Zoetis’ Chief Information & Digital Officer Wafaa Mamilli has been promoted to the post of Executive Vice President, Chief Digital & Technology Officer and Group President for China, Brazil, and Precision Animal Health. Zoetis is the world’s largest manufacturers of animal pharmaceuticals. This post represents a major leap forward in Mamilli’s responsibilities, driving the accelerated growth of two key markets, as well as the company’s precision animal health businesses and advancing our global customer experience programs. Mamilli is a big believer that all tech and digital executives ought to have a profound impact if not primary responsibility for customer experience in the digital age.
“I’ve always thought of my role as a business leader with technology accountability and have been passionate about the role of digital and data in reimagining animal health and powering Zoetis’ business. I am equally excited to fully harness our innovative portfolio, along with my global experience, to deliver the most value to our customers in key growth areas of our business.”
She will continue to oversee Zoetis’ digital and data analytic strategies as well as the Information Technology and cybersecurity teams.
Prior to joining Zoetis in 2020, Mamilli was with Eli Lilly and Company for 20 years. She held a variety of International roles with increasing responsibility, and ultimately served as the Global Chief Information Officer for the company’s business units. She also served as the company’s Chief Information Security Officer, a rare example of a CISO growing into CIO responsibilities, though surely a pathway that may become more frequent in an age when the former is growing in strategic importance.
Mamilli’s profile has grown tremendously in the past two years, including being the recipient of the 2022 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award, which honors executives who lead their organizations to deliver exemplary levels of business value through the innovative use of IT. She was also honored as a member of the Forbes CIO Next List, recognized among 50 influential technology leaders who are redefining the CIO role and driving innovation.
In addition to her outsized influence in tech and digital and now beyond within Zoetis, Mamilli is also on the leading edge of CIOs and CDO s who have been asked to serve on the boards of public companies with multiple billions of dollars in revenue. She serves on the board of directors of Fiserv, Inc., a global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions.
Mamilli has also been a champion of women in technology, as a leader of the T200, a group of female technology executives who not only support each other, but also mentor the next generation of female tech and digital execs.
She earned a master’s degree in Computer Science from INSEA in Rabat, Morocco, and a master’s degree in Business Applications of Information and Technology from Université Rennes in Rennes, France.
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, was recently released. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
With the recent merger announcement of Intermountain Healthcare with SCL Health, Craig Richardville has been named the new chief digital and information officer and senior vice president for the combined health systems, which will be called Intermountain Healthcare.
As a member of the enterprise leadership team, Richardville’s responsibilities will include the health system’s information technology, data and digital services involving all aspects of technology including, but not limited to, strategy, operations, applications, cybersecurity, and emerging technology.
Richardville previously served as senior vice president, chief information and digital officer, at SCL Health, where his responsibilities included leading, innovating, and transforming all aspects of the health system’s information technology and digital services.
Richardville noted that his priorities including an orientation toward being mobile first, cloud first and, ultimately, patient first. “Mobile first places access to health services into the pockets of the patients, members and consumers via their smartphones,” he explained. “This is a trusted source of truth, easy to access and one of the preferred engagement platforms in an omni channel world. Cloud first provides ubiquitous access to data in a safe and secure environment ubiquitous access to data, information and knowledge. Patient first puts the patient is in the center. They are the heart of our work and includes related personas, such as members in regards to our health plan and consumers who are looking to make a choice. All of our work revolves around the patient, the member and the consumer.”
“Intermountain Healthcare has long been a leader in using technology to improve clinical outcomes for patients and is using advanced intelligence to aid providers in clinical decision making,” said Dan Liljenquist, senior vice president and chief strategy officer for Intermountain Healthcare. “Intermountain is also focused on using digital tools to help alleviate repetitive task workload for providers and caregivers through automation, and help enhance patient experience with self-service applications, allowing more face-to-face time for provider-patient visits. Craig has the skills to help Intermountain continue this important journey.”
Prior to his time at SCL, he served as senior vice president and chief information and analytics officer at Atrium Health for more than 20 years, where he transformed the growing company into a national leader in the effective use of technology, utilizing data as a driver and digital services as a differentiator.
