After a stint at start-up broker Integro (New York), Craig Lowenthal returned to the carrier side of the industry earlier this year as CIO and senior vice president of specialty lines P&C carrier NYMAGIC (New York Marine and General Insurance Co.). Lowenthal's challenge is to turn around the technology of a carrier that has a single legacy system for almost every aspect of its business and whose IT staff traditionally has not been rich in insurance expertise.

About six months into the task, Lowenthal has brought on board at New York-based NYMAGIC ($241.3 million in 2006 gross written premium) IT professionals with underwriting, actuarial and insurance accounting expertise, as well as a new quality assurance and training department. He also has embarked on a project to implement a system-agnostic data warehouse with new data analytics capabilities. Further, Lowenthal is on the verge of deploying a portal-based intranet.

And Lowenthal has no plans to rest on his accomplishments. However, his overall strategic plan, which was recently approved, remains confidential -- at least for the time being.