Claire Kelly

Ms. Claire Kelly is a strategic and transformational Chief Information Officer, leader and trusted business partner to the corporate leadership team and Board, with 25+ years of experience in retirement plan administration for the not-for-profit sector.  Her expertise in vendor selection and management, team building, and managing growth has been consistently informed by an innovative mind set, sound judgment, and a commitment to achieving excellence.

Serving as Chief Information Officer (CIO) and IT Managing Vice President for the ICMA Retirement Corporation (ICMA-RC), an independent, not-for-profit retirement plan administrator for public employers with $57B in assets and 1M+ participant accounts, Ms. Kelly led the IT function from 1992 to 2015 (strategic planning, systems development, maintenance/production support, computer operations, telephony, infrastructure engineering, project portfolio office, innovation office, data management and risk management).  In this capacity, she delivered the technology support to introduce new products (self-directed brokerage accounts, registered funds, online disbursements, managed accounts, and a retirement income fund) and plan customization, enhancing the Corporation’s ability to compete with larger providers and acquire new clients. (ICMA-RC‘s 96% participant retention rate is 10 points higher than the industry average.) Ms. Kelly also enhanced enterprise-wide communication, sales associates’ presentations and Board members’ access to needed information by accelerating adoption of state-of the-art mobile and digital platforms. Cost savings of $1M over several years were attained by improved telephony functionality realized by transitioning from an in-house PBX to a private cloud VoIP solution.

From 1994 to 1996, Ms. Kelly served as Vice President of Information Technology at ICMA-RC. In this role, she brought a small partially outsourced IT function in-house and expanded it into a full-fledged application and custom development organization, integral to the cost management, growth.

Ms. Kelly joined IMCA-RC in 1990 as Director of Operations, and became Director of Information Technology in 1992.  In these roles, she was instrumental in establishing the Corporation as a viable competitor in the industry. She led the conversion from monthly to daily fund valuation, stabilizing business operations, enabling new client acquisition and significantly contributing to improved client satisfaction.

She started her professional career at Ernst & Young as a Senior Manager in the Commercial Systems Consulting Practice (1980 – 1987), and served as Assistant Vice President and Department Manager, Systems Development at MNC Information Services, Inc., now a subsidiary of Bank of America (1987 – 1990). From 1983 to 1984, she was also an Adjunct Professor and Lecturer (Business Systems) at University of Maryland.

Ms. Kelly earned a BA in Journalism from the University of Michigan, an MS in Accounting from Georgetown University, and received the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license. She received the Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP) certification from the Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI), and the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) Series 99 Operations Professional certification.

In her free time, Ms. Kelly participates in century (100 mile) charity rides as a distance cyclist.