“Don’t do anything you don’t believe”
West Bend Mutual Insurance Co.
West Bend
Industry: Insurance
Employees: 1,246
Credit: Lila Aryan Photography
“The best one is always the hard one, but the one I live by is two things. No. 1, ‘Be authentic’ is probably the best one I can think of, because you can’t act your way out of this. You have to be authentic, true to who you are. Sometimes people play the game or pretend to do certain things to please the boss, but that’s not who they are.
“I have not asked for any job I cannot do, I have not lied to advance myself. I believe in trust. That is my leadership style and that’s the only way I know how to do it.
“The other thing is, ‘Don’t do anything you don’t believe.’ My job is to have a vision, a strategy for the department. To make a change for the company. If I don’t believe in what that value is, how am I going to get the rest of my department to follow my lead?
“It’s more than a job. We are trying to make a difference.”
Murali Natarajan
Senior vice president and chief information officer
Age: 45
Professional experience: Natarajan holds an MBA and a master’s in information systems from Bradley University, and a bachelor’s in science and technology from BITS Pilani. Before joining West Bend, he spent 20 years at RLI Insurance Co., where he worked most recently as vice president of IT. Other roles at RLI included assistant vice president of strategic information services, director of underwriting solutions and technical architect. Natarajan began his career in software consulting.
In the news: Natarajan was hired as CIO in May. In his new role, he is responsible for driving business transformation, enabled by technology. He said he plans to do that by keeping a pulse on business demands and customer needs, and focusing on solving customers’ problems.
