Mike Foley CIO MassMutual

How long at current company: 14 years

Career accomplishment I'm most proud of: I'm proudest of having developed good organizations and strong leaders as I have moved on through my career.

Most important career influencer: A former boss taught me that the business needs to create value for customers and key stakeholders to be viable. First and foremost, we in IT are business partners who must think holistically about how we add value, and not just focus on our technical specialty.

Decision I wish I could do over: Earlier in my career I found myself in a company that had fallen on hard times, and my loyalty to the firm prompted me to stay longer than I probably should have. I learned that while loyalty is certainly an important and admirable quality, you need to be objective and fully assess all of the facts of a situation when making important decisions, particularly when it involves your career development.

The next big thing for my industry will be ... consolidation driven by the need to achieve lower unit costs. Also, there will be an increased emphasis on the strengthening of information security practices across financial services, both internally and externally (our distributors, service providers, etc.).

Best advice for future CIOs: Four primary considerations: (1) alignment of business and IT direction; (2) commitment of company's senior leaders, including the board; (3) organizational effectiveness; (4) the effectiveness of the technologies you choose.

Size of IT team: Approximately 1,300 employees plus contractors

Three top initiatives:

• Executing our multiyear life insurance infrastructure and application modernization program
• Completing our retirement services infrastructure and application modernization initiative
• Accelerating the leadership effectiveness development of our middle-management team

How I measure IT effectiveness: We ask ourselves these questions: Do our business partners believe they're receiving excellent value for their IT investment? Is there high operational stability? Is there strong project execution and quality delivery? Is the IT plan explainable in a way that parallels the business strategic plan?

College/degree: Central Connecticut State University, BA in economics

Best book read recently: Water For Elephants, Sara Gruen

Leisure activities: Sports cars and fishing

Smartphone and PC of choice: BlackBerry, ThinkPad

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be ... retired

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