Bruce Hoffmeister’s Path From SVP Of Revenue Management To Global CIO Of Marriott
by Peter High, published on Forbes.com
07-28-2014
Bruce Hoffmeister’s path to the role of Global CIO of Marriott has been an interesting one. He actually grew in the Finance function of the company. Having minored in computer science as an undergraduate before receiving his MBA with concentrations in finance and accounting, he had an appreciation for technology. He realized early that there was power at the nexus of technology and finance. One way in which he brought the functions closer together at Marriott was by developing a training module for IT employees on the basics of finance, with a special emphasis on the financial metrics that were of particular importance to the hospitality industry. An example is revenue per available room, or RevPAR, as it is commonly referred to in the industry. He found that too few members of the IT team were familiar with its make-up, and therefore were disconnected with the role IT could play in improving it. His training modules ensured that more people in IT were thinking about applying technology to great value for the company.
Just as more IT employees had reason to think further about finance, Hoffmeister had more reason to think about the power of technology. He left his post as SVP of Global Revenue Management to become the head of Global Sales & Marketing Technology and the Shared Services before becoming Global CIO.
When I asked Hoffmeister about the logic of his rising to the role with his background, he indicated that he believed he was the right person for the role at the time he took it, but he also said that he realizes that the needs of a company change, and the ideal executive today may be the wrong one in the future as needs change. This humility is rare among executives with such a broad purview, and has served Hoffmeister well in focusing on the present needs of Marriott, but also in preparing the future leaders of the IT function.
(To listen to an extended audio version of this interview, please click this link. This is the sixth article in the Business CIO series, featuring executives who have emerged from other corporate functions to become CIOs. To read future articles in this series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: Bruce, I thought we would begin with your own career journey, which is a very interesting one. It’s one that came through the Finance organization rather than through a more traditional route. And I’m curious, what was it about your background, as well as perhaps your interests, that made your being named Marriott’s CIO?
Bruce Hoffmeister: First of all, from an interest perspective, technology is very ubiquitous today; it is an obvious tool to have a large impact on all areas of the business. So that was very intriguing to me.
As far as why the executives at Marriott had thought I was the appropriate person, I think it’s interesting to look at the evolution of technology in the business world, as well as in peoples’ personal lives, and where we were as a company in our journey with our technology discipline.
There’s a concept that a leader of mine shared with me once, that I think is very important. She said that you need the leader at the right time. When you look at where technology is going and where Marriott was, there’s much more of a shift from the CIO perspective, from just the running of the systems, and keeping the systems up and making sure your data is safe and secure, to really being much more closely in tune with the business overall, and much more in tune with driving strategy.
So I think there’s a shift going on right now within the CIO world that is moving more from a pure operational aspect of automating processes using technology to drive the company forward? How do you use technology to reach your customers? How do you use technology to drive revenue in such strategy because it’s becoming the expectation of the customer?
My background at Marriott through my various roles in Finance, gave me a very strong understanding of Marriott’s business and of our business model, bringing new insights into the technology discipline to make sure we are running our discipline as a business to drive value for the company. I think that’s why I ended up in the role that I have today.
Additional topics covered in the article include:
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Doug Tracy Transforms CSC IT In His First 100 Days and Beyond
07-21-2014
Doug Tracy is an IT transformation specialist. He has had three IT executive posts in a row that required major transformations, at Rolls Royce, at Dana Holdings, and in his current post as Chief Information Officer of Computer Sciences Corporation. Befitting an executive who has a master’s degree in software development and management, an MBA, and who spent time as a consultant for Boston Consulting Group, a significant portion of the transformations that Tracy has overseen has focused on making his IT department be bigger sources of value creation on behalf of the enterprise. At CSC, this has meant introducing a “Customer Zero” strategy, in which CSC IT leverages the product and service offering of the company, in many cases before they are introduced to true customers. In so doing, it has woven IT more firmly into the broader fabric of the company, and positioned the department to be a strategic partner in honing the product and service offering. He also created an Applied Innovation team, so named because he seeks to apply the innovations that are derived from the Technology Office of the company, as well as from vendor partners that he engages. This has meant that just as he has had to focus on rendering IT more efficient, he has also had a number of levers to pull in developing new innovations within IT and for broader use across CSC.
