Her Story
About Marta
Marta Magnuszewska serves as Chief Information and Technology Officer at the National Insurance Crime Bureau in Chicago, Illinois. With more than 20 years in the insurance industry, she began her career at Allstate Insurance as a Competitive Intelligence Analyst after a brief stint trading futures and options at the Chicago Board of Trade. She advanced within Allstate to roles in the Special Investigation Unit, leading teams focused on fraud detection using data and analytics, eventually expanding her responsibilities across the broader claims organization. She later established data analytics and transformation capabilities at John Bean Technology in the manufacturing sector before returning to insurance for underwriting transformation at Hartford Insurance and claims analytics leadership at Markel. Most recently, she joined the National Insurance Crime Bureau to leverage her expertise in protecting insurance consumers through innovation amid industry transformations including AI. Her academic credentials include a bachelor's degree in science focused on finance, financial investments, and portfolio management, a master's degree in leadership and communication from Northwestern University, a data science certification from Johns Hopkins University, a professional certification in applied AI in organizational transformations from MIT, and leadership programs including The Impact of Leading Others from Allstate and the Accelerated Leadership Program from the Wisconsin School of Business.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Marta
01What do you attribute your success to?
I strongly believe that who we are, who we become, and how successful we are is extremely influenced by our upbringing. I moved to the U.S. when I was 10 and spoke only 3 words of English. That experience taught me how to never give up, how to embrace challenge, and to be persistent. I had to go through the unknowns, learning the new culture, country, and language. That gave me the strength that there is no problem too complex for me to solve. I became very open-minded and always ask questions because the question you never ask will never be answered. I attribute my success primarily to my parents who built that shield in me that the fact that it's new and different, you can do this.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice is that as leaders we have to walk through open doors. We have to open some doors for ourselves, some doors will open for us, and some doors will remain closed and we have to find a way to walk through them. Another piece of advice is that every leader who leads teams and provides mentorship should consider that being in an organization for more than 3 years is a disfavor to you as a leader and to the organization because your perspective drifts the longer you are with the organization.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
For women as leaders in the new environment of AI and change and technology, we need to be a stronger voice in the room. We are better problem solvers and much more intuitive. Women in STEM should be encouraged to be that strong voice and go into professions dominated by males. When a man in the room is vocal and opinionated it is celebratory, but when a female does that she is called names, and it shouldn't be that way because we are all entitled to strong opinions.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are being ethical because no matter what we do it has to be the right ethical thing, especially within data, transformation, and technology. Treat others no matter where in the org chart the same way you would like to be treated. As a leader maximize individual strength because that enables growth and development. Personally, balance work and life because I work to live, I don't live to work. Prioritize family time over working extra hours and embrace weekends fully to return with fresh perspective.
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