Man in the middle

When a shaky Conseco shifted paradigms 3 years ago, shedding its acquisitive ways and flipping its business model, Stewart Stockdale became the man in the middle. In the moment, executive vice president and chief marketing officer Stockdale became point man in Conseco's still unproven initiative to reinvent itself in the middle market, those 50 million underserved, underpenetrated households in the $20,000 to $75,000 range. For Stockdale, the Conseco experience is novel: building a brand from scratch - and in hurry.