(This is the 19th article in the CIO’s First 100 Days series. To read past articles with the CIOs of companies like Caterpillar, Time Warner, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Deutsche Bank, and General Electric, please click this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: Doug, you have been CIO at a number of organizations prior to your current role as CIO of Computer Sciences Corporation. Can you speak a little to what advantages those experiences had as well as what new challenges you faced in the early stages of this role?
Doug Tracy: I think the biggest advantage comes from the fact that I am no stranger to transformation, since this is my third transformational role in a row. My first transformational role as CIO began in 2004, upon joining Rolls-Royce as EVP IT for North America and Global IT CTO, where I had the responsibility of transforming the IT organization, strategy and architecture. My next role, as VP and CIO of Dana Holding Company, saw a transformation on a much larger scale as the company was just coming out of Chapter 11. This trend of transformations on larger and larger scales continued once I joined CSC because this transformation encompassed the entire business, requiring a totally different pace of change that even I was not accustomed to at first. CSC had brought on a completely new senior management team, had an innovative new business model and was moving to a more centralized structure with standard global processes, shared resources and learnings.
As with all new roles I’ve undertaken, I spent a significant amount of time before my start date in preparing for the role. For example, I spent time researching annual reports and learned as much as I could about the company and people. I even spoke with the former CIO of Misys, who had worked for Mike Lawrie, my soon-to-be CEO, to understand Mike’s leadership style. As a result of this preparation, I found the situation fairly similar to the expectations I had; the speed and scale of transformation and the number of balls in the air simultaneously being the biggest challenges. I realized there was a certain degree of risk with the pace of change, but I believed we would face greater risks by transforming at a slower pace. Most people regret moving too slowly, a regret I knew CSC would not share.
To explore the full collection of The CIO’s First 100 Days Series articles, please click here.
Former Musician Turned Board-Level CIO, BDP International’s Angela Yochem’s Unconventional Path To The Top Of IT
07-15-2014
Angela Yochem is the Global Chief Information Officer of BDP International, a privately held, multi-billion dollar revenue company providing global logistics solutions to some of the largest companies in the world. The company specializes in movements of materials that require special handling, either across borders or special physical handling. Yochem notes that logistics is the “final frontier in competitive advantage for many of our customers.” Naturally, IT has a big role to play in facilitating the major logistics organization that fuels these competitive advantages. For instance, many logistics operations provide historical and real-time data on the goods that they ship. Yochem’s IT department provides predictive analytics, scenario planning, and blended cost analyses to enable clients to make better decisions.
Yochem had an unusual path to become an IT executive. She studied music as an undergraduate before getting a master’s degree in computer science. Though she had learned to love technology as a child programming with her father, she credits the study of music, and the discipline and teamwork it takes to be successful as offering critical lessons for her in her rise through the ranks of numerous IT departments.
More recently, she has joined the boards of three subsidiaries of BDP International as well as the board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. In my interview with her, Yochem provides interesting insights into the path she took to become a board-level CIO, the insights she has brought to the boards she serves, and the insights she has brought back to her day-to-day responsibilities as a CIO.
(To listen to an unabridged audio version of this interview, please visit this link. This is the eighth article in the Board-Level CIO series. To read the prior seven articles, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: You have been an IT executive at multiple companies in multiple industries. You were a divisional CIO at Dell, a CTO at AstraZeneca, and now a CIO at BDP International. As you contemplate your journey, how have you seen the IT executive role evolve?
Angela Yochem: Early on, I made my stamp in the industry in the era of cost savings, and at the time the mindset was always that “IT is bloated, IT spends too much money,” – and by the way, we did. The way most businesses had evolved, whether organically – with high focus in regional growth – or through acquisition, we tended to end up with a lot of redundancy across multiple regions around the world, especially in some of the global organizations at which I’ve worked.
As a result, at the time when I was becoming an executive the focus tended to be, “How can we reduce the complexity?” It was absolutely the right thing to do at that point in time to free up investment. I don’t get too many of those questions anymore: On one hand, most companies, including BDP, have already gone through that process. Very few forward-thinking, or even just the average players, are looking at a plain, pure cost play in the IT space.
Rather, progressive companies look at IT as a differentiating capability for the company. As a result, we have a lot of conversations about investments because how we manage technology investment, not only within the IT division but outside the IT division, determines how we are going to pay for some things that are differentiating both for our customers and for the company. The biggest change I see is that shift from cost containment to conversations about smart investment that could change the way our customers interact with our company, and the type of value we provide to our customers.
