New York, May 1, 2019 – IDG’s CIO has announced that both TIAA and Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, are recipients of 2019 CIO 100 awards. The 32nd Annual Awards Program recognizes 100 organizations around the world that exemplify the highest level of operational and strategic excellence in information technology (IT).
TIAA was recognized for Refactor, an innovative approach to how the firm designs, builds and delivers software. By leveraging emerging concepts, a team of developers created virtual product interfaces that enable straight-through processing for operational teams, reducing time to market and resulting in cost savings for the firm’s institutional clients. TIAA was also recognized in 2018 for its industry-leading use of predictive technologies.
Nuveen was recognized for its proprietary Responsible Investment (RI) platform, which enables portfolio managers and analysts to seamlessly include the environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects of target securities in their investment decision-making. This pioneering platform centralizes, standardizes and manages Nuveen’s RI intellectual property.
“We are extremely pleased to receive two CIO 100 Awards for innovative technologies that positively impact customers across the enterprise,” said Rahul Merchant, Senior EVP, Head of Client Services & Technology at TIAA. “This is a great testament to the progress our teams have made to drive innovation and continually enhance our tools, processes and capabilities.”
“Across the business landscape, companies everywhere recognize the vital role that an innovative, value-driven approach to information technology plays in their success,” said Maryfran Johnson, IDG’s Executive Director of CIO Programs. “This year’s CIO 100 winning companies are inspiring examples of how IT leadership, business collaboration and digital transformation will drive future growth.”
More on Refactor
The Refactor strategy was executed by small, cross-functional and cross-organizational teams following a Scaled Agile Framework methodology. They worked alongside their business counterparts to define 35 success metrics across seven dimensions to ensure the solution would scale all aspects of the business’ needs. More than 70 fundamental changes affected how the teams built their digital solutions, which enabled the delivery of this solution swiftly, while meeting their quantified goals.
“Through the Refactor project, the TIAA team made significant strides in improving operating efficiency and the overall customer experience, while implementing scalable concepts that are now being applied enterprise-wide to reduce time and radically increase performance and quality,” said Alex Pecoraro, Managing Director and Head of Retirement Services Technology at TIAA.
Refactor has enhanced TIAA’s development methods, with a 50 percent improvement in cycle-time for onboarding new products and services. Other benefits include:
- Time to onboard the first 25 clients: 5x faster
- Deployments: 50x faster
- Quality validation: 50,000x faster
- Typical onboarding time: 2.5x faster
- Processing time: 200x faster
More on the Responsible Investment Platform
Nuveen’s flagship RI platform delivers on TIAA’s promise of making an impact on society by integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into Nuveen’s investment decisions. It provides a centralized repository of ESG knowledge, data, risk metrics, indices and analytics. This information is used by portfolio managers and analysts to drive positive environmental and social impacts through investing practices.
“The RI platform brings big data technology together with Nuveen’s nearly 50 years of experience in ESG investing,” said Santanu Sengupta, Managing Director, Innovation and Decision Sciences Technology at Nuveen. “It helps influence corporate governance and operational decisions, while solving complex workflow challenges that include consolidating multiple user interfaces and data access channels to reduce research time and develop new investment management and financial insights.”
The platform’s research and analytics function can assess asset classes including public equity, fixed income, municipal bonds, and real assets like timber, agriculture and real estate, and alternatives like private equity. It enables Nuveen to identify potential ESG risks and opportunities to achieve competitive investment results for clients. The platform accelerates Nuveen’s long-time commitment to responsible investing by applying RI principles across the full scope of assets under management. It helps the firm seek better outcomes for investors, communities and our planet.
About the CIO 100 Awards
The annual CIO 100 Awards celebrate 100 organizations and the teams within them that are using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers. The award is an acknowledged mark of enterprise excellence. Recipients are selected through a three-step process. First, companies fill out an online application form detailing an innovative IT and business initiative. Next, a team of external judges (many of them former CIOs) reviews the applications in depth, looking for leading-edge IT practices and measurable results. Finally, CIO editors review the judges' recommendations and select the final 100.
About TIAA
With an award-winning1 track record for consistent investment performance, TIAA (TIAA.org) is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, medical, cultural and government fields. TIAA has nearly $1 trillion in assets under management (as of 12/31/20182) and offers a wide range of financial solutions, including investing, banking, advice and education, and retirement services.
About Nuveen
Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, offers a comprehensive range of outcome-focused investment solutions designed to secure the long-term financial goals of institutional and individual investors. Nuveen has $989 billion in assets under management as of 31 March 2019 and operations in 23 countries. Its affiliates offer deep expertise across a comprehensive range of traditional and alternative investments through a wide array of vehicles and customized strategies. For more information, please visit www.nuveen.com .
About CIO
CIO focuses on attracting the highest concentration of enterprise CIOs and business technology executives with unparalleled peer insight and expertise on business strategy, innovation, and leadership. As organizations grow with digital transformation, CIO provides its readers with key insights on career development, including certifications, hiring practices and skills development. The award-winning CIO portfolio — CIO.com, CIO Events, CIO Strategic Marketing Services, CIO Forum on LinkedIn, CIO Executive Council and CIO primary research — provides business technology leaders with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen understanding of IT’s role in achieving business goals. CIO is published by IDG Communications, Inc. Company information is available at www.idg.com.