<p>Susan Gueli, SVP and CIO of Nationwide Financial, recalls the excitement of leaving Ohio State to become an entry-level programmer at Nationwide in downtown Columbus, Ohio. "Having been at a large school, I was thrilled at the tremendous amount of opportunity at a large company," Gueli recollects. Her enthusiasm has been vindicated during a 26-year career at the company that has been a tour of preparation for her successful CIO tenure.</p><p>Although she has served in other parts of the Nationwide enterprise, Gueli spent the first eight years of her career in Nationwide Financial, a division of Columbus-based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. ($20.7 billion in 2011 operating income), working in small teams and learning to perform a variety of roles. Gueli recalls from that era a particular manager who had a lasting influence on her career: "She had very high expectations but would never ask anything of her team that she wasn't willing to do herself," Gueli recalls. "It taught me a great deal about what it means to be a leader."</p><p>Gueli spent the next eight years in Nationwide's infrastructure delivery organization. While it provided an opportunity for her to utilize skills she had acquired, she describes it as an important departure from her previous experience. "It was instrumental in opening up my mind to the broader enterprise," Gueli explains. "I had the opportunity to deliver for the broad Nationwide organization, including all of our business -- P&C, Nationwide Financial and our affiliates -- as well as working with a different dimension of our technology environment."</p><p>According to Gueli, one of her last assignments as part of the infrastructure delivery team gave her responsibility for delivering infrastructure for a set of business units with a small team of professionals outside her organizational structure. "It really helped me to build muscle in how to utilize the broad capability of an organization, not just the resources within your own scope of responsibility," she says.</p><p><a href="http://www.insurancetech.com/architecture-infrastructure/elite-8-2012-susan-guelis-high-energy-ap/240009041">Keep reading...</a></p>