Forbes The CIO’s First 100 Days Series: Bill Krivoshik, Time Warner

Time Warner’s First Ever Enterprise CIO’s First 100 Days

by Peter High, published on Forbes.com

09-02-2013

Bill Krivoshik has been a CIO since the mid-1990s, with stints at such esteemed companies as GE Capital, AIG,Citigroup, Thomson Financial, and Marsh & McLennan.  He has been the global chief information officer multiple times over, and has been the first to hold that title at multiple companies to boot. He has each of those distinctions at Time Warner, a company he joined just over two years ago.

Krivoshik says that the key to a successful first 100 days and beyond is to focus on building relationships at the new company, develop quick-wins for the rest of the organization, and to contemplate people, process, and technologies changes early in one’s tenure, among other insights he shares herein.

(To listen to an extended interview with Bill Krivoshik from the Forum on World Class IT podcast series, visit this link. This is the third article in this series in Forbes. To read the first two articles, please visit this link. To read future interviews with CIOs of companies such as Intel, Viacom, AmerisourceBergen, Amtrak, the American Cancer Society, Cox Communications, and J.Crew, please click the “Follow” link above.)

Peter High: Bill, you joined Time Warner as the CIO in July of 2011. What key priorities did you set in your first 100 days in the role?

Bill Krivoshik: There were several areas that I had to work on when I joined Time Warner in July of 2011.  First, the enterprise CIO role was a new role for Time Warner, so I had to make sure that there was agreement among our senior executives about the scope and focus of the role, particularly in our goals for the first twelve to eighteen months.  Second, being new to Time Warner, I made the rounds to our various business divisions – HBO, Time Inc., Turner, and Warner Bros. – so that I could learn about their businesses and how to best leverage their expertise and provide them with business benefit from our enterprise initiatives.  And third, not only was I new to Time Warner, but I was also new to the industry.  So I had to find ways to get myself smart on the issues and opportunities that our industry is facing.

Additional topics covered in the article include:

• How did you think about the breakdown between people (making sure you had the right team, adding new blood and talent to the team), process (adding new processes, establishing common processes, cutting through the bureaucracy of older processes) and technologies (setting standards, consolidating, etc.)?
• How did you balance strategic planning versus tactical, day-to-day execution?
• Was there a process you used in order to develop some “quick-wins” for you and your team?
• What key performance indicators did you keep if any?
• You have been an IT executive a variety of major corporations.  In addition to your current post at Time Warner, you also held CIO or CTO positions at Marsh & McLennan, Thomson Financial, AIG, Citigroup, and GE Capital. As you reflect on the first 100 days in these posts, what has been common among the plans you have set, and what has been unique, and why?
• Was there a process you used in order to develop some “quick-wins” for you and your team?
• You were the first ever enterprise-level  CIO at Marsh & McLennan, and the first ever enterprise CIO here.  How does the first 100 days change when you do not have a predecessor?

To read the full article, please visit Forbes.com

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To listen to a recent Forum on World Class IT podcast interview with Bill, click here.