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Jim Court, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, First American
Jim Court is Chief Information Officer for First American Property & Casualty Insurance Group. He has held this position since early 1999. He is responsible for the vision and implementation of Information Technology solutions. His experience includes over 25 years in high-technology industries and financial services.
Prior to joining First American P & C, Jim held Operations Management, and Technology Management positions at Square D/MGE UPS Systems, and Printronix, Inc. Jim obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Systems from the University of Redlands, an Associate Degree in Electrical Engineering, and an MBA from Pepperdine University's
Graziadio School of Business and Management.
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Robert Fullington, EVP & CIO, Life of the South
Robert Fullington is the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Life of the South Corporation. He performs two major roles at Life of the South. He is President of LOTSolutions, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Life of the South, which is a financial services company specializing in all core competencies that utilizes mass marketing techniques to acquire its customers. He also serves as the corporation's Chief Information Officer, responsible for all technology, system operations, application development, business transformation, and project initiatives for the company.
Bob leads LOTSolutions, Inc. which creates fee-based products, operates mass marketing campaigns and provides the customer service for various industry verticals. His leadership in developing proprietary software, business processes and customer support has created a flexible and strategic capability that is unique and desired in today's demanding business environment.
Bob has engaged in many aspects of management and leadership, with emphasis on business strategy and technology planning. He focuses on the application of advanced technology to leverage the effectiveness of all Life of the South companies and their client's business and operations. Bob consults with client senior executives, assisting them in identifying opportunities for the use of information technology to change the fundamental structures, processes, and economies of their businesses.
Prior to joining Life of the South, Bob was a principal in the IBM Management Consulting Group. He led a cross-industry general business practice that supported business strategy, business transformation, and IT strategy and planning. Prior to becoming a principal, Bob was IBM's outsourcing manager for the Florida region. He has been involved in all phases of outsourcing systems, including business processes and shared services.
Bob graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Business Administration Degree.
Mr. Fullington can be reached by e-mail at rfullington@life-south.com.
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Joel Gelb, CIO, Main Street America Group
Joel Gelb joined The Main Street America Group in 2001 as vice president and chief information officer (CIO). Joel has overall responsibility for the development and implementation of technology plans to support Main Street America's business strategy and management of infrastructure needed to execute its strategy.
Joel has extensive experience in technology and insurance information systems management. Prior to joining Main Street America, he was senior vice president and CIO for Frontier Insurance Group, based in Rock Hill, N.Y. Prior to his position with Frontier, Joel held IT management roles with Group Health
Insurance and Swiss Re/North American Reinsurance Company, both based in New York City.
Joel earned his bachelor's degree at State University of New York--Stony Brook and master's degree at Johns Hopkins University.
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Gary Gaspar, SVP and CIO, Sammons Financial Group
Gary Gaspar currently holds the position of Sr. Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the Sammons Financial Group. Gary has held this position since 1998. From 1986 to his current appointment, Gary was Vice President of IT at North American Company for Life and Health Insurance, one of the companies that was merged into Sammons Financial Group. Gary started his insurance career in 1973 at John Hancock. He held increasingly responsible positions at Massachusetts Mutual and Acacia Mutual prior to North American.
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Ross Gosnell, VP of Information Systems & Technology, Delta Dental
Ross Gosnell was named Vice President of Information Systems & Technology for Delta Dental of Illinois in 2000. He is responsible for strategic and tactical direction of IT for Delta Dental of Illinois and its wholly owned subsidiary TruAssure Insurance Corp. Previously, from 1997-2000 Ross was Director
Regional Operations for Deltanet, a division of Delta Dental of California, responsible for account management and outsourcing of IT for Deltanet clients. Prior to that he was Vice President of System Development for North American Business Systems, responsible for development of custom solutions for a wide variety of clients; and Corporate Director of Information Technology for Selfix Inc |
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Craig Lowenthal, CIO, NYMAGIC
Craig Lowenthal is Senior Vice President & CIO for New York Marine and General Insurance Company. Joining as a member of the executive management team in April 2007, he has Global responsibility for the applications, infrastructure, telecommunications and technology of New York Marine and General Insurance Company.
Craig has been a technology professional in the insurance industry for over 18 years. In his previous role as Managing Principal and Chief Information Officer for Integro Insurance Brokers, Craig was instrumental in creating the technology department and developing the technology vision for the organization. Unencumbered by legacy systems and leveraging the principles of service-oriented architecture, his team implemented a state-of -the-art systems platform using web services, business process management, and an enterprise service bus to provide an integrated platform with single entry and straight-through processing.
