James Markunas

New York Life's Scalable Product Platform

Legal exposure, brand drift, and a brutal review process were dragging across thousands of agent sites. I helped turn that mess into a governed multi-tenant platform that cut launches from months to weeks, reduced review cycles from weeks to days, and drove roughly 200% more leads and appointments.

Book a CallView CV
New York Life product platform hero image showing governed agent site experiences
At-a-Glance

Governance That Performed

I was brought in to modernize how thousands of New York Life agent sites were launched, governed, and monetized. The result was a reusable product platform that made the business faster, more consistent, more compliant, and easier to scale.

$10M
Program Budget
12,000+
Sites Governed
200%
Lead Uplift
6m-2w
Site Launch Reduction
Problem Statement

Too Many Sites, Too Risky

Loading chart...

Before this platform, each agent website behaved like its own project. Local vendors, inconsistent branding, manual compliance checks, and no single source of truth made every update slow, expensive, and risky. New York Life needed a way to support 12,000+ agent sites without letting speed create legal exposure or brand chaos.

Client & Agency
New York Life & Fusion92
Industry
Insurance • Enterprise SaaS • Compliance
Timeline
March 2024 - November 2024
Tools Used
Azure IDP/SSO
Azure IDP/SSO
Mulesoft
Mulesoft
Google My Business
Google My Business
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager
Salesforce
Salesforce
“
“Our greatest challenge isn't technology, it's people and process.”
Don Vu
Don Vu
CDAO, New York Life
My Role

Product Manager & Program Manager

I owned the product logic that turned this from a one-off build into a governed multi-tenant platform. I translated the compliance problem into a reusable model and helped shape what later became Fusion92’s COREcms product.

Product StrategyPlatform DesignHigh TrustEnterprise Governance
6
System Integrations
$10M
Program Budget
10
Team Size
9 mo
Program Timeline

Wix For Highly Regulated Enterprises

New York Life’s content operation was too manual to scale and too risky to trust. Launches took up to six months, compliance reviews dragged on for weeks, and every local update created legal and reputational risk. The business needed speed, but only with tighter control.

I designed the multi-tenant logic, permissions, and workflow that made speed and control work together. I turned the vision into execution and made sure the platform worked for New York Life and as a reusable model for future regulated clients.

1
Defined the multi-tenant model that later became CORECMS's reusable product foundation.
2
Built the permission and compliance workflow that matched New York Life's actual operating structure.
3
Led backlog, workshops, demos, and steering conversations across home office and digital stakeholders.

I turned bureaucracy and risk into a product system that performed.

Solution

One Platform, Tight Guardrails

Multi-tenant CMS that gave agents more speed without losing central control. It baked governance and AI into the product, so sites stayed compliant and drove ROI.

Loading architecture diagram...

Loading gallery...

Governance at Scale

The technology mattered, but the real challenge was operational. New York Life needed a platform that matched the way the business actually worked, from agent requests to home office review and centralized publishing, without brittle workarounds.

Once the roles, permissions, and workflows were locked in, the platform stopped behaving like disconnected pages and started behaving like a real system. Compliance got visibility, agents got speed, and the brand stopped breaking at the edges.

1
Built for 12,000+ governed sites, not a handful of marketing pages.
2
Reduced ambiguity and risk through clear role boundaries and workflow states.

What looked like a CMS on the surface was really a governance product with commercial upside.

Impact

Speed + Safety + Commercial Lift

With the right product logic, New York Life moved faster, reduced risk, and improved lead performance across its agent network.

Compliance
Speed
Commercial Performance
200%
Lead Uplift
12,000+
Sites Launched
3×
Digital Revenue Growth
6m - 2w
Site Launch Time Reduction

Before & After

New York Life moved from high-risk, manual site management to a centralized, governed model that improved commercial performance.

Before

Manual, Slow & Exposed

  • Site launches & compliance reviews took up to 6 months.
  • No global visibility into live agent sites.
  • Brand inconsistency created legal & reputational risk.
After

Governed, Faster & Stronger

  • Compliance turnaround dropped to 1-3 days.
  • 12,000+ sites launched + cebtrally governed.
  • Lead and appointment activity improved by ~200%.
1

Expose the Real Bottleneck

I identified that the problem was not just pages, it was governance, risk, and scale inside a litigation-sensitive content operation.

2

Build the Operating Logic

I defined the roles, permissions, review flow, and reusable platform structure that made speed and control work together.

3

Turn Governance Into Performance

Once the product logic was right, New York Life launched faster, reviewed faster, reduced risk, and improved lead performance across the network.

Loading chart...

Implementation

Delivery Phases

How I Made the Machine Work

It took more than backlog management: I had to hold together bureaucracy, compliance risk, platform design, and ROI without letting NYL lose trust in the product.

Phase 01

Diagnose

Mapped legal, brand & workflow risks inside a fragmented content operation.

Phase 02

Align

Aligned home office, digital, and compliance stakeholders.

Phase 03

Design

Defined multi-tenant platform logic, permission model & workflows.

Phase 04

Build

Connected enterprise systems & translated product decisions to delivery.

Phase 05

Launch

Proved model at scale through fast launches & stronger lead gen.

“
“We're investing $1 billion in service, technology, data and AI, to support & empower our agents and advisors to serve (our customers') full spectrum of needs.”
Craig DeSanto
Craig DeSanto
Chair, President & CEO, New York Life Insurance Company
Recognition

Press & Accolades

This project sat inside a larger New York Life modernization push around technology, data, AI, and agent enablement. The strongest external proof is the operating logic behind this platform lines up with how New York Life publicly described its modernization strategy.

Book a Call