Where Are They Now?

For last year's Elite 8 Award Winners, 2000 has been busy. Here is what they have been doing.

"Life keeps on being fun," says DON WALKER, formerly CIO at USAA. Part of the fun was being named president and CEO of Reston, VA-based Veritect in April, an information assurance security provider. Walker alsojoined the board of directors at Seattle-based start-up ClaimsDesk.com.

"The last year has been very boring, there were no honors," quips JOHN HODGE, global CIO at XL Capital (Bermuda). XL Capital's acquisition of NAC Re has left Hodge responsible for the information architecture connecting 28 companies and 1,000 employees—five times the number at NAC Re. One of Hodge's current focuses is on implementing PeopleSoft 8 software.

Former Progressive Insurance (Cleveland) CIO, GLENN RENWICK is now CEO of the company's insurance operations. Renwick's concentration is fixed on improving Personal Progressive—a member of Galaxy.com's Top 10 Web sites—as well as its agent-only site. "We've seen a dramatic increase in customer enrollment in the past year," says Renwick.

"Technology changes make all of our jobs more stressful and complex," says JUDITH CAMPBELL, CIO, New York Life Insurance Company (New York). "But it's still a lot of fun." This year Campbell is focusing on building New York Life's Internet infrastructure. She will concentrate on technology to support agents—both domestically and globally. Campbell is also working on an "intense" version of New York Life's online field-edition site that can be accessed through wireless technologies. New York Life's Web site ranks in the top 25 in eWeek's list of e-CRM innovators.

Cigna's (Philadelphia) CIO, ANDREA ANANIA, spent the past year carrying out an infrastructure initiative that included the establishment of technology and architecture, e-commerce and application management practices. Anania's focus for 2001 will include an improvement in ease-of-business for customers and a transformation of Cigna's administrative and operational systems.

"We are head-first into our e-business initiative," says E.P. ROGERS, vice president and CIO of The MONY Group (Armonk, NY). "CRM is the foundation of that infrastructure." Rogers, who recently assumed responsibilities for MONY's corporate-services function, IT employees and contractors in many MONY subsidiaries, is also working on building a new technical infrastructure for the company's independent network for brokers and overseeing a project to make the forms "fillable" on the Web.

Northwestern Mutual's (Milwaukee) CIO WALT WOJCIK has been focusing on building his company's Internet site."We're spending more on our distribution systems, building on the Siebel system. More importantly, we have funding to be more aggressive in the Internet site," says Wojcik, who's planning an upgrade to tie the customer, company and agent more closely together. Northwestern Mutual jumped 80 spots from last year's rating in InformationWeek's 500, a ranking that recognizes the most innovative IT users.

When he wasn't receiving awards, BILL FRIEL, senior vice president and CIO at Newark, NJ-based Prudential Insurance, spent time opening Prumerica Systems Ireland—Prudential's software development subsidiary. This year, Friel is the recipient of the award for "Leadership and Service" in technology from Pace University's school of computer science and information systems. He also ranks 23rd in NetworkWorld's "25 Most Powerful People in Networking" list. Friel is setting his sights on providing additional account information, auto insurance and stock trading to customers utilizing the wireless Palm VII.