Scott Blandford has an extensive track record of successful large program delivery, user experience design, product launches and transformation efforts. He joined TIAA in 2010, bringing nearly 25 years of experience in innovative technology systems, financial services and executive leadership.
As Chief Digital Officer for TIAA, Mr. Blandford leads the firm’s online, mobile and eBusiness transformation program. In this position he is charged with taking the firm’s self-service and automation capabilities to the next level—leading TIAA to a digital future where technology fully realizes the customer-focused mission of the company.
In his previous role with the firm, Mr. Blandford served as Chief Information Officer for the Retirement and Individual Services business, where he was responsible for all tiers of the retirement, insurance, education savings, brokerage, banking and wealth management platforms. In this function he led the strategy, design, delivery and ongoing operations for TIAA’s client systems utilizing innovative, patent-pending technologies.
He also successfully launched new secure participant and plan sponsor websites—providing users with simple, modern and intuitive online experiences and a full 360-degree view of their financial lives. DALBAR, an industry group that rates web properties for financial services firms awarded this work with accolades: TIAA is DALBAR’s #1 rated site for life insurance & annuities (4Q16), #1 rated for plan sponsor retirement (3Q16), #3 rated for mutual funds (4Q16), and #1 rated for participant retirement (3Q16).
In addition, Mr. Blandford was responsible for a multi-year, ground-breaking re-imagining of the sales and service desktop experience, yielding substantially improved productivity and customer service in year one. TIAA is now delivering more, better capabilities to clients faster than ever before. For this work he was recognized as one of Wall Street & Technology’s “Elite 8.”
Background Prior to joining TIAA, Mr. Blandford served as Managing Director, Head of Online and Retirement Technology, at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for four years. During his tenure, he delivered the $150M rebuild of Merrill Lynch Online and served as a key thought leader in envisioning and delivering Merrill’s next-generation integrated banking/brokerage web and mobile capabilities, Merrill Edge. Mr. Blandford was also the CTO for Merrill’s Institutional Retirement business, running the technology that supports the retirement plans of some of the country’s largest employers.
Before his time at Merrill Lynch, Mr. Blandford spent 11 years at Fidelity Investments, where he served as Senior Vice President for Fidelity eBusiness and was responsible for all of Fidelity’s Total Retirement and Benefits Outsourcing web and mobile applications.
Mr. Blandford holds B.E.E. and M.S.E.E. degrees from the University of Dayton.
About TIAA Founded in 1918 by Andrew Carnegie, TIAA is a national financial services organization with nearly $1 trillion in assets under management (as of 3/31/20182) and is the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. In October 2014, TIAA completed its acquisition of Nuveen Investments, a diversified investment management company, which further strengthened the firm’s position as a leading provider of financial services.