397: Atlassian’s President, Jay Simons, and CIO, Archana Rao, discuss the unique culture of Atlassian. Both note that the company is extremely open, honest, and direct. The work of the executives is transparent to the rest of the company. Archana believes that allowing people to see other’s work, performance, and perspectives provides a recognition that there are challenges everywhere and it builds an immensely strong culture because people tend to work well together in this way. Jay has seen the company go from 100 to 3,000 employees in his 11 years with the company, and he declares that this culture has scaled remarkably, which in his mind is a testament to foundational parts of the culture that the company created.
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393: Adobe CIO Cynthia Stoddard discusses how the company has modernized its technology stack. She notes that architecture needed to lead the company’s decisions and be in everything that it did going forward. Through this modernization, Adobe has switched to being cloud-enabled and it has enabled architecture and business capability changes without causing disruption along the way. We also discuss Cynthia’s take on immersive technologies, how Adobe is using AI to complement its workforce, how the company has transitioned from selling box software to becoming more customer-facing, among other topics.
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387: Schneider Electric CIO Elizabeth Hackenson provides details from her first 100 days as CIO when she made multiple trips around the world to speak with as many business peers, customers, and employees as possible. Early in her tenure, a key IT leader stepped down, resulting in Elizabeth being forced into the dual role of Global CIO and Head of IT for North America. Though more than she expected, the dual role allowed Elizabeth to immerse herself into some of the challenges that operations were facing, and she was exposed to new leaders, challenges, and opportunities in IT. We also discuss Elizabeth’s relationship with her predecessor and current Chief Digital Officer Herve Coureil, Schneider’s approach to eliminating technical debt, and Elizabeth’s take on the evolution of the CIO role.
382: Workday CIO Diana McKenzie discusses the importance of understanding how the customer experiences the company’s product and the competitors’ products. Diana notes that CIOs have a unique opportunity to collaborate with customers, hear their feedback regarding what they hope to see from their products, and bring those insights back to the company. To better understand the product, the company has rolled out a Workday-on-Workday program, where IT is the first user of Workday’s product. This allows Diana’s function to influence how the product evolves and enables Workday to ensures that their product strategy always reflects what the marketplace is likely to need most. We also discuss Diana’s experience serving on a public board, the employee engagement survey Workday has rolled out, Workday’s acquisition of Adaptive Insights, among other topics.
Kimberly is the Chief Operating Officer of Fannie Mae, a Fortune 25 company with revenues exceeding $112 billion. As COO, Kimberly is responsible for overseeing the company’s technology, operations, innovation, data, and strategic execution functions. Previously, Kimberly held a variety of roles in her twelve years with the company, including Chief Risk Officer and Chief Credit Officer.
Prior to Fannie Mae, Kimberly was the Director of Fixed Income Sales at the Investment Bank, Credit Suisse. Before Credit Suisse, Kimberly was an equity trader at D.E Shaw & Co.
Kimberly received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Princeton University, and an MBA in Finance and Economics from Columbia Business School.
Kimberly serves as a Director on the Board at Calvert Impact Capital.
Ann is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, North America’s largest wine and spirits distribution company with revenues exceeding $16 billion. As CIO, Ann is responsible for a wide variety of areas such as infrastructure, information security, the supply chain, and digital.
Prior to Southern Glazer’s, Ann was the Vice President of Consumer Products, Retail, and Distribution at Capgemini Consulting. Before Capgemini Consulting, Ann was the Vice President of the Fresh Dairy Direct and Supply Chain at Dean Foods. Ann additionally has held a variety of roles at The Coca Cola Company.
Ann received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Georgia and her Masters in Executive Education and Business from Harvard University.
Cathie is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at PSAV, the world’s largest event experiences company. As CIO, Cathie is responsible for ensuring that PSAV has the information solutions to improve effectiveness and efficiency in delivering services to customers.
Before joining PSAV, Cathie was the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the Hub Group. Prior to joining the Hub Group, Cathie held a number of executive IT positions at Motorola, including several divisional Chief Information Officer roles, and, most recently, Corporate Vice President of their Global Solutions and Services Operations. Before Motorola, Cathie was the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Tellabs. Cathie began her career at AT&T.
Cathie received her Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and her MBA from the University of Chicago.
Cathie serves on the board of Northwestern Memorial Health Care.
Kim is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Data Center Infrastructure at Lenovo, a multinational technology giant with $45 billion in revenue. In this role, Kim leads Lenovo’s data center infrastructure segment, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence segment, software-defined infrastructure segment, and the new IoT segment.
Prior to joining Lenovo, Kim was Chief Operating Officer of the Client, IoT, and Systems Architecture Group at Intel. Before that, she held several other senior executive positions at Intel including Corporate Vice President and CIO, and Vice President and General Manager of IT Operations and Services before that. Prior to joining Intel, Kim was Vice President and General Manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise where she served customers in the Communications, Media and Entertainment industry. Before HPE, Kim was a Vice President at EDS. Kim spent the first two decades of her career at IBM.
Kim received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Management from Northeastern University, and an MBA from Cornell University.
Kim is a member of the board of directors for Boston Private, and previously sat on the boards of Cloudera, Riverbed Technology, among other companies.
Among other topics, Melanie discussed the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Melanie is the CIO of Dow, the world’s largest chemical company with revenue exceeding $48 billion. As CIO, Melanie has developed and implemented a strategy for IT, business process solutions and analytics, and spearheaded the company’s digital transformation efforts. She also has global responsibility for Cyber Security and Risk Management, Reporting & Advanced Analytics, Facilities Management, and the Dow Services Business.
Melanie joined Dow in January 1987 in Research Information Systems in Midland, Michigan. In 1990 she moved to the corporate Information Systems group where she held progressive leadership roles across many areas of IT. In 1996, she relocated to open the Southfield, Michigan office, launching the strategic IT partnership between Dow and Accenture. She returned to Midland in 2004.
Melanie received a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Information Systems from Central Michigan University and completed the Executive Education Program at Babson College and the Thunderbird International Leadership Program in Phoenix, Arizona.
Among other topics, Diane discussed the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Diane is Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Textron Inc., a $13.8 billion aerospace, defense, and industrial conglomerate that owns well-known brands such as Bell Helicopter and Cessna. Diane has been CIO for nearly five years and is responsible for managing the business unit CIOs and directing the day-to-day activities of Textron Information Services (TIS), including TIS executive staff. Diane oversees Textron’s Information Management Council and manages Textron’s information technology supplier and outsourcing relationships.
Prior to becoming CIO of Textron Inc., Diane was VP and CIO of Textron Systems, one of Textron Inc’s many business units. Diane joined Textron in 2007 as the Director of IT Services and Support for Bell Helicopter. During her five years at Bell Helicopter, Diane expanded her focus into areas encompassing business application technologies and special projects focused on modernizing technology systems. Prior to joining Textron, Diane was VP of Information Services at Sonitrol. Prior to Sonitrol, Diane was SAP Program Manager for Honeywell Defense & Space. Before Honeywell, Diane spent five years as CIO of Ultrak. Earlier in her career, Diane was a manager at Ernst & Young.
Diane received a Bachelors of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
