Safeco has named William Jenks chief information officer, effective April 17. Jenks most recently served as executive vice president and CIO of worldwide operations at Publicis Groupe, an advertising and media company. At Publicis, Jenks led the consolidation of separate technology platforms following a major corporate acquisition. He also realigned the company's technical resources to support top-line business objectives and improve the efficiency of its global work force.

Before joining Publicis, Jenks was CIO at Space Systems/Loral, Heller Financial, Inc., and at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He started his career in 1974 at IBM and subsequently held positions at Martin Marietta, Inc., and Northrop Grumman Corp.

"Bill has an outstanding track record of leading transformational change with regard to technology infrastructure," says Paula Rosput Reynolds, Safeco president and CEO. "His experience working in time-critical, high-transaction environments, combined with his proven hands-on leadership, will help us achieve our stated goals of becoming a low-cost and logistically outstanding carrier."