Special Report — Weekly Industry News’ Interview with PIA National CEO Mike Skiados

A positive change is in the wind.

In October of last year, and after an extensive search, PIA National hired Mike Skiados as the association’s new CEO. He replaces Mike Becker who served as PIA National’s CEO for a decade.

Before we get to the meat of our interview with Skiados, here is a quick look at his resume. Skiados has 20 years experience running membership, education, marketing, and operations for a number of large associations. His most recent position was as the managing director of membership strategy and engagement with the American Institute of Architects.

Before that position he was in key management positions with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and ASAE, The Center for Association Leadership.

Impressive.

In his position with the American Institute of Architects, Skiados brought in $53 million in dues income.

Even more impressive, and he’s looking to make a similar impact for the PIA.

“I’m excited about this opportunity,” Skiados told Weekly Industry News Editor Gary Wolcott and relayed a story from a friend who delivered an insurance check to a woman. His friend was confused when the woman cried as he handed her the check.

“If you make a woman cry, you’ve made a mistake,” Skiados said. “So my friend apologized. The woman said the apology wasn’t necessary and told him the check was going to help her for the rest of her life. She was a court stenographer and an accident took that career away. The check — she said — was going to send her back to school and into a different career.”

Skiados said that’s an amazing message. “It’s something I would love to support; working with, and supporting agents who are helping people at the hardest point in their lives.”

His first goal is a listening tour. Skiados said there are programs and products offered by the PIA that aren’t being used. He wants to know why.

“Getting out and meeting agents is critical to this position. Meeting them, and listening to them, will give me a better understanding of what they need, and to find out if there are things they need that we aren’t providing,” he told Weekly Industry News. “That needs to be the focus. We will do it by doing a better job of partnering with all of the affiliates. I need to visit them and see what they’re doing, and what they need.”

Skiados wants what he calls, rising tide comments.

“Rising tides raise all ships. Success for the national office should mean equal success for the affiliates around the country,” he said. “PIA National has to work to help at the national level, and the affiliates, and most importantly, we need to be there for, and help the independent agent members of the PIA.”

That lead to his relationship with the PIA Western Alliance, its members and with PIA Western Alliance Executive Vice President Kim Legato. One of the big criticisms some have noted about PIA National is its focus on Congress and national issues, and not as much focus on what’s happening in the individual states.

“In terms of partnering better with Western Alliance, a lot of that goes down to trust,” Skiados said. “We need to have a relationship where all of us see that we are in this together. Part of that is on me. I need to connect better with Kim and the other leaders running affiliate states of the Western Alliance, and understand what works for them. And how can we, at the national level, support that and make it stronger.”

With that he outlined some of his plans.

“PIA National’s job is to inform, educate, advocate and protect. Those are our pillars. Our goal is to find a way to align that with the states and figure out who's responsible for which of those areas, and with those local advocacy programs in the Western Alliance states. How can we align federal and state goals?” he said. “Another pillar is local programming that is in person and that creates community in all 10 states — Oregon, Washington, California, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii.”

Skiados’ goals are to put together plans, programs and ideas that has members, and potential members, clearly seeing why they should be a member of The PIA.

Another focus, he said, will be California. The homeowners insurance crisis, and the auto insurance crisis, and companies leaving the state has made being an agent in California incredibly difficult.

“Obviously, we want to partner more the members in all the states but we do need to focus more on California. We need to do a much better job than we have,” Skiados told Weekly Industry News. “The only way to do that is to be in California, and meet with leadership, and with local agents, and local affiliates leaders, and align our goals and the way we are going to work. Won't be aligned on everything since we all have our own goals, but we can find common ground to move forward.”

In the end, it’s a big opportunity for the PIA nationally, and locally, and Skiados said more involvement in the state is a big opportunity for the PIA. He also talked about membership, and why people join associations like the PIA.

“If you look at the reasons why people join organizations, the decision to join in over 75% of individuals is because someone recommends they join,” he said. “Our goal is to have members excited about the organization. That takes a grassroots effort and finding ways to empower members to bring in others, and to grow the association in a way where they see the value of being a member of the PIA.”

Getting there is going to take some time.

“My experience is that people who are new to a profession, whatever it may be, are joiners. They just join differently, and need to see a return on their investment,” he said. “Members need to see how it's going to help them benefit. And it boils down to a simple question. ‘What’s in it for me?’ At the national and state level we need to have that answer.”

That’s why Skiados was hired. It’s to find those answers.

“The PIA nationally, and at a state level has seen declines in membership. That’s not a secret,” Skiados said. “Our goal at the national and state level is to work together to develop a plan to improve our retention rate. That will keep us stable and improve our membership efforts which will help us grow.”

PIA National President Richard Savino said Skiados is the perfect person to do just that.

“Mike’s ability to transform the member experience, combined with his operational expertise, will create significant opportunities for PIA affiliates and agency members,” Savino said. “We are thrilled to welcome him to PIA — his proven track record in innovation and growth will propel us to new levels of excellence.”

PIA National Immediate Past President and head of the Search Committee Gerald Hemphill agrees.

“One of the most exciting things about Mike is his ability to understand what members want from their associations and develop ways to deliver on those unmet needs,” Hemphill said. “This is a unique skill set that he has applied in other roles with significant results, and we’re eager for him to drive this forward at PIA.”

The last word belongs to PIA Western Alliance Executive Vice President Kim Legato.

“Collaboration for progress is key, and always energizing,” she told Weekly Industry News. “Since we welcomed Mike as CEO, we have already started these conversations and very much look forward to working with Mike Skiados and the rest of the PIA National team to bring the association together and move forward in the coming year.”