Tom Benton // November 26, 2024 
(Tim Hays and the Mountain West Farm Bureau team on stage at Guidewire Connections. Source: Guidewire.)
When Tim Hays joined Mountain West Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (Laramie, Wyo.) as CIO in October 2020, he faced a difficult challenge: modernize a 75-year-old insurer burdened with legacy systems and failed implementation attempts. Less than two years later, Mountain West not only successfully deployed Guidewire’s (San Mateo, Calif.) full cloud suite across five lines of business but also revolutionized its approach to data and decision-making. Hays’ successful work was recognized by an Innovation Award