IT has an opportunity to take deep dives into every single line of business and into every corporate function. We can engage as deeply as we wish in the leadership teams of those respective lines of business and corporate functions. There are very few cases in which we get the stiff arm from someone. If we choose to engage, or want to engage in a business-focused way, we’re always welcome to do so. I just wish I saw more IT leaders taking advantage of that opportunity.
High: I know from recent news that you have become the Board member of three different subsidiaries of BDP: BDP Transport, BDP Global Services for Europe, and BDP Global Services for Asia-Pacific. Can you talk about your responsibilities with each of these subsidiaries?
Yochem: BDP International is a privately held company. It is about 50 years old, and is owned today by a group of four owners. We have multiple entities inside of BDP International that serve different customer segments and look after many different market segments. Since technology has a very strong role to play in best serving our customers in a differentiated way, as well as expansion into new markets and into new customers, I have an opportunity to serve on some of those boards. My tenure hasn’t begun yet, but it will be an exciting experience. I’m looking very much forward to it.
To explore other Board Level CIO Series articles, please click here.
To listen to a Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Angela, click here.
Secrets Of The Greatest CIO For Hire In History
07-07-2014
Charlie Feld was one of the first outstanding CIOs in corporate America, as he rose to the top of the IT function at Frito-Lay. As Feld overcame the early challenges of the post, and developed a mature IT department, he found that he longed for the challenge of the early days once again. He elected to found his own firm, The Feld Group. It would provide temporary CIO services for behemoths like Southwest Airlines, Delta, and BNSF. Feld’s influence was felt across a variety of industries, and he has become an eminence gris of the IT community. He was one of the earliest inductees in CIO magazine’s CIO Hall of Fame, in recognition of his superior contribution to the IT field.
Along the way, many Feld Group employees went on to become CIOs at the companies that they consulted to, and therefore, Charlie Feld’s influence in the world of IT can be measured not from his own significant contribution, but also from the contribution of the many leaders who he spawned.
I recently spoke with Charlie about the importance of the first 100 days of one’s tenure, the need to get results early while creating a strong foundation that can be built upon. Given the number of first 100 days he has navigated with his clients, there is perhaps no better person to talk about the CIO’s first 100 days as Feld.
(To hear two unabridged interviews with Charlie Feld, please visit this link and this link. This is the 18th interview in the CIO’s First 100 Days series. To read past interviews with the CIOs of Intel, Caterpillar, Time Warner, J. Crew, and Johnson & Johnson among others, please visit this link. To be apprised of future interviews in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: The Feld Group was a rare breed of firm when you founded it. In providing advice and guidance to a leadership team and to the IT team in the throes of some sort of transformation, your team and you became a “CIO for hire” group that focused your attention on the early stages of that transformation when there is the most uncertainty. What drew you to this model?
Charlie Feld: After over a decade of being the CIO at Frito-Lay, I felt myself getting stale. Upon examining my career I realized that the enjoyment and satisfaction I gained from my role at Frito-Lay came from the early years of my tenure. It was the uncertainty, lack of direction and employee morale, and the challenge of turning the IT group around that appealed to me. During the course of this turnaround, we were able to put together a strategy and a plan, hire the right people and rebuild the culture to have a real impact on the business.
Realizing that I enjoyed the early years of a CIO’s tenure, I opted to forgo staying at Frito-Lay (PepsiCo) or becoming the CIO of another large company. Instead I decided to build my own company, focused on the beginning stages of a CIO’s role to ensure I could always be involved in solving the challenges I had such a passion for.
I started The Feld Group with a “dream” of leading the early two-years of an IT turnaround at a number of companies that were struggling with – mergers that did not proceed as smoothly as desired, troubled IT initiatives, or major business model changes. The Group’s first client was the BNSF merger, where we discovered, early on, that most of the talent in the client organization was very good but lacked a well-articulated agenda that aligned with the business and the IT leadership to drive the change.
The Feld Group’s “CIO for Hire” model was embedded in BNSF to develop the plan and successfully executed the merger. In addition, we left behind the roadmaps, architectures, leadership and culture to sustain long term success. I’m proud to say that 20 years later they are still a well-run IT organization. From there we went to Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, CBS, Southwest Airlines and a number of other challenges with similar success.
