Kartik Sakthivel began his professional career immediately after graduating from college. He interned as a software developer while finishing his master’s degree and has been working in IT professionally since then. He has had the honor of working in a variety of jobs with increasing responsibility in a variety of companies and sectors. He believes it has helped him to fill out his experiences.
Kartik is currently the Vice President and Chief Information Officer of LIMRA and LOMA, a global research, consulting, and professional development business.
Below are highlights of the interview:
What was the motivation behind joining LIMRA and LOMA?
Quite simply, I was drawn to the opportunity to serve an entire industry and not just any one organization. I fundamentally believe that, as a member-focused organization, we can play a leading role in championing the massive digitization and transformation happening in the financial services sector. As CIO for LIMRA and LOMA, I serve as a catalyst to drive the vibrancy – shaped by all things digital – of the next 200 years of this industry.
Tell us more about the company’s financial offerings.
LIMRA/ LOMA is the largest and oldest not-for-profit financial services trade association in the world. We are focused on life insurance, worksite benefits, and annuities. We serve as the research and benchmarking arm of the industry. The association provides selection, assessments, training, development, executive development, and educational designations for our member companies. In addition to bringing industry experts together across 124 committees and study groups and over a dozen senior executive groups, the association hosts events and conferences to bring the industry together. Serving our members across the world, the association also develops a myriad of platforms and solutions, such as Fraudshare for fraud prevention, to help the industry solve shared business issues.
What are your major roles and responsibilities at the company?
As the global CIO, I am the steward of an organization that provides end-to-end technology support for our members and associates. Everything from desktop support and telephone technology, data centers, cybersecurity, infrastructure and operations, software development, data and analytics, architecture, and agile practice are my responsibility. As an officer of the association, I am a part of the senior leadership team, setting the vision and direction of the association in service of our members. I also engage with business and technology leaders and practitioners across the industry, hosting events and conferences, speaking on technology and digitization, and bringing these groups together to discuss industry-level issues.
As a CIO, have you established clear IT priorities that everybody can get behind? How should a company evolve to keep up with digital technology?
Yes, we are in the second iteration of our three-year plan to modernize IT. With a span of several hundred unique platforms within an organization that is well over a hundred years old, our priorities are to find an effective balance between supporting business objectives and modernizing our operations. The department has exceeded benchmarks we set for ourselves in the first three-year roadmap and are tracking well to achieve our objectives for the refreshed roadmap. To get clear IT priorities that everybody can get behind, an organization needs to clearly establish linkage between corporate goals and objectives and what each and every person in IT – whether configuring a firewall or “slinging” code – is doing to contribute to furthering the objectives of the firm, developing themselves in their careers, and building a vibrant team.
Metrics are vital to keep track of progress, but for organizations to evolve and keep up with digital technology, they need to think beyond measurements by focusing on innovation and allowing IT folks to exercise their creative side. Transformations are less about process and technology and all about the people—it’s imperative to transform the culture of an organization. Digital transformations are cultural transformations that allow organizations to think and behave differently. This is where leadership at every level of an organization matters to reinforce the change.
What would you say are the top two attributes to the success of a CIO?
The first is leadership. It allows you to lead with empathy with your business partners and your teams. Leadership that models behavior for integrity, customer focus, adaptability, respect and excellence. It is leadership that inspires your team to see and share in the vision to be executed for the organization.
The second is business technology. CIOs need to see themselves as business leaders first and technology practitioners second. Think in terms of operational excellence, growing revenues, and increasing business value versus how many automated tests your organization runs and how many internal phishing campaigns you operate.
What significant changes have happened in the IT sector in the past years, and which modern technologies have disrupted it?
Industries are stirring out of their slumber to recognize and give respect to the value of data within their custody. With artificial intelligence growing in prominence and people recognizing that it’s not just a buzzword, industries are realizing that data is not just the new oil, data is everything. Across industries that have treated data as a by-product of systems, there is now recognition that sustained investment in data quality, data management, and data strategy and governance will yield a competitive advantage.
What has been the best recognition that you have received as a professional?
Accolades are nice, and I was recently a finalist for BostonCIO ORBIE CIO of the Year 2022, but the people who deserve the recognition include the entire IT organization and my business partners and vendors. To me, the greatest recognition I can receive is the respect of my team. In a tough year to retain skilled IT talent, numbers aren’t everything, but they are indicative that our associates enjoy what they do and who they do it with.
Where do you see yourself and the company in upcoming years?
I would hope I would still be delivering value to LIMRA and LOMA in my current role. I would love to keep growing and delivering business value to the entire industry by championing the cause of digitization, bringing the industry together, and helping to solve problems the industry faces.
Website: www.limra.com
