Chief Information Officer — Insurance Distribution Network

The mandate

An insurance distribution network has accumulated policy, commission, adviser and claims systems through acquisitions and short-term product launches. Run cost rises each year, releases require repeated reconciliation, and investment is spread across too many renewal proposals. The investment committee has paused discretionary expansion until a CIO presents a credible estate decision that improves service and releases capital without risking client records or insurer connectivity.

The scope includes approximately 500 employees and material partners and an asset, technology and investment perimeter near ₹5,900 crore. The CIO owns enterprise applications, infrastructure, data platforms, cyber delivery, service management, architecture and vendors. Product leaders own customer propositions; independent risk sets standards. Technology must provide honest options and deliver what the business selects.

The estate cannot be renewed through a single dramatic replacement. Commission history, policy endorsements and claims correspondence may need retention beyond their apparent operational life. Conversely, integration layers built to avoid decisions now create incidents and cost. The CIO must use business-service, data and economic evidence to sequence change.

Distribution technology also shapes producer behaviour. A slow quotation journey encourages advisers to use offline spreadsheets; inaccurate commission feeds create disputes and unwanted sales incentives; fragmented client records make consent and cross-referral difficult to prove. These are business and conduct problems expressed through technology. The CIO will therefore share outcome measures with sales, operations and compliance leaders rather than report application availability as an end in itself. The role also carries responsibility for responsible use of automation in advice-support and service prioritisation.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent is departing unexpectedly during the investment reset, making this an urgent replacement. Interim leadership can sustain service but lacks authority to commit multi-year capital or restructure senior technology roles. The board expects an appointment before vendor renewals close, with a professional transition that does not compromise operational stability.

What you will own

• Establish a complete technology-cost and dependency baseline by business service, application, vendor and data obligation.
• Recommend retain, remediate, replace or retire decisions with explicit customer, control, cost and migration reasoning.
• Prioritise adviser desktop, policy servicing, commission accuracy and claims advocacy journeys where technology friction destroys value.
• Protect historic records, consent and audit evidence through migration and defensible archival.
• Reduce vendor concentration and contract lock-in, securing skills transfer and executable exit rights.
• Improve engineering and service ownership, incident learning, cyber remediation and recovery testing.
• Reallocate the investment portfolio, stopping projects whose benefits or prerequisites no longer withstand scrutiny.
• Develop the 500-person technology organisation and reduce critical knowledge dependency on contractors.

The first 12 months

The first 60 days should secure operations, review severe incidents and map renewal deadlines. Trace policy and commission data through the most complex legacy journeys and reconcile reported run cost to actual contracts and internal labour. Freeze irreversible commitments lacking dependency or retirement evidence.

By month four, present the estate strategy, three-year capital profile and first retirement wave. Assign service owners, set reliability and recovery objectives and resolve the future of the most expensive vendor relationship. The plan must quantify dual running and data-retention cost rather than treat them as contingencies.

Months five to nine should deliver one adviser or servicing journey end to end, retire low-risk duplication, strengthen recovery and renegotiate priority contracts. Technology teams should own production outcomes and demonstrate fewer hand-offs. Staff in legacy domains should receive clear reskilling or transition routes.

At twelve months, annualised run-rate cost should be 15% below baseline with no transfer into hidden change spend; severe incidents should fall 35%; 90% of critical services should meet tested recovery objectives; commission and policy-data reconciliation defects should reduce 50%; and approved retirement should have removed at least one material platform dependency.

What the board will measure

• Capital withdrawn, run cost retired and value delivered by the remaining portfolio.
• Adviser and customer service improvement in journeys selected for change.
• Integrity and availability of policy, commission and claims records.
• Severe incidents, vulnerability ageing and tested recovery.
• Vendor concentration, skills transfer and executable exits.
• Leadership depth and internal ownership of critical services.

The person

You have 18–22 years in regulated technology, including CIO or major divisional accountability for at least ₹3,450 crore in business, assets or investment and 500 employees and partners. Insurance, wealth, banking or distribution-platform experience is relevant.

You have simplified a live estate whose apparent redundancy concealed record, integration or control obligations. You can show applications retired, cost removed, service improved and data protected. The board will reject a roadmap that relies on perpetual future savings or wholesale replacement unsupported by migration evidence.

You combine technical judgement with capital discipline. You can challenge a cherished digital project, defend an unfashionable system temporarily and explain both decisions in commercial language. References must confirm operational steadiness during transition.

Compensation and terms

The role offers ₹3.2–4.6 crore fixed plus performance variable and long-term incentive. Objectives balance capital, cost, service, cyber, record integrity and team health. This permanent appointment is onsite in Gurugram and is being progressed urgently.

Confidentiality

The distribution group, systems and vendors remain undisclosed pending qualification and reciprocal confidentiality. Figures are rounded composites. Candidates should route conflicts through the search team and avoid external enquiries.