To explore the recent CIO’s First 100 Days Series articles, please click here.
To listen to Part 1 of the recent Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Charlie, click here.
To listen to Part 2 of the recent Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Charlie, click here.
Stephen Gold Drives Technology Innovation For CVS Caremark
06-30-2014
Stephen Gold has one of the best resumes in IT. He has been the CIO of a number of major companies including Avaya, GSI Commerce, Merck, and Medco Health Solutions. His combination of healthcare, technology, and eCommerce experience have all been leveraged upon joining $127 billion revenue CVS Caremark as its senior vice president and chief information officer in July 2012.
Having made a number of prominent transitions in his career, he has codified some practical insights on how to ensure one’s transition to a new role is as productive as possible. The strategy that he put in place early in his tenure at CVS Caremark is laudable for its clarity and the degree to which it suggests that IT will be a prominent driver of value to the pharmaceutical retail and health services behemoth that currently ranks as the 12th largest publicly traded company in the United States. CVS Caremark operates in an industry that is in flux, and Gold sees technology at the heart of much of that change and the associated opportunities that the change will continue to create.
(To listen to an unabridged interview with Steve Gold, please click this link. This the 17th article in the CIO’s First 100 Days series. To read other 16 interviews in the series, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: Steve, I thought we’d begin with an overview of your current role at CVS Caremark. Can you talk to us a bit about the responsibilities of Chief Information Officer?
Stephen Gold: At the highest level, my role is to oversee and to drive the IT transformation of CVS Caremark so that we can continue to lead with what we call ability and agility.
Specifically, we own and operate the CVS/pharmacy retail stores that everybody knows. We own and operate CVS Caremark, a very large and successful prescription benefit management service, and own and operate MinuteClinic, our retail medical clinic business.
We have the ability and the expertise to not only operate those businesses independently, but, more importantly, to combine those assets strategically in a unique way that delivers unique value.
Our agility is rooted in combining these assets in a unique way. The health care marketplace is undergoing significant change which means that we have to maintain the agility and nimbleness necessary to respond to those changes while continuing to deliver strong results and keeping our commitments to our customers.
So, my job is to deliver the IT transformation that is aligned with the business strategy and built on that theme of continuing to win with ability and agility. More specifically, I’m the SVP and CIO here at the company and most senior IT executive. I’m also a member of our executive committee that governs the organization. I’m responsible for all aspects of technology enterprise wide, and in addition to that, we’re starting to build out some shared services beyond just IT functions.
For example, we’re building an enterprise project office. We have transformed project management in the company; now not only are we using those techniques for IT projects, but for business projects as well. We’re also doing some hiring now with the quality office, again starting it inside the IT organization and eventually using it to engineer quality into all of the work that we do. We are also focusing on a data office as a partnership between my most senior technical data leader and his corresponding leader on the business side, and they’re jointly developing the next generation of data strategy for the corporation.
To listen to a recent Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Steve, click here.
IBM: Top Five Lessons For CIOs From C-Suite Report
06-24-2014
IBM just released a new report entitled “Exploring the Inner Circle”, exploring how effectively different members of the C-suite work together. It draws upon frank, face-to-face conversations with more than 4,100 C-suite executives around the world. There are a variety of interesting themes for CIOs to contemplate, as it explores how CxOs are jointly preparing for the digital era; identify the features of the most successful C-suites and the challenges and opportunities they face. There are five important lessons for CIOs to take to heart from this analysis:
06-23-2014
Vic Bhagat held a number of prominent CIO roles at General Electric during a more than 20-year run with the company, including time as CIO of GE Aviation Services, GE Global Growth and Operations, CNBC, GE Corporate, and GE India and Southeast Asia. That breadth of responsibilities fostered an understanding of how IT can add value across industries and geographies. Bhagat also has dealt with most major vendors in the IT community, and has strong feelings about what makes for a strong partnership.
All of this has been put to good use since January of 2013, when Bhagat joined EMC as the executive vice president, Enterprise Business Solutions and the chief information officer. The breadth of his responsibilities, which are both internal and external in nature, underscore what a multi-talented IT executive Bhagat is. Now, he works for one of those vendors that he got to know as a buyer of its products and services. He has become an advocate for EMC and an empathetic voice to CIO customers of the company.
