Hartford Names Plotkin CIO
In the role of chief technology officer over the past two and a half years, Gary Plotkin has been tasked with carrying forward The Hartford's (Hartford; $26.5 billion in 2006 revenues) P&C company's technology architecture and infrastructure. With his appointment as CIO he will now be able to put what he has developed into use.
"As the CTO ... I've been able to develop a solid foundation as well as an overall architectural strategy, and to deliver the bulk of the components of that strategy," he says. "Now as CIO I can ... take a lot of that strategy work and actually move it into implementation and align it with the business' vision in an early fashion."
Plotkin is now responsible for the company's line-of-business CIOs and their associated initiatives from vision and strategy through implementation. "In terms of 'one throat to choke,' I am the IT face to the business customers," he elaborates.
One of the changes afoot as Plotkin takes on the responsibilities of CIO is that, he says, "We are going to break up our ADM [application development and maintenance] organization and create an engine that will enable us to improve our development-and-testing capacity, flexibility and flow-through."
Front-End Focus
From a functional perspective, Plotkin will focus on what he calls front-end implementation capabilities in support of Internet functionality for distributors and end customers. "We have a real opportunity to create a strong brand presence, especially in the Web channel," he says. "There's an opportunity to make sure ... we have a consistent and highly reusable view that will help us serve our customers better and also get out there faster."
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
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