“It's quite exciting to be part of a turnaround environment,” Natan acknowledges. “I frequently tell colleagues if they ever have an opportunity to participate in a turnaround, they should consider it seriously because it's a fantastic experience.”

The company's restructuring efforts have paid off. According to Natan, IT costs dropped more than 50 percent from $186 million in 2001 to $85 million in 2005. The size of the IT department also declined from more than 700 employees in 2001 to about 400 today.

“We went through a number of painful job reductions over the years, and that was the hardest part of this whole experience,” Natan admits. “But the biggest benefit to the company is it is now in a position to compete in its marketplace. If we had continued in our pre-2001 mode, we slowly would have gone out of business.”

Shortly after the acquisition, White Mountains sold half of OneBeacon's business operations to Liberty Mutual Insurance Group and focused on turning the company into a profitable regional insurance carrier. As a result of the sale, OneBeacon's net written premiums decreased from $4 billion in 2001 to about $2.1 billion in 2005. Now that the turnaround is complete, however, the company is beginning to expand beyond the Northeast. OneBeacon acquired a book of business from Atlantic Mutual in 2004 and today offers small commercial lines products in 21 states.

Natan, who divides his time between OneBeacon offices in Massachusetts and Philadelphia, has worked in the insurance industry for most of his career. After earning a degree in industrial engineering from Cornell University, he worked in marketing support at Univac, which is now Unisys. He then spent 26 years at Cigna Corp., working in IT management positions for several business units. Before joining OneBeacon, he was CIO at Reliance Insurance Group.

To perform his myriad job responsibilities, Natan relies on his cell phone, BlackBerry, and other wireless systems. “There's nothing unusual about what I use,” he contends.

He also depends on wireless systems at home. His family shares various computers and printers thanks to a wireless local area network. “I'm looking forward to when wireless becomes even more pervasive in terms of higher-bandwidth applications for television and music,” Natan says. “It will be nice to be able to receive media from any room at any time without having to wire everything together.”

Natan also enjoys playing around with iMovie on his Macintosh and recently created a 15-minute video as a wedding present for his son. In addition, he relies on a GPS system in his car and boat but says what he really needs is something to help improve his golf game.

“I have a little device in my bag that tells me the distance of the pin, but what I need is a little person who can pop up and hit the ball to the pin,” he jokes.

Oddly enough, that does not seem like an unattainable request coming from a CIO who helped his company find its way back to being a profitable business.