State Farm Promotes Jon Francis to Chief Data and Analytics Officer and Head of Digital

State Farm, one of the largest providers of insurance and financial services in the United States, has promoted Jon Francis to Chief Data and Analytics Officer and Head of Digital.

Francis steps into the expanded role from his previous position as Senior Executive, Digital Growth and Experiences, where he led efforts to integrate customer touchpoints across the full digital journey, from attracting and engaging customers through quoting and onboarding to enabling seamless self-service.

The promotion places Francis at the top of State Farm's data and digital function at a significant moment. The company has been building out its technology leadership team, having appointed Joe Park as EVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer in late 2025.

Major insurers including State Farm have been moving generative AI pilots into production, with a focus on natural language processing, virtual assistants, and knowledge-management tools, a push that Francis is now positioned to lead from the data and analytics side.

A Career Built Across Brands

Francis brings a depth of cross-industry experience. He most recently served as Chief Data and Analytics Officer at General Motors, where he drove the automaker's enterprise data strategy, overseeing everything from manufacturing and product development data to customer insights and AI-powered predictive analytics.

At GM, his mandate was finding whether the company's hardest problems could be solved by applying statistics, data science, machine learning, and AI.

Before General Motors, Francis spent six years at Starbucks, rising to Chief Digital and Analytics Officer. His career also includes senior analytics and digital leadership roles at Amazon, PayPal, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Expedia, and Nike.

He holds a Master of Science in Statistics from Oregon State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from St. Olaf College.

What the Role Demands

State Farm's data and digital function sits at the intersection of the company's two most pressing strategic priorities. Improving the customer experience through digital channels and operationalizing AI at enterprise scale.

Francis's background in building digital journeys at Starbucks and data platforms at General Motors maps directly onto both.

In previous roles, he has spoken about the importance of creating self-service data assets, investing in data literacy across organizations, and ensuring that AI investments are tied to clear business problems rather than technology for its own sake.

For an insurer of State Farm's scale, the CDAO role carries significant operational weight. The company serves over 96 million policies and accounts across insurance and financial services. The data infrastructure supporting that business which includes claims processing, underwriting, customer engagement, and fraud detection, is vast. Francis now owns the strategy for all of it.