Marsh & McLennan Companies, a professional services organization, moves its chief risk and compliance officer to a broader, technology-focused role, highlighting the growing importance of technology strategy within large companies. Credit: Thinkstock E. Scott Gilbert, formerly chief risk and compliance officer of Marsh & McLennan Companies, has been named CIO of the $13 billion professional services firm. In his new role, which he started last Wednesday, Gilbert will continue reporting to CEO Dan Glaser as a member of the company’s executive management committee. He will also lead the company’s Dublin-based innovation center. E. Scott Gilbert, CIO of Marsh & McLennan. Elevations of chief risk and compliance officers to CIO roles are rare. Yet such promotions could become more prevalent as companies continue to combat cybersecurity attacks and competitive threats, and other concerns that could impact their businesses. In this case, Gilbert comes with IT experience, having in his prior role overseen the company’s technology infrastructure, including business resiliency and security. Marsh & McLennan operates under a shared services model, in which the technology infrastructure, led by CTO Dave Fike, supported applications for the company’s properties. Fike will continue reporting to Gilbert. [ Related: New CIO appointments, September 2015 edition ] Gilbert said that a big innovation focus is big data, or analytics that help the company learn more about its operations, as well as how to better serve clients. He says he hopes to instill more “coordination and cross-fertilization” of innovation across the company’s brands, which include Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer Oliver Wyman. “I’ll be there to provide more executive focus and help to coordinate, explore, and further the areas of big data and other sources of innovation that are within our reach,” Gilbert told CIO.com. “The creativity, imagination and ingenuity Scott has demonstrated during the past decade at MMC ideally qualify him for his new role,” Glaser said in a statement. Gilbert, as risk officer and film buff Gilbert says that one of those creative projects was producing a film, “Faces of Marsh & McLennan,” to educate employees about its new code of conduct policy amid a push to reduce risk across the enterprise, which advises companies on risk, business strategy and talent management. Employees watched the film, as well as a mock TV series, on their desktops to learn about compliance policies. He says reaching people through digital media and video applications “demonstrably affected the culture of the firm,” allowing him to be successful in his prior role. [ Related: Tips to help CIOs ‘manage the white space’ ] Gilbert says he’s prepared for the CIO role after spending a decade at the company, joining as chief compliance officer in 2005, and later taking on more responsibility as chief risk officer. “I’ve now had a lot of experience working as member of executive committee in this big global company,” Gilbert says. “I think I understand the company quite well.” Marsh & McLennan said it has also appointed Carey Roberts, who joined the company last year as deputy general counsel and corporate secretary, as chief compliance officer to fulfill some of the tasks overseen by Gilbert. Related content BrandPost The future of trust—no more playing catch up Broadcom: 2023 Tech Trends That Transform IT By Eric Chien, Director of Security Response, Symantec Enterprise Division, Broadcom Mar 31, 2023 5 mins Security BrandPost TCS gives Blackhawk Network an edge with Microsoft Cloud In this case study, Blackhawk Network’s Cara Renfroe joins Tata Consultancy Services’ Rakesh Kumar and Microsoft’s Nilendu Pattanaik to explain how TCS transformed the gift card company’s customer engagement and global operati By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 1 min Financial Services Industry Cloud Computing IT Leadership BrandPost How TCS pioneered the ‘borderless workspace’ with Microsoft 365 Microsoft’s modern workplace solution proved a perfect fit for improving productivity and collaboration, while maintaining security of systems and data. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 1 min Financial Services Industry Microsoft Cloud Computing BrandPost Supply chain decarbonization: The missing link to net zero By improving the quality of global supply chain data, enterprises can better measure their true carbon footprint and make progress toward a net-zero business ecosystem. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 2 mins Retail Industry Supply Chain Green IT Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe