Veronique Arnoldi

The transformation of insurance giant Norwich Union to its new incarnation, Aviva, has captured public attention as one of the most expensive and ambitious rebranding campaigns of recent years. Behind the scenes, however, the company's transformation also entails the integration of its many globally distributed funds into a new subsidiary, Aviva Investors, to create a single global asset management business with assets of more than £235bn ($330.4bn).
Veronique Arnoldi, the new company's even newer CTO, has been tasked with overseeing the technical integration process of these global operations, in a role that involves overseeing the creation of IT processes and systems globally, including client experience, channel management, process design and IT strategy. "The group strategy is to integrate these funds in one business and mutualise the synergies this offers, in terms of global products and clients: it is a pretty classic integration," she explains. Although the ambitious plan was drawn up prior to the global economic downturn, Ms Arnoldi – who joined Aviva Investors three days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers – believes its goals of closer global integration and rationalisation have been reinforced by the economic context. "It makes sense for our customers to be able to present a wider range of products based on a global portfolio, which means building a global footprint."
Fragmented infrastructure
Historically, all local funds had operated as independent entities, meaning Aviva Investors has absolutely no global infrastructure at all, says Ms Arnoldi. "So when we're talking about integration, we're talking about working almost from scratch," she adds. This is no exaggeration. In recent months, Ms Arnoldi's team has begun putting in the global networks, e-mail systems, and supporting physical kit, "the type of things you take for granted", she says, the so-called "glue" that will form the basic infrastructure from which to support the globally integrated fund. Due to a lack of maturity among the asset management technology community, Ms Arnoldi has decided against building out a shared services model, in which a single central platform services each locality globally.
Layered service
Some individual systems, such as the firm's customer relationship management application, will be operated globally, but for the most part Ms Arnoldi plans to use a layer of service oriented architecture to transfer data between systems spread among different locations. To some extent, this decision reflects what Ms Arnoldi, who came from the well-serviced manufacturing sector, sees as the immaturity of the asset-management technology vendor product offerings: "Where I come from, you're working in an environment where your main issue is whether to choose between three big vendors to support your global processes: this was a given and there were a lot of best practices in terms of global processes," she explains. "But in this industry, it is not the case: there are some service providers and systems that would support a global organisation but they are few, too small, and would not support all our processes."
Counting the cost
Cost is also a key consideration. Although Ms Arnoldi is not under severe pressure to make cost savings, the changing economic situation has altered the approach Ms Arnoldi originally envisaged. She also believes that there is little virtue in making a huge up-front outlay, the benefits of which may not be realised for some years. Instead, she plans to build out the infrastructure on a piecemeal basis, adapting and integrating systems where necessary, and filling gaps where they occur.
"Let's face it: the finance industry has always spent more on IT so while there may be the need to make some cost-savings I think it is probably more about cost avoidance or [not] putting too much investment ahead of benefits in the journey we're embarking upon." The final infrastructure will cost Aviva Investors more in the long-run, she admits, "but at least you don't spend money before you have to", she adds. "That is now the approach that the new economic situation is pushing us to take in designing and developing the business; so the end goal remains the same but the way we're going to go about it has changed."
The spectre of new regulations has also forced Ms Arnoldi to be flexible in her ongoing planning of the integration process. "No doubt there will be new regulation coming out of the crisis, but the only thing I can do right now is plan [for the] need to adapt the system." But the very integration itself will also demand that Ms Arnoldi and her team undertake a comprehensive certification of its existing systems, she adds. "If the only thing we do is take what we have and just plug it in to make it global, with all the regulatory constraints, we're going to end up with something that's unworkable. So part of the integration process is a certification of what we have," she adds.
Career history
Veronique Arnoldi
2008 - Joins Aviva Investors as CTO.
2006 - Vice-president energy and utilities for the UK and EMEA division, EDS.
2004 - CIO British Gas, residential business.