Among other topics, Bill discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy
- The rationale for establishing the corporate CIO position at Marsh and McLennan Companies, which now oversees MMC’s substantially sized five operating companies
- How coordinating the agendas of the five operating companies’ CIOs has enabled MMC to consolidate data centers, leverage vendor relationships, enable knowledge management and cooperation across the horizontal structure, as well as avoid double work on application development
- The delicate balance that a corporate CIO with a centralized IT department must maintain between leveraging scale and the risk of destroying advantages from having technology that is close to the unique businesses and their customers
- How lowering technology spend on operational costs should go both towards the bottom line and towards building technologies that will provide competitive advantages
- The evolving role of the CIO and how the possession of business acumen will differentiate those that aim to succeed through good and bad financial times
Bill Krivoshik’s Biography
Bill is the senior vice president and CIO, of Marsh & McLennan, a global professional services firm providing advice and solutions in the areas of risk, strategy and human capital. Bill is the first corporate CIO at Marsh & McLennan, and in this role he has led the development of the company’s overarching technology strategy and architecture, evaluating platforms, products, and services across the company.
Prior to joining Marsh & McLennan, Bill was CTO at Thomson Financial, where he oversaw the company’s technology and information operations globally. During his time there, Bill and his team streamlined products and functions integrating platforms accumulated through more than 40 acquisitions to successfully increase productivity and improve customer retention.
Prior to his time at Thomson, Bill was chief information and operations officer at Citigroup Inc’s Travelers Life & Annuity and managing director and CTO for Citigroup Global Investment Management. Prior to Citigroup, he was CIO for AIG.
Bill has a BSE degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
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Among other topics, Carl discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy
- Customer orientation as a key skill for anyone working in IT
- The importance of pursuing vendor management
- How to structure, build, and run a vendor management office
- The importance of cultural fit when choosing strategic vendors
- How getting the lowest price from a vendor may not always be in a company’s best interest
Carl Ascenzo’s Biography
Carl is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Ascention Consulting that specializes in providing fast, expert assistance to IT leaders. He is capable of providing unique perspectives and solutions based on his diverse IT experience in software and services, as a customer, vendor, director and investor.
He is presently an independent Director and Chairman of Casenet, Inc. Casenet is an early stage company providing health care management software and implementation services. He served as Executive Chairman over seeing all aspects of the company during a transition in CEOs. He played a key role in acquiring the company’s largest customer with revenue of $16M+. Casenet has completed three rounds of financing with the primary investors being Sigma Partners and HLM Venture Partners.
Before Casenet, Carl was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. He was responsible for all aspects of information of technology with a combined operating and capital budget of $250M. Support was provided to 3 million members, 3,500 employees with annual revenue of $12.5B. During his tenure dramatic improvements were made and numerous recognitions for technology excellence were received. His leadership was key in the establishment of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, a coalition to implement electronic medical records throughout the state.
Prior to joining Blue Cross in 2000, Carl was a Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P. He was responsible for a regional IT consulting P&L serving all market segments. In the first year under his leadership revenue and profitability soared, and he was awarded the most improved practice in the firm. Increases of 30% annually were realized in subsequent years.
Carl began his career in information technology with Aetna, Inc. in 1978. Focused on software development in support of the health line of business, he was fast tracked from programmer to management. He later became Vice President and CIO of specialty products. He led the IT due diligence of all potential acquisitions, and made 50+ sales presentations to the Fortune 1000.
Carl received a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Western New England College. He has been involved in various local community activities, business and technology educational programs, such as the Society for Information Management Executives, The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, and the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium.
He was recognized by the City of Boston for his leadership in establishing Project Refresh which provides corporate donations of used computers to schools.
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