CIO & CTO Announcements from Safeco and Sky Financial

Plus: Evolution Benefits Promotes Erwin  

Yesterday, Safeco announced that it had hired William Jenks as its new CIO.  Jenks begins his job with the Seattle-based property and casualty insurance provider on April 17.  He replaces Yom Senegor (pictured at left), who is resigning from Safeco after five years with the company.  Jenks most recently served as EVP and CIO of advertising firm Publicis Groupe, where he consolidated disparate technology platforms following an acquisition and led a restructuring of IT across the company. (I wrote about one of the CIOs who was affected by this restructuring in the December 15, 2004 issue of CIO.)  Prior to Publicis, Jenks held the CIO post at space Systems/Loral, Heller Financial and at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. 

Zahid Afzal joined Sky Financial Group as its EVP and CTO.  He reports to Les Starr, the Bowling Green, Ohio-based financial holding company’s corporate EVP in charge of technology and operations.  Starr hired Afzal from Bank of America, where Afzal was SVP and CIO of BofA’s consumer banking division.  Prior to BofA, Afzal was CIO for Broadslate Networks and served as a senior technology executive at Citicorp.

Sean Erwin was promoted to vice president of applications development at Evolution Benefits, a provider of electronic benefit payment systems. Erwin joined the Avon, Conn.-based company in May 2003.  He reports to Evolution Benefits’ SVP and CIO (pictured at right), Rick Bucchi.