The Female CIO: A Rare Sighting

Is there a lack of women at the highest levels of technology leadership, some people wonder (myself included)? Not at New York Life there isn't. New York Life Insurance Company said today that Eileen Slevin has been appointed the company's new chief information officer. Slevin will report to executive VP and chief administrative officer, Frank Boccio, according to a statement from the company.

As leader of the company's corporate information department, Slevin will be responsible for setting New York Life strategic technology direction and oversee a staff of more than 1,300 in six U.S. locations. She also has management responsibility for two other strategic areas of the company, according to the statement: something called "Business Resilience" and the corporate Internet.

Slevin didn't start out in technology. She joined New York Life in 1977 in the group insurance department. But she has impressive business credentials: she was promoted to assistant VP in 1988, corporate VP in 1991, and vice president in 1993.

For reasons known only to her (kidding!), Slevin transferred to New York Life's corporate information department in 1995. She was then elected senior VP of the company in 1999. Slevin has served two terms in the company's Management Advisory Council and is currently a steering committee member of New York Life's Political Action Committee.

I've always found it surprising that there aren't more women in IT management. And why is that? There are certain skill sets emerging for modern-day CIOs, among them communication skills but also consensus building, collaboration, customer focus, and the imaginative use of emerging Web 2.0 technologies like wikis and social networking tools, that would seem to be very appropriate for female executives.

Still, the number of female CIOs is low. Maybe this announcement by New York Life is a harbinger of things to come.