An insurer can hand the running of a system to someone else. It cannot hand over its understanding of the promises held inside that system. I keep that understanding in the company: in product rules written down outside the code, in people who can still read the old programs, and in contracts that let us leave. Most of my other technology choices follow from that.
Elise Ferraro
Gross written premiums
€1.34bn
2025; life savings, unit-linked, pensions and protection
Policies and plan memberships
812,000
Administered across a mainframe ledger and a cloud platform
IT budget
€58m
2025; 128 internal staff plus outsourced services
Leadership, seen by others.
When Elise brings an outsourcing paper to the risk committee, it says what we would lose if the supplier failed and how long recovery would take. She also flags the parts she is unsure of, which makes the rest easier to trust.
Ottavia BrenzoniChief risk officer, Corvelline Vita S.p.A.
I had maintained the revaluation programs for twenty-six years and expected to hand over a folder. Elise insisted on two years of pairing and on documents our actuaries could read. The graduates now find errors I had stopped seeing.
Arturo VelbastiSenior systems specialist, Corvelline Vita S.p.A.
Elise told the committee that leaving broker authentication optional had been her call and the wrong one. She said so before anyone asked. Directors can work with an executive who reports her own mistakes.
Giuliana OrdelmoIndependent director and chair of the risk committee, Corvelline Vita S.p.A.
Selected leadership work
Paying more for a shorter outsourcing contract that we could leave
In 2022 our contract with Gemmaldi Informatica for hosting, operating and maintaining the life policy ledger was due to expire in March 2023.
I judge every outsourcing, cloud or modernisation proposal by one test: could Corvelline still administer its oldest policy correctly if the supplier walked away tomorrow?
I am chief information officer of Corvelline Vita S.p.A., an unlisted Italian life and pensions insurer with its head office in Verona. In 2025 we wrote €1.34 billion of gross premiums and administered 812,000 policies and pension-plan memberships for savers who reach us through 310 tied agencies and 420 broker firms. I lead 128 IT colleagues through four heads and oversee about 85 full-time equivalents supplied by outsourcing partners, within a 2025 budget of €58 million. I report to the chief executive and present to the board's risk committee each quarter.
Many of our obligations are older than our systems. Savings contracts linked to segregated funds, sold through the 1990s with minimum credited rates, will keep paying for another twenty years. Their rules sit in a mainframe policy ledger first built in 1989 and operated for us by an outsourcing partner. Since 2024, new unit-linked and pension business has been written on a cloud platform. My work is to keep both estates reliable, to stop the knowledge behind the older one retiring with its programmers, and to give directors a plain account of what we depend on.
The three decisions described on this site each cost something before they helped. I paid more each year for a shorter outsourcing contract that we could actually leave. I delayed a data project to train six graduates in COBOL and document 214 product variants. I made brokers adopt multi-factor authentication within nineteen days, a few weeks before their busiest month. Colleagues argued reasonably against each choice, and I have kept their objections in the account rather than tidying them away.
A shorter contract with an exit we tested
We renewed mainframe outsourcing for five years at €4.9m a year instead of ten at €4.3m. A 2024 rehearsal moved the ledger of 391,000 contracts into an independent environment in twelve days, against twenty planned.
Product rules recovered from the code
Six graduates paired with retiring specialists documented 214 legacy variants. The work found nine where programs and policy conditions differed; 2,140 policyholders received €312,000 in corrected credits.
Broker access secured before the pension peak
After 23 broker accounts were taken over with reused passwords in October 2025, 97.8 per cent of 1,900 portal users had enrolled in multi-factor authentication by 1 December.
Current focus
I am preparing the 2027 decision on our outsourcing option: extend the mainframe contract for two years, move the closed books to another operator, or begin migrating the youngest of them to our cloud platform. The actuarial function will set the acceptance tests, not the technology team.
Conversations I welcome
I would consider one non-executive seat on an Italian or European financial-services board outside life insurance, giving about twenty-four days a year, once my employer has agreed and the relationships between the two companies have been reviewed.
The leadership record
Trusted with consequential decisions.
Formation
Laurea in computer engineering (five-year degree)Morvaldi Polytechnic · 1996
Non-executive director programme for financial-services boardsMorvaldi Polytechnic · 2025
I would consider one non-executive seat on an Italian or European financial-services board outside life insurance, giving about twenty-four days a year, once my employer has agreed and the relationships between the two companies have been reviewed.
