Anthony E. Thomas Biography

Anthony E. Thomas has over 25 years experience in information technology. He is the CTO for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield New Jersey, responsible for Horizon’s IT architecture. He is a key technology decision maker in Horizon, which is the largest medical insurer in the state of New Jersey. Thomas joined Horizon in 2002 and has been instrumental in Horizon being identified by Information Week as one of the top 100 innovative users of technology in 2004 and 2005. Horizon was a 2005 finalist for the CIO Value Award given by CIO magazine. Thomas has organized the development and execution of strategic programs to improve computing efficiencies using service oriented architectures and implemented enterprise-level messaging infrastructures using message-oriented middleware. Thomas developed a resource demand model to predict resource utilization and contention. His models have been adopted as enterprise-wide investment-planning tools. Prior to joining Horizon, Thomas was responsible for the technology direction and architecture of other respected organizations in the financial, service and manufacturing industries. At TIAA-CREF (the largest private pension fund in the country) he set the direction for IT strategy, architecture and standards. While at American Express he led an international team of architects that managed the company’s global portfolio of over 2,500 applications. During his career at DuPont he headed data management and pioneered the use of distributing computing. He also taught university physics for eight years. Thomas holds an M.S. in physics from University of Maryland.