Royal Neighbors CEO’s path to QC paved by generosity

Zarifa Reynolds’ journey to Royal Neighbors of America can be traced back to when she experienced an unexpected and generous act by her kindergarten teacher. “I grew up with nothing,” the CEO and president of the mission-driven, fraternal benefit society said in an interview at the downtown Rock Island building that serves as Royal Neighbors’ […]

Zarifa Reynolds’ journey to Royal Neighbors of America can be traced back to when she experienced an unexpected and generous act by her kindergarten teacher. “I grew up with nothing,” the CEO and president of the mission-driven, fraternal benefit society said in an interview at the downtown Rock Island building that serves as Royal Neighbors’ home base.  “I grew up in housing projects initially and so the fact that I was able to make it through school and go to college, a lot of that was somebody’s philanthropic work,” the Miami native who is the third of six sisters told the QCBJ. Her life’s path began with a singular act. “I was tested when I was 5 in a public elementary school,” she said. “The fact that my kindergarten teacher pulled me out of a group of everybody in my class and said ‘Go send her to the library and see if she can do these puzzles.’ I didn’t even realize it was an IQ test at the time.” Similar acts of generosity would follow her throughout her life and eventually lead her to join Royal Neighbors in a role that allows her to pair a long career full of executive and strategic experience with her own passion for philanthropy.

“I personally have benefited from the good works of people throughout my life and I really just want to try to pay it forward,” Ms. Reynolds said. “I don’t think I could ever do enough to pay forward all the things that people have done for me. Some of which I know, but many things I don’t know. That’s why working here is so special.” She traces her life’s journey to her ability to participate in that dual public-school gifted program. “I spent half my time in my neighborhood school, which was not very good, and half the time in an affluent school in some other neighborhood that had a gifted program,” she said. As a result, she received opportunities her public school classmates did not. “I realized that the fact that I could go to this environment was as a result of a Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education,” she said. “I didn’t know that at 5 or probably not even at 10, but by 12.”  That’s when she became fascinated with lawyer, civil rights strategist, and eventual Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who won that case because “that one decision fundamentally changed my life and I believe the lives of tens of thousands of people.” So she attended law school, graduated and passed the bar, she said. “But your life finds itself on the right path and I still feel I’m helping people in the way that, while not on the same scale as Thurgood Marshall, but still helping people.” Throughout her career, Ms. Reynolds developed and executed growth and business strategies across financial services, insurance, and healthcare organizations and was head of corporate development at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) of America. She also was a partner at Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm. She’d never heard of Royal Neighbors until learning about it from a headhunter who got her name from a former CEO who is friends with a Royal Neighbors board member. She had never been a CEO before and had never worked at a company that had a philanthropic bent so she was hesitant at first. But after doing her homework, she threw her hat in the ring and beat out the competition. Once hired in December 2022, she immersed herself in a Royal Neighbors’ crash course that included learning about the Quad Cities, where she travels several times a month from her home in Lighthouse Point, Florida. “Each time I’m here it feels more and more like home. I’ve lived in a lot of places but the Quad Cities is a really unique place to live,” Ms. Reynolds told the QCBJ. “I see why people who are from the Midwest love the Midwest so much.”  That doesn’t mean every aspect of acclimating has been easy. “I’ve lived in Boston before. That was the coldest place I lived but I don’t think Boston holds a candle to the Quad Cities,” she said with a shiver. She soon realized, however, “you have your beautiful days.” Her job also often finds her on the road to all 50 states. In addition to Royal Neighbors’ physical locations in downtown Rock Island and Mesa, Arizona, she visits contractors who sell Royal Neighbors insurance across the nation. She also conducts philanthropic-related visits to the organization’s nonprofit chapters around the country. “I really love the people I work with,” she said. “Of all the jobs I’ve had I think this one is just a great group of people. We give each other grace … because we’re all aiming to achieve the same goals. You try to get everything right but nobody gets everything right.” It’s a big job made easier, she said, because the company had been so well run. She also enjoys being part of the Quad Cities and sampling the food, attractions and events. “The Quad Cities is not a small town,” she said. “There’s a lot of amenities that a big size town would have or a metropolitan city.” She’s working to take in as many as possible and sharing them with her daughter and son when they can travel with her during summer breaks, including a Quad Cities River Bandits game. She also likes being part of seminal QC events such as the John Deere Classic. And she was particularly pleased to discover the region’s close proximity to other places to visit. Only in New York, she said, has she found a community so close to so much. “When you’re in the Quad Cities you’re in Illinois, you’re in Iowa,” she said. You can also quickly be in several other states including Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin. She’s also a fan of the easy-to-use Quad Cities International Airport where she can get to her Florida home base via an Atlanta connecting flight that gets her there with just a 45-minute layover. Then there are Quad Citians themselves. “People are really connected here with each other,” she said. “They really seem to support each other and there seems to be more kindness here than in some of the other places I’ve been and we all need a little more kindness in our life right now.”