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Tireless energy and a highly qualified, loyal team let Mark Popolano tame the "technology monster" of AIG's vast IT organization.
Mark Popolano has moved quickly through the ranks at New York-based AIG ($268 billion in assets). Popolano arrived at AIG about six years ago at the firm's American International Underwriters subsidiary as senior systems officer, and became CTO after three years. In 2000, he became chief information officer, where he supervises the current CTO and the firm's four group CIOs, and is working to bring greater technological unity to AIG's famously decentralized organization.
"I'm a firm believer in transformation," Popolano says. In order to transform AIG into an integrated financial services player, Popolano says he's maintained a loyal corps of senior IT people-with almost zero attrition at senior levels over the past three years-which is now positioned to transform IT within the organization. "And I'm very good at finding and creating good teams of people. I always tell people that it's the sergeants in the trenches that win the war, not the generals on top of the hill."
Popolano's sergeants will have their work cut out for them in AIG's traditional IT structure. "If you know AIG, it's a series of silos," he says. "But we're creating an IT function. I firmly believe the business partnership now sees us as an added value versus simply a utility or service group."
That is no simple task, Popolano says, but rather requires an entirely new mindset on the part of the business. As the IT group puts process and methodology into...