Prior to joining Integro Insurance Brokers in 2005, Craig was Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Hartford Financial Products, a unit of The Hartford, where he led the effort to reestablish Hartford Financial Product's business after the offices at 7 World Trade Center were lost. At Hartford Financial Products, Craig was responsible for the systems, telecommunications and technology of the company. Craig's responsibilities also extended to company security and facilities.
Craig was also Managing Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Reliance National Insurance Company. In his many management positions at Reliance, Craig's responsibilities included e-business, electronic messaging, collaborative development, marketing/advertising systems, human resources/payroll systems, reporting and decision support systems, financial business systems, reinsurance business systems and international systems.
Mr. Lowenthal also held positions at Credit Suisse First Boston (formerly DLJ) and Deloitte & Touche.
Mr. Lowenthal is active in the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association (IASA) and Long Island chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP). He is a member of the AICPA, and the NY State Society of CPA's (NYSSCPA). Mr. Lowenthal holds a BS in accounting from the State University of New York at Albany and is a CPA licensed in New York.
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Sharon Ritchey, SVP, COO, US Wealth Management Group, The Hartford
Sharon has accountability for Service Operations and Technology for individual life, retail, retirement, and institutional products. Prior to joining Hartford Life, Sharon was the SVP of property and casualty operations for The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. She had responsibility for commercial and personal lines agency service, as well as centers handling sales and service for the company's affinity AARP Personal Lines program.
Sharon, who has 20 years of management experience in the financial services industry, joined The Hartford in April 1999 as the Chief Operations Officer for the affinity unit in personal lines.
Before joining The Hartford, Sharon worked at GE Capital. Her responsibilities included spearheading the Six Sigma initiative across GE Capital's consumer financial services business. She subsequently served as a marketing manager at GE Capital auto financial services where she oversaw the development and implementation of a consumer leasing product. Prior to GE Capital, Sharon spent 12 years with Citibank serving in a variety of marketing and operations positions across the consumer banking business.
Sharon earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master's of Business Administration degrees from Eastern Kentucky University and is currently enrolled in the executive MBA program at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
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Piyush Singh, CIO, Great American
Piyush Singh is currently Sr. Vice-President and CIO of Great American Insurance Group, a Fortune 500 company based in Cincinnati. He is responsible for creating the vision and direction of Great American's IT strategy and operationally executing the same to take the specialty insurer to the next generation.
Piyush started his IT career in 1988 as a consultant with CitiCorp Overseas Software Limited in Mumbai, India. He moved on to ANZ Banking Group and worked in Bangalore, India, while being involved on international assignments in Australia, Greece, the UK, Singapore and the Middle East. Thereafter, he joined Price Waterhouse's Management Consulting Services group in Jamaica, working on large government contracts and with a local insurance carrier. He joined RLI Insurance, Peoria, IL, in 1994, moved up the ranks to be the VP of IT in 2000 and was promoted to be the CIO in 2004. He was responsible for taking RLI form a back-end focused organization to one that deployed technology to its fullest potential, venturing into areas where others did not and striving for business transformation rather than automation. Piyush's simple-but-effective IT strategy led the company to deploy leading-edge front-end application systems.
Piyush holds a master's degree in computer applications from University of Delhi as well as an MBA in finance from Bradley University. He has also completed a professional designation, CPCU (Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter) and attended the Advanced Executive Education program conducted by AICPCU at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania.
Piyush has been involved with several industry associations, colleges and community organizations for a long time. Currently he is on the Board of Directors of International Accounting and Systems Association, Advisory Council of College of Business for Bradley University, Reader Advisory Board of Insurance & Technology magazine, Executive Committee of Cincinnati Chapter of American Red Cross and runs a charitable organization called "KARNA" that does projects in India. Piyush has spoken regularly at insurance and technology conferences and seminars and has been featured several times in trade magazines and journals. He has also spoken at the Insurance Executive Leadership seminar at the Wharton Business School. In 2005, he was selected as "Elite 8" CIO by Insurance and Technology magazine.
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Wayne Umland, EVP and CIO, Glatfelters
Wayne Umland joined Glatfelter Insurance Group in June 1997 as Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer. He is responsible for all information technology functions and services for the firm and is a member of the senior management team. In his position, Wayne is not only concerned about the technical infrastructure of the company, but also in providing strategic technology to support the company's key business initiatives and strategic directions. Prior to joining Glatfelter Insurance Group, Wayne worked for Colonial Penn Insurance Group and Aetna Life & Casualty. Wayne is a graduate of Upsala College and received his MBA from the University of Hartford with a concentration in Organizational Behavior and Change. In addition to involvement with many industry groups, he is active in his community, serving on the boards of several non-profit organizations. He resides in York, PA, with his wife.
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