Industry experts continue to recommend the value of outside expertise as key to insurers’ attempts to become more consumer-oriented, and ING seems to have heeded those recommendations with the appointment of Ed Steinike as its new CIO. If consumer-focused CIOs are a recipe for success, then Steinike is “the real thing”: his last role was CIO of Coca-Cola North America, and he has spent 26 years of his career at General Electric.

“The consumer focus at Coca-Cola was phenomenal, and I think that some of the things we’ve done there may be interesting to take a look at within ING,” Steinike comments.

Steinike joins the carrier at a time when solid IT plans are well underway, put in place by his predecessor Steve Van Wyk, who has been drafted by ING Group to head operations and banking in Amsterdam. Thus, unlike CIOs hired to put out fires, Steinike may enjoy a better opportunity to apply his customer-focused experience to ING’s growth objectives. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for me to join a fantastic company and bring some of what I hope are key strategies and ideas that I have exercised over the years in two big-brand companies,” he remarks.

Steinike also hopes to apply his experience to continue to transform and advance process excellence at ING Americas, and says he is focusing on the company’s business priorities as he ramps up to the challenge. “Right now I have a lot to learn about the business, the teams and the people,” he says. “I’m in the listening and studying mode.”

Barbara Goodstein may not be a technology executive, but as AXA Equitable's new chief innovation officer, just about everything she does will have a technology dimension.

Goodstein's job as director of a newly-formed Marketing and Innovation business group begins with identifying growth opportunities and ways to exploit them through innovative solutions in areas such as new product delivery/speed-to-market and Web functionality. However, her job doesn't end there—Goodstein is responsible not only for coming up with innovative initiatives, but also prioritizing them, assembling the necessary staff and external experts and actually executing on them. "We are the incubator for new ideas," she says.

Goodstein's office operates with a degree of autonomy to ensure that experimentation can be conducted free of resource competition and the pressures of day-to-day business. Goodstein characterizes her sphere of authority as "focusing on the business but not in the business."

Goodstein is currently engaged with AXA Equitable's technology leadership in driving innovative Web solutions. "[AXA Equitable CIO] Kevin Murray and I are co-executive leaders of the Web strategy project, and we are looking to not only upgrade and revamp all of our Web sites but also implement some new, state-of-the-art capabilities," she relates.

Another area of priority for AXA Equitable's Marketing and Innovation group is product innovation. "We're looking at new ways to market and distribute our products, as well as creating innovative products apart from our existing lines," Goodstein says.

In addressing the need for greater speed-to-market and other potential areas of competitive distinction, Goodstein and her team will be studying not only the performance of effective insurance competitors, but that of companies in other industries as well. "We're looking not only within our category but beyond it," Goodstein remarks.

- Anthony O'Donnell

Jim Sweeney has built a career on partnering with business and IT to optimize solutions delivery, as exemplified by his recent role as second vice president at Guardian Life (New York), where he transformed the carrier's corporate project management office, and as a consultant before that.

Sweeney is now applying his expertise to support the delivery of state-of-the-art technology to agents as vice president and manager of systems development planning and management for Liberty Mutual Agency Markets (a unit of Liberty Mutual, Boston; total assets of $88.1 billion).

Sweeney will work closely with IT and the business, beginning with a review of the current state of process and technology, in order to chart a course forward. "The CIO James McGlennon and I are going to work with the business people to help them shape what they want to do, based upon where they are today," Sweeney says. He describes his role as "partnering with IT for the business."

Sweeney will also oversee Liberty Mutual Agency Markets process reengineering department with a view toward formalizing a continuous improvement process based on feeding metrics into ongoing initiatives, and he will engage with project teams to assist them in execution.

- Anthony O'Donnell