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Susan Swart, CIO, International Monetary Fund

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Peter High

11/21/16

This is one in a series of interviews with financial services CIOs conducted in collaboration with CIO Straight Talk magazine. Read additional articles by other technology executives at www.straighttalkonline.com.

Susan has been the Chief Information Officer of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 2012. As CIO she is responsible for the provision of information technology services and leadership in the application of technology to the mission of the IMF. Prior to joining the IMF, Susan served in the U.S. State Department and was its CIO from 2008 to 2012, leading the delivery of IT services to 280 Embassies, Consulates, and offices in 185 countries.

Susan holds a graduate degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College and an undergraduate degree in Management Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University.

I recently caught up with Susan in Washington, D.C. and our conversation covered World Class IT Principle One, People, as we discussed recruiting international and local talent and the organization of IT within the IMF, and Principle Five, as we discussed the development of engagements with new business partners. We also discussed items on her strategic roadmap and future trends, her path to becoming a successful female CIO, mentoring programs committed to creating more gender diversity in the organization, as well as a variety of other topics.

Peter High: Susan, you are the Chief Information Officer at the IMF. Can you set the stage and talk about some of the priorities you have on your strategic roadmap heading into 2017?

Susan Swart: Some of the priorities we have at a strategic level are to change the way IT delivers its services to the institution. We generally have positive feedback from our users on the basic services that the IT organization provides to the broader organization. However, the way we deliver some of those services is going to result in our inability to do new things in direct support of the business because we are crowding out our ability to invest in new technology. With that in mind, we evaluated what we were doing and how we were doing it. We came up with a series of initiatives that we are calling Transform IT that will cause us to deliver services differently by making space to do more of the things that will provide technology to the business. That will mean the business will do what it does better.

We are looking at moving to managed services for our infrastructure. We are changing the way we do some of our contracting—doing our projects with statements of work, as opposed to hiring individual people; focusing on what we are supposed to be delivering to the business, as opposed to how many people we need to hire. We are looking at knowledge management at a more specific level: how do we provide better knowledge management capabilities to the institution? It is a knowledge-based organization. How can people create knowledge and then find that knowledge and re-use it across the institution? Also data management and analytics: how can we take advantage of the data that we already have and use that more effectively across the organization, breaking down some of the stovepipes? And also new analytic capability and AI: how could that potentially be used to further the work of the Fund? Those are some of the high priorities.

High: As you think about more innovative, forward-looking type topics, how do you and your team carve out the time to think about those versus more business type activities?

Swart: Obviously, there is a lot of interest in doing new, innovative technology within IT. There is the realization in the business that new technologies can change the way they do what they do internally in the Fund, and also in Fintech. We need to understand how Fintech is operating in the world because it impacts some of the core functions of the Fund, that is, what is the impact of technology when looking over financial markets? We are involved in that area because we bring some technical expertise.

When you look at something like AI, how could we use AI and Big Data to better understand things that are happening in a way that we do not understand today? We are using a couple of methods to bring the business idea and technology together. We are implementing a series of challenges around Big Data where the business or IT could put forward some projects that would take advantage of Big Data, whether internal or external, using new technologies, for delivering a business value. They are small projects to start with. We have an innovation fund, so we are allowing minimal investment, and we are allowing them to fail, which I think is very significant in how we get more innovation into the organization. It takes some of the risk proposition out of it. We have a series of those going forward that are in the process now so we do not know the outcomes. We are also looking for other opportunities, even in our normal investment processes, where new technology could bring some value.

High: Given the scope of the IMF, a global organization, how do you organize IT to support such a broad purview?

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