“It’s a transformation journey that’s incredibly exciting to be part of”

Lena Schaumann works as the Head of IT at SEB Life & Pension—a department currently undergoing a comprehensive transformation. Here, she shares her career journey and what makes Life & Pension such a unique part of SEB.

After studying industrial engineering and management at Linköping University, Lena Schaumann spent ten years working with payment systems in telecommunications, followed by 15 years working with retail systems in the retail industry in holding various leadership roles—with IT systems serving as the common thread throughout her career.

Lena joined SEB in the fall of 2021 as a project manager in the CIO Office. "They work on bank-wide projects. I worked there for two years, and had the privilege of working on several projects, so I got both a good insight into what is needed to run banking operations and the opportunity to build a good network of contacts."

Would you like to tell us a little about Life & Pension?

Today, Lena works as the Head of IT at SEB Life & Pension, a separate company within the SEB Group with an IT department of around 180 people. Of these, around 60 colleagues are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“Being a separate company means we have full responsibility for our IT solutions. We develop and manage solutions for insurance administration serving customers, distributors and internal users. Additionally, we provide solutions for financial management, business control, and business intelligence. We are also utilizing the fact that we are part of the SEB Group, from which we purchase services within Infrastructure and Operations.

What is the best part of the role as Head of IT at Life & Pension?

“It’s rewarding to work with services that support people in their life choices and to know that what we do fulfils an important societal function. From an IT perspective, the best part is the opportunity to work as broadly as we do—the scope of the mission is really exciting.”

Lena explains that Life & Pension is currently undergoing a significant transformation. “One major project we’ve just begun is modernising our core systems for insurance administration. It’s one of the largest investments in the history of Life & Pension,” she says. “Modernising the IT landscape has been a priority in recent years, and with the decision to implement a new insurance administration system, we’ll be able to drive even bigger changes that will also contribute to the long-term future-proofing of the area. It’s a transformation journey that’s incredibly exciting to be part of.”