Adriana Royal is Head of Strategy at Athene, where she helps drive the company’s enterprise transformation agenda across AI, market diversification, long-term strategic planning, technology, product innovation, and new markets. In her role, she works with senior leadership to shape and scale strategic initiatives that support Athene’s continued growth in the retirement services and financial services sectors.
Royal brings deep experience across insurance, retirement, financial services, customer strategy, digital transformation, and insurtech innovation. Prior to joining Athene, she served as Head of Life & Retirement Products and Solutions at Unqork, where she led the development of life insurance and retirement-specific solutions on the Unqork platform and supported business development efforts across the United States and Canada.
Earlier in her career, Royal was Head of Customer Experience at Blackboard Insurance, AIG’s technology-focused commercial insurance subsidiary, where she led customer experience, product vision, and design initiatives. She also spent several years at Monitor Deloitte as an Engagement Manager in the firm’s financial services and insurance strategy practice, advising clients on customer strategy, enterprise growth, digital transformation, sales and service experience design, and fintech and insurtech investing.
Royal began her career at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, where she focused on partnerships, fundraising, and communications to expand access to financial products for low-income consumers. She earned her MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and holds a BA in Philosophy, Spanish, and Economics from Georgetown University.
As a speaker, Royal brings a practical, strategy-led perspective on insurance innovation, AI transformation, customer experience, retirement solutions, and the future of financial services. Adriana Royal spoke at our 2026 InsurTech Spring Conference, on a packed Supervision for Agentic AI panel, alongside speakers Bobbie Shrivastav of Solvrays, Julie Pearce of the IA Dept of Insurance, Brian Casey from Troutman Pepper Locke, and Hylton Irons from Distributed Ventures.
