episode 684

Education in the Digital Age with Pearson CIO Marykay Wells

Marykay Wells is the Chief Information Officer of Pearson, an education company that earns roughly three and a half billion pounds in revenue annually. She's held that role since 2016. Marykay and her team have been at the center of a remarkable transformation at the company, as it has expanded its digital offering and shifted from primarily a B2B orientation to a B2C orientation in the process. She's also seen the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink how innovation's done. Marykay has an immense amount of experience after having been a CIO four times over. July 28, 2022

684: Marykay Wells, CIO of Pearson, discusses the remarkable transformation she has driven at Pearson to reinvent itself for the digital age. Marykay dissects the pandemic’s impact on digital learning platforms and their adoption, including Pearson’s own Pearson+ platform. She also covers how this digital learning has translated into internal training at Pearson and how it has shifted the company’s focus from primarily B2B into a B2C orientation. Marykay describes the internal innovation competitions the company holds to identify opportunities and how she has moved the IT organization towards a new IT service model. Finally, Marykay talks about the up-and-coming trends in technology she sees and gives advice for people looking to follow in her footsteps as a tech executive.

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The World Class IT principles in yellow were the focus of this interview

  • 01 1- People
  • 02 2- Infrastructure
  • 03 3- Project and Portfolio Management
  • 04 4- IT & Business Partnership
  • 05 5- External Partnerships

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