(To listen to an unabridged audio version of this interview, please visit this link. This interview is the 19th in the CIO-plus series. To read the past 18 articles in the series, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: Vic, after a couple of decades with General Electric GE -0.6% and a lot of success in a variety of roles in that esteemed organization, in January of 2013, you made the switch over to EMC EMC +0.65%. I wonder if you could talk about your new beginning – your first new beginning at a new company in quite some time. How has it gone? And how did you organize yourself for this new opportunity?
Vic Bhagat: I had a phenomenal ride at GE, and it was bittersweet for me to depart. I was extremely fortunate that there was an enormous chemistry between EMC and me, and I thought it was a great move as I got into a technology field, which has always been a source of excitement for me.
The time I have spent so far with EMC has been all about learning from the employees’ perspective, the business leader’s perspective, and the customers’ perspective because our company is totally focused on customer satisfaction. A key metric our chairman keeps is TCE, which stands for Total Customer Experience. Our bonuses are determined by what the customers think about us, and that’s extremely refreshing because these days, it’s all about the growth, it’s all about increasing your revenue, it’s about penetration. With that mindset, sometimes we forget what the customer really wants? Having that focus and becoming sensitive to that has been humbling.
This job that I have just taken over didn’t actually exist; it was created with a collection of a lot of different organizations, different verticals within the company to make it into a significant role, which I’m delighted to be part of.
To explore other CIO-Plus Series articles, please click here.
To listen to a Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Vic, click here.
The CIO On The Boards Of Southwest Airlines And Fossil Group
06-16-2014
Tom Nealon has achieved some of the highest heights in the IT world without ever having been trained as a technologist. He studied business at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and he credits his natural tendency to think about business value ahead of technology as a key to his success. He was the CIO of Frito-Lay, Southwest Airlines, and J.C. Penney. He added such substantial value in his role as CIO at J.C. Penney that he was asked to take over a variety of other functions, including the company’s digital business and corporate strategy. It was also during this time that he was asked to join the boards of Southwest Airlines and Fossil Group.
Interestingly, Nealon claims to have never had the ambition to become a board-level CIO. He always focused on the tasks he was given, stretched them to ensure that a higher than expected degree of business value was generated from the IT function, and in the process more opportunities presented themselves.
(To listen to an unabridged audio version of this interview, please visit this link. This is the seventh article in the “Board Level CIO” series. To read the prior six articles, please visit this link. To be alerted when future articles in the series are released, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: Tom, you have a deep and rich background as an IT executive and as an advisor to many companies. You were a CIO multiple times over, spending time as CIO of Frito-Lay, the Feld Group, Southwest Airlines, and of J.C. Penney. Please provide an overview of your career journey to date.
Tom Nealon: My career in technology began in 1983. I’ve been in every part of the IT operation, from the help desk to application development to engineering up through leadership. I’ve gathered a really broad perspective of IT can and should work. I was blessed in working for companies early in my career that emphasized providing a broad set of experiences for employees.
I spent several years in the Frito-Lay planning and strategy areas which was such an eye-opener for me, and it was just a huge jump start to my career. It was at that point that I really figured out that I’m not a technology guy. I am a business guy who happens to specialize in technology, just like a Marketing person is a business person specializing in Marketing. So I quickly pushed aside the label that I’m the “IT guy” and I really absorbed and worked on being viewed as and being part of the business team. That seems simple and obvious but it really defined how I worked, behaved and led an organization in terms of the vision.
A nice outcome of this was that I had the deep knowledge of what goes on behind the curtain of IT both in terms of technology and operational decisions. From the other side, I also understood how the business functions. That included understanding of the company’s profit and loss mechanics, and driving profitability for the company.
From there I joined the Feld Group where Charlie Feld and the team focused on IT transformations already solid, large companies. So for about five years, I was a Feld Group member but also the operational CIO for Southwest Airlines starting about a year post-9/11. It was a difficult time for airlines but also an important time for airlines due to the massive shift in the industry with new security requirements, TSA, airlines going bankrupt, airlines merging. The cost advantages Southwest historically enjoyed were diminished as a result. Thankfully, the company found new ways to thrive, as it continues to today.
