Kathy Kay’s customer-centric IT model starts with a simple rule: technology investment should follow changing customer needs and business priorities. In a January 30, 2025 CIO interview, Principal Financial Group’s executive vice president and chief information officer said the company must keep listening, connect experiences across its businesses, and give employees better information and tools to help customers. The approach combines data, analytics, cloud and AI with a leadership culture built on curiosity, feedback and a willingness to change course.
What customer-centric IT means in Kay’s account
Kay describes technology as a means of improving service, not an end in itself. “Technology plays an essential role in everything we do at Principal. It’s not just about enabling efficiency; it’s about unlocking opportunities to serve our customers better,” she told CIO on January 30, 2025.
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That distinction changes how an IT organization sets priorities. A project is not successful merely because it modernizes infrastructure or reduces processing time. It should also help Principal respond to what customers now expect, make interactions more coherent across products, or help an employee or agent provide more useful guidance.
Kay tied that urgency to Principal’s long history. The company was described as 145 years old in the 2025 interview, but longevity is not a reason to preserve every established practice. “The world is constantly changing, our customers’ needs are constantly changing, and as such we need to make some pivots to serve our customers more effectively,” she said.
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Four parts of the operating model
1. Start with customer and business priorities
Technology strategy follows the organization’s wider strategy. Kay’s framing puts listening ahead of prescribing: leaders need to understand how customer expectations and business needs are shifting before deciding which capabilities to build or fund.
For an insurer and financial-services provider, that can mean examining an entire journey rather than optimizing one application. A customer may move among digital channels, a call center, an adviser or an agent. Customer-centric IT asks whether those handoffs feel connected and whether each participant has the context needed to help.
2. Connect experiences across product lines
Kay discusses more integrated service across Principal’s businesses. Integration here is an operating goal, not a claim that every system has already been unified. The intended benefit is that customers and employees encounter fewer disconnected processes when needs cross products or channels.
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CIO reported in November 2023 that Principal had unified its IT strategy and created Enterprise Business Solutions as an internal technology division focused on modernization. That report also connected Principal with Evolution IQ in the context of disability-insurance claims. Those are dated descriptions of organizational and partnership activity, not evidence of a current performance level or quantified customer impact.
3. Make data useful to employees and agents
Kay says Principal is curating data for use across the enterprise and improving analytics so employees and agents can make better-informed, more proactive suggestions. The practical test is whether information arrives in a form that supports a timely customer conversation, rather than remaining trapped in separate systems or reports.
Her comments describe a strategy and intended capability. They do not provide an audited measure of improved retention, claims speed, satisfaction or revenue, so those outcomes should not be inferred from the technology work alone.
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4. Apply AI and cloud where they improve decisions or service
Kay names artificial intelligence, data analytics and cloud capabilities among the tools Principal is using or exploring to improve decision-making and customer experience. A tool does not automatically make an interaction customer-centric: the use case still has to solve a real problem, fit the employee’s workflow and produce an answer people can trust.
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A May 2024 CIO interview also describes Kay’s effort to balance traditional AI with generative AI and to serve customers holistically across digital and non-digital interactions. The source offers context for her technology choices; it does not establish that every proposed use case has been deployed or that a particular model caused a measured result.
The leadership behaviors behind the technology
Listen before deciding
Kay’s model treats listening as a management discipline. Customer feedback, employee experience and frontline observations all provide signals about where a process is failing or where an opportunity is emerging. This reduces the risk of treating an internal technology roadmap as more important than the people it is meant to serve.
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Ask questions and empower teams
“Great leaders don’t have all the answers; they ask great questions and empower their teams to solve challenges collaboratively,” Kay said in the 2025 interview. In practice, that means leaders clarify the customer or business problem, then give multidisciplinary teams room to test solutions and surface constraints.
Stay open to learning
Kay also said, “Staying open to learning — especially from those around you — is essential for long-term success.” The point is broader than formal training. It includes learning from customers, agents, engineers, operations staff and colleagues whose perspective exposes a blind spot.
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Curiosity and humility have an operational consequence: leaders must remove obstacles that prevent teams from serving customers and change direction when evidence shows that an assumption was wrong. This makes adaptation part of delivery rather than an emergency response after a project has already failed.
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What Kay’s remit covers
Principal’s official management biography, accessed September 28, 2026, lists Kay as responsible for global technology, digital operations, service delivery, digital strategies and innovation. The biography says she joined Principal in May 2020 and has more than 35 years of cross-industry IT leadership experience. Titles and responsibilities can change, so the company’s current biography is the appropriate reference for her present remit.
That breadth matters to the customer-centric thesis. It places infrastructure, digital experiences, service delivery and innovation within one leadership frame instead of treating customer experience as only a website or application concern.
How to evaluate a customer-centric IT strategy
Kay’s account suggests four useful questions for boards, executives and technology leaders assessing an enterprise program:
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| Evaluation area | Question to ask | What a credible answer would show |
|---|---|---|
| Business alignment | Which customer or business priority does this investment serve? | A named need, owner and decision criterion rather than a technology-first rationale. |
| Journey integration | What happens when a customer moves between products, channels or teams? | Clear handoffs, shared context and accountability across organizational boundaries. |
| Data utility | Can employees and agents use the available information at the moment of service? | Curated, accessible data tied to a decision or action, with appropriate controls. |
| Learning and adaptation | How will leaders know when to persist, change or stop? | Feedback loops, measurable outcomes and permission for teams to raise problems early. |
These are analytical tests derived from Kay’s description, not a ranking of Principal against other financial-services companies.
What the public record does—and does not—show
- Kay clearly states that customer needs should drive technology choices and that technology can improve service beyond efficiency.
- She identifies data, analytics, cloud and AI as components of the strategy.
- Her interviews emphasize leadership behaviors—listening, questioning, humility, learning and removing blockers—that support adaptation.
- The cited material does not provide independent, quantified proof of customer or financial outcomes from these initiatives.
- The 2023 and 2024 CIO reports provide historical context; they should not be read as confirmation that every described program or partnership remains unchanged in 2026.
Bottom line for technology leaders
Kathy Kay’s message is that customer-centric IT is an operating model, not a software category. It links investment decisions to changing customer needs, connects service across organizational lines, turns enterprise data into frontline help, and expects leaders to learn and pivot. AI and cloud may enable that work, but the defining discipline is continual listening followed by accountable action.
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