pays for someone to spend time investigating questions, sharing expertise and working with students. McInerney’s stated interest was in helping a university strengthen its global perspective. That is a recognizable concern for an executive who had managed across national borders.

In 2024, he made a $1 million leadership gift to the institute’s Accelerate Initiative. The campaign sought $10 million, with a goal of increasing internships and mentored research opportunities. Support from McInerney and other donors helped the effort begin with $3 million committed.

His involvement also followed conversations with his son-in-law about the institute’s projects. Family provided an introduction; the institutional commitment developed from there. It is a less ceremonial origin than the usual photograph of an oversized check, and it explains something a donation figure alone cannot: why this particular university became part of his life.

A career that leaves room for other careers

The same interest in opportunity appears closer to home. McInerney joined Virginia Ready’s founding board in 2020 and became its chair in 2023. The organization worked with employers and training partners to help Virginians gain credentials for in-demand jobs. Genworth was a founding partner.

Virginia Ready later announced plans to wind down operations in the fourth quarter of its 2025 fiscal year and direct remaining funds to other nonprofits. That ending belongs in the account, too. Public service has organizational lifecycles as well as appointment announcements.

McInerney joined RVA757 Connects in 2023, an organization focused on economic prosperity across Richmond and Hampton Roads. His wider civic commitments include United Way Worldwide, where his current corporate biography lists him as vice chair. In 2018, the Committee for Economic Development honored him with its Leadership in the Nation’s Interest Award.

The 2018 award was presented in Washington, D.C., with an introduction by Kathleen Murphy, then president of Fidelity Personal Investing. Its stated purpose was to recognize an executive who combined company leadership with policies serving the common good. It put McInerney’s business and civic roles in the same frame, rather than treating community commitments as an appendix to the day job.

He also participated in The Conference Board’s CEO Forum on a civil and just society. A July 2020 video focused on the importance of diverse leadership at every level. Alongside the workforce and education commitments, that appearance adds a specific public discussion about who gets opportunities inside organizations.

These commitments sit beside a long operating career rather than replacing it. They point to questions that run through his public work: how people prepare, how they gain access to opportunity, and how institutions can provide something useful over time. The answers take the form of businesses, training partnerships and research funding.

Back at Pinehurst, a short putt settled the competition. The rest of McInerney’s story resists that kind of convenient finish. An employer was acquired. A merger failed to close. A family connection became a fellowship. Nearly five decades after his first insurance job, his advice leaves room for all those turns: patience, with work still to do.