Zicklin Executive DBA Student Parlays Her “Passion” into a Promotion

Executive alumna Heather Marso, who earned her Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from the Zicklin School of Business in May 2025, was recently promoted to vice president of engagement strategy at MetLife. in part based on her dissertation. She sat down for an interview with Zicklin News. 

Zicklin News: Congratulations on your promotion. What was the topic of your dissertation? 

Heather Marso: It was called “For the Benefit of All? Gatekeepers and Health Literacy in the Employee Benefits Insurance Industry.”

ZN: And what was it about? 

Heather: I focused on the role of the benefits manager in the interaction between benefit carriers, which are the companies offering the products and services that comprise employee benefits, and the employees, who choose whether or not to take advantage of those benefits. 

ZN: Tell us more. 

Heather: I viewed benefits managers—who sit with the employer to determine the benefits to offer to employees—as gatekeepers who choose whether to offer a particular product or not. Out of that research came the insight that communications are a key part of whether employees decide to purchase a particular product. So once the benefits manager decides to offer a given benefit, what makes an individual employee decide to enroll or not? Within the communications, I focused on readability (are the materials easy to read and understand, or do they use a lot of jargon?) and actionability (do they prompt you to take a given action, such as enroll or learn more?). 

 ZN: What did you find? 

Heather: We found that actionability was insignificant. Readability, on the other hand, is a significant driver of enrollment, meaning that more understandable communications lead to higher enrollment rates. Readability is also influenced by familiarity with the purchasing process of other insurance policies.

ZN: How did you carry out your research? 

Heather: I conducted interviews with benefit managers to gain qualitative insights into their role and the role of communications in the employee benefits industry. I then drafted sample communications and ran experiments to measure the quantitative variables that would drive increased enrollment. 

ZN: Tell us about your promotion.

Heather: I was offered the opportunity to shift from our dental business into the role of vice president of engagement strategy. This is a brand-new role that was created not necessarily for me, but out of the realization that the organization needed to communicate the benefits we offer in a holistic way. We want to ensure that our strategy around employee engagement would benefit all parties: from the carrier who wants to sell a particular product, to the organization offering it to their employees, to the employees themselves who see value in the product and purchase it for themselves and their families. 

ZN: Anything else you’d like us to know? 

Heather: I’ve worked in employee benefits at MetLife for 17 years and I’ve seen multiple facets of the business and how it operates. Improving the customer experience is a passion of mine and the more I worked on my dissertation, the more my passion grew. When I talked to my internal leadership about my dissertation, they sensed my enthusiasm and that’s one of the reasons they knew I was the right person for this role.

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