Hiscox Group Names Barclay’s Penny as Chief Information Officer

Specialist global insurer Hiscox announced the appointment of Ian Penny as chief information officer (CIO) for the Hiscox Group.

An experienced IT professional with a wealth of global, blue-chip experience, Penny brings expertise in leading all aspects of IT including strategy, development, engineering, operations and program execution, said Hiscox in a statement.

At Hiscox, he will be responsible for the group’s IT, leading a team of 300 and reporting to the CEO Bronek Masojada.

Penny is currently chief technology officer at Barclays, where he is responsible for the group’s IT infrastructure development and has led the bank’s cloud computing initiatives for three years. Prior to this, he was global head of Distributed Engineering and Architecture at JPMorgan and was based in the U.S. for seven years, where he designed platforms for risk analytics, cloud development and high-volume customer channels. He has previously worked at Pfizer and Goldman Sachs.

“Ian’s appointment is an important step in our evolution. We continue to invest heavily in our rapidly growing retail businesses, and Ian will be critical to a number of significant multi-year business and IT transformation projects which will power our future growth,” commented Bronek Masojada, Hiscox Group CEO.

“I have no doubt that his diverse experience, including with Chase.com, a high-traffic banking website, at Bear Sterns supporting their dealing rooms and with Barclays in cloud computing, will prove invaluable,” he added.

“I am pleased to be joining Hiscox at a time when there is significant investment to support the business evolution,” said Penny. “Technology will be a core partner in the execution of the strategy, whether that be digital customer journeys or data analytics….”

Penny is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and has worked extensively with the venture capital and start-up community to build applied technology solutions. He is taking over from interim CIO Gareth Wharton who is joining a new Hiscox cyber initiative.

Source: Hiscox