EMERGENT HOLDINGS agility . This includes a major focus in their property casualty business of completing a multi-year migration to the Guidewire platform . " Legacy technologies are a major challenge in insurance , but we have continued to invest in our core processing systems , reduce technical debt and transition our application hosting from on-premise data centers to the cloud . We ' re excited about the possibilities because as we emerge from COVID-19 , our core platforms will enable us to deliver differentiating digital customer experiences and be much more responsive to the market ."
Having a very strong partner ecosystem has been key to Emergent Holdings ’ success . " Our primary strategic sourcing partner , HCL , has played a major role in enabling us to scale our IT operations and helping us create the headroom for our employees to innovate ." Emergent Holdings also has a close relationship with Microsoft , and in 2020 attained Microsoft Gold Partner status in Data Analytics .
Equally important is partnering with startups , and Emergent Holdings has acquired several startup ventures to expand their product offering . In 2019 they acquired Symphony , a Silicon Valley-developed cloudnative health management solution designed by physicians and care management experts to solve the complex issue of value-based care and plan / provider coordination . Following this , Emergent Holdings opened a small office in San Francisco . " It provides us with a presence in one of the epicenters of innovation in the United States " Hicks says .
More recently they acquired DecisionUR , a cloud-based solution that supports their workers ' compensation vertical by accelerating the workers ’ compensation claim review process which enables highly responsive care planning for those injured on the job . EXECUTIVE BIO
MICHAEL HICKS
TITLE : SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
INDUSTRY : INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SERVICES
LOCATION : UNITED STATES
Michael Hicks joined Emergent
Holdings , Inc . in 2018 as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer with responsibility for leading an innovative , robust , and secure information technology function in support of Emergent Holdings ’ portfolio of businesses . With 25 years of active leadership in the insurance industry , Mr . Hicks ’ previous roles include Chief Information Officer for Retirement Solutions and Corporate Technology at Guardian Life , and seven years with MassMutual Financial Group as Vice President of Shared Delivery Services where he was responsible for leading enterprise IT shared services and solutions delivery for MassMutual ’ s corporate business units . Mr . Hicks has a bachelor ’ s degree from Boston University and an MBA from Northeastern University ’ s D ' Amore- McKim School of Business .