Executive Closeup
Bernaski Heads Hartford P&C Tech
After becoming a father, Michael Bernaski decided that he would leave his post as managing partner in Accenture's North American insurance practice in order to strike a more favorable work-family balance. The plan was to take a year's sabbatical - until he received a call from a business associate who alerted him to the opportunity of leading the technology organization at The Hartford's ($237.3 billion in assets) P&C company. Subsequently, "I came out and got seduced by the opportunity," Bernaski says.
"I thought the tone among the management team was very constructive and forward-thinking, and so, for both style and content reasons, I thought it was a group of people I would work with and make a meaningful contribution," Bernaski relates.
Among the challenges of being The Hartford's P&C CIO, Bernaski notes, "is finding opportunities to raise the bar where it is already set quite high." He hopes to do that by building on The Hartford's record of innovation, which he exemplifies with ICON 2.0, the carrier's distribution system for small commercial business.
Bernaski will also address the company's complex systems environment. "It's got some redundancy, and we need to clear the attic and start to shut some things down and consolidate," he explains.
Another goal is "to continue to invest in the skills area," he adds. We need to continue to invest in our architecture and engineering competencies in order to achieve things that promote our enterprise architecture goals, while also delivering real business value."
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
Tweet This