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New Hartford Life CIO Terry Walker already is familiar with the insurer's operations. He began his career at the Simsbury, Conn.-based subsidiary of The Hartford Financial Services Group (Hartford; $259.7 billion in assets) in 2000 in the investment products division and, most recently, led technology for group benefits. Since the company's business and IT focus is aligned tightly to its four major lines of business - investment products, group benefits, individual life and international - Walker should benefit from his experience.
Maintaining what is referred to internally as a micro-enterprise focus is a "sacrosanct" objective, according to Walker. And, he says, "Because I came out of the line-of-business operations, I think I have a unique appreciation for how that works." Still, Walker stresses, "From the CIO office, we are going to look for ways to drive consistent practices and processes across the enterprise from an overall IT governance standpoint."
Among the areas to be governed by an enterprise focus are compliance-related information protection initiatives and security concerns. "We're heightening our awareness to make sure that we remain rock solid across the board," Walker comments.
Walker also plans to focus on attracting the next generation of IT talent. "This generation ... has a fresh perspective on how we can work with technology," he remarks. "They are representative of a different segment of customers that we need to go after."
Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio