Roser Takes on PMO at Travelers

As Travelers (Hartford, $66 billion in assets) seeks to hit business goals, Jamie Roser, second vice president, commercial lines systems, has been given responsibility to direct a new program management office (PMO). In his new role Roser, who is responsible for overseeing projects and technology strategy for small commercial business, will oversee IT program management across all commercial lines.

The new PMO is aimed at producing more added value than an existing project management apparatus that served commercial lines, according to Roser. "On the business side we're trying to increase profits by 15 percent per year, so every year the bar is getting raised," he says. "So from an IT perspective, we're asking 'How do we take what we've done very well and raise the bar even higher?'"

One of the objectives of the PMO is to organize Travelers' roughly 400 commercial lines systems into six or seven major portfolios, such as billing and quote/rate/issue. "Through the PMO we'll be responsible for running those portfolios, shaping technology strategy, and determining what work should or should not be done," Roser says.

The PMO will also marshall subject matter experts to prioritize projects and seek to limit the amount of time valuable development staff resources are spent on maintenance tasks. "What we're trying to do is centralize the process of how we prioritize work, how we bring resources to bear on the most critical aspects of that work, and how we deliver more work faster," Roser comments.

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