Then, I went to J.C. Penney to work with Mike Ullman as the EVP and CIO and within a year or so additional responsibilities were added like JCP.com, the corporate strategy planning team, consumer insights and actions, and all things digital. It was a different perspective; it’s one thing to understand how a business works, understand the P&L but it’s another thing to own the P&L and be accountable for the results. With Southwest, with probably around 80% of its revenue generated through online booking, I gained a great appreciation for the online booking engine and strong Digital Marketing capabilities. It was the same for me at J.C. Penney. Part of running a big dot-com business is not just understanding the operational side, but I had to get very close to the Digital Marketing area and the technology associated with that, as well as the analytics of how you actually run a website.
To listen to a Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Tom, click here.
Peter High
05-29-2014
Except from the article:
When Rob Lux joined the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, popularly known as Freddie Mac, in October of 2010, the U.S. government-sponsored enterprise was already starting to claw back from the depths of the economic malaise that plagued the mortgage industry. Like a lot of CIOs then, Lux had to operate with a slimmer budget, but he also found the constraints were well suited to dreaming up creative ways to help the McLean, Va., company be innovative. As a result, IT continues to play a large role in the story in how Freddie Mac is coming back from its financial struggles.
Freddie Mac was in the news for a lot of wrong reasons in 2008 and 2009. You joined since that time, and have been part of the solution. Can you speak a bit about the company and IT department that you found and the transformation you have led?
Rob Lux: I joined in late 2010. Freddie Mac and the entire mortgage industry were still feeling the effects of the economic turmoil of 2008 and 2009. Freddie Mac was, and still is, in conservatorship. The major challenge was to develop and deploy a plan to move ahead.
To give us a path forward, we created a three-year IT strategic plan that would prepare us for whatever the future held. Freddie Mac’s technology is critical to the mortgage industry. So we have a responsibility to properly maintain, preserve and improve our IT infrastructure.
We transformed IT by benchmarking ourselves against best-in-class IT organizations, setting targets, and constantly measuring progress. Our IT strategic plan focuses on four main areas: planning, delivery, operations and our team. This targeted approach has allowed us to achieve dramatic improvement in a very short time.
To read the remainder of the article, please visit CIO Insight.
The First 100 Days For the CIO Of One Of The World’s Largest Law Firms
06-09-2014
Hogan Lovells is one of the largest law firms in the world, but until two years ago, the firm had not had a global CIO. Given the increasingly complex data and security needs, Michael Lucas was installed as global CIO in July of 2012.
Since that time, Mike has assembled a global team, developed a unified IT strategy, and helped establish a innovative IT program to ensure that the firm’s attorneys and its varied customers have the information they need when they need it. Herein, Mike describes the way in which he set himself up for success in the first 100 days at the firm.
(To listen to an unabridged interview with Mike Lucas, please click this link. To read other interviews in the CIO’s First 100 Days series, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: You were the first ever Global CIO of Hogan Lovells. This came a couple of years after the union of DC-based Hogan & Hartson and UK-based Lovells in 2010. What caused the firm’s leadership team to realize that a Global CIO was needed?
Mike Lucas: I think both legacy firms recognized the need for a consistent customer experience. Early on inter-office travel by firm management highlighted some inconsistencies in both technology and service. The differing local approaches slowed down our lawyers at a very intense time. Many of our systems were the same, we had a lot more in common than different in the two technology stacks but from time-to-time these subtle differences would trip people up. Technology is so incredibly integrated in the way lawyers work today, and so any mis-alignments quickly became visible and impactful.
So, it was something this basic that helped us realize that servicing our lawyers in a seamless way meant defining a global strategy, and an outcome of that strategy was recognizing the need for one global head to streamline decision making and unify the technology function globally. Stepping back, I think the moral of the story here is that the pace of technology change requires not only unification but agility and that starts with a singular vision and well-thought out strategy.
High: How did you prepare for your new role?
Lucas: Interestingly, I did a lot of reading, listened to podcasts like yours, Peter and reading stories of CIO’s who are the best in the business leading their companies through change. I also listened closely to key stakeholders around me and what they were saying the firm needed from this role. It helped that I had been doing many of the facets of the global job prior to the combination, as well as having over 30 years of technology experience to rely on. Most importantly, it was clear that I had the unwavering support of the organization to be successful, something that I found very confidence inspiring (and still do today).
To listen to a recent Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Michael, click here.
