Dive Brief:
- Misty Kuamoo will lead Nationwide Financial as its new SVP and CTO, transitioning from her current role as SVP and CTO of Nationwide’s corporate technology and workplace solutions, the insurer shared in a Friday announcement. Kuamoo began her tenure with Nationwide in 2020 as VP of security shared services.
- Technology products supporting the insurer’s financial services businesses will fall under Kuamoo’s purview in her new position. The executive helped lead and oversee technology projects for the insurer’s finance, human resources, investments, legal and marketing business units, according to Nationwide.
- “As Nationwide continues to accelerate technology and AI, Kuamoo will play a key role in making it easier for customers and business partners to do business with Nationwide,” Nationwide CTO Michael Carrel said in the announcement. Kuamoo’s appointment follows Carrel’s recent promotion to CTO in December. Carrel served as the former SVP and CTO of Nationwide Financial.
Dive Insight:
Kuamoo’s appointment comes as Nationwide plans ambitious tech and AI investments over the next three years.
The insurer said it will invest $1.5 billion to accelerate technology projects, earmarking $100 million specifically for advancing AI each year for the next three years, according to an October announcement.
Nationwide CEO Kirt Walker said in the announcement that the company is using new tools to “drive deep partnerships, manage risk more proactively, innovate with agility and engage our communities.” Nationwide said it scaled six AI initiatives and flagged 18 use cases across its businesses, including “telematics-based risk scoring and AI-powered claims summarization.”
Carrel pointed to Kuamoo’s experience leading an AI project and other technology modernization efforts in her promotion announcement.
“Misty Kuamoo’s leadership has consistently driven results across critical initiatives — from implementing a new AI-powered tool for associates, to expanding associate services to modernizing the claim filing experience,” Carrel said.
Nationwide is among the top 10 insurance companies for density of AI talent among the overall headcount, according to Evident Insights. The company ranks 24th overall in Evident’s AI Insurance Index published in June. The report ranks AI maturity of the 30 largest insurers based in North America and Europe.
Allianz, which ranked No. 2 in Evident’s AI maturity index, last week announced it was partnering with large language model maker Anthropic to bolster operations automation with agentic AI, regulatory compliance and workforce enablement.
The partnership indicates how insurers are pushing to level up their AI game.
“Insurance is an industry where the stakes of using AI are particularly high: the decisions can affect millions of people,” Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, said in a statement. “Allianz and Anthropic both take that very seriously, and we look forward to working together to make insurance better for those who depend on it.”