Richardville received the 2021 National CIO of the Year Healthcare ORBIE Award, the 2020 Colorado CIO of the Year award, and in 2017, the Carolinas CIO of the Year for continued leadership and impact using technology and digital services, among other awards. He holds a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in computer systems from the University of Toledo.
Boris Shulkin was recently named Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer of Magna International 1 $36.2 billion revenue Canadian auto parts manufacturer with 161,000 employees, 340 manufacturing locations, 89 product development locations and operates in 28 countries. Boris is based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and he will work out of the company’s Troy, Michigan offices.
In his newly elevated role, he is responsible for all information technology and digitization. He leads a global team of roughly 500 employees focused on the shift to digital processes across the entire enterprise and within all relevant workstreams by incorporating usage of technologies, cloud and analytics to create business value using data.
“The acceleration of digital transformation is about bringing efficiencies across the entire enterprise through effortless data access and extracting business insights,” said Shulkin, referring to his new role. “I’m excited to lead a dynamic team and help grow a long-lasting technology-based moat in a company that’s advancing mobility for everyone and everything.”
In roughly 19 years with the company, Shulkin has held a number of roles of growing responsibility. Most recently, he was Magna’s executive vice president of Technology and Investment helping drive overall technology strategy in the rapidly evolving mobility landscape. He has also been senior vice president of Research & Development, leading the incubation of new radar chip development while playing a key role in identifying potential new partners to engage to bring new technologies to market.
Shulkin began his career in the auto industry in 1995 as an engineer and joined Magna in 2003. Shulkin holds doctoral degree in applied statistics, and he holds multiple patents spanning manufacturing, process design, product and controls.
General Motors today named two new technology leaders and said it would split its information technology organization into two groups, one focused on global IT and the other on software product development for customers.
Fred Killeen was named VP of global information technology and Chief Information Officer, reporting to CEO Mary Barra. He will lead the Global IT team, which is responsible for back-office IT support and using software to support growth across the company. Killeen most recently was GM’s Chief Information Security Officer and CTO, where he oversaw the automaker’s global information security and IT risk management programs.
Stacy Lynett will run the Digital Business Software group. Reporting to newly appointed Chief Digital Officer Edward Kummer, her team will be responsible for technology strategy and software product development that is geared toward delivering enhanced products and experiences for customers. She will also support global customer and dealer systems.
Lynett most recently was executive director and CIO of Global Product Development and Quality for GM IT, as well as CIO for Global Corporate Functions. In that role, she focused on the company’s Workday solution and supporting IT for the legal and communications functions.
Both Killeen and Lynett previously reported to CIO Randy Mott, who last week announced plans to retire.
The Global IT and Digital Business Software groups will be a critical part of GM’s plan to deliver $20 billion to $25 billion in software-enabled services revenue annually by 2030. In a press release, GM noted that both groups “will continue to collaborate on driving innovation, providing the best software and technology solutions to support the company, attracting and retaining talent, professional development, and more.”
“The new structure and dual operating model will enable GM to fully leverage its strong foundation in IT capability, talent and resources, as well as reduce complexity and improve speed,” Barra said in the statement. “Stacy and Fred bring unique backgrounds and experiences to help us seize the opportunities software plays in our business as we move from automaker to platform innovator.”
Vinny Hoxha, deputy CISO at GM, will take over as Chief Information Security Officer, reporting to Killeen.
PSteven Norton is co-head of CIO networks, research and media at Metis Strategy, a business and IT strategy firm. He previously was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal, where he covered the changing role of the chief information officer and the rise of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and blockchain. At Forbes, he covers new CIO appointments as well as the ways in which technology executives are developing the workforce of the future.
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Most companies of consequence have a chief information officer. Many others have chief technology officers, who might be the heads of product and engineering for a tech-centric company, or, for some non-tech sector companies, might be the heads of infrastructure or tech-savvy leaders reporting to less technical chief information officers. A growing number of companies have chief digital officers, as well, often signaling the need to have an executive oversee digital transformation efforts exclusively. There are examples where the top tech and digital chief has one or a combination of these titles. The combination of all three roles for three separate executives occurs less frequently, needless to say, but less frequent still are examples of companies with execs with these three titles each of whom report to the chief executive officer. One such company is Johnson Controls.
Johnson Controls is a 136-year-old, Milwaukee-based company that develops products and services that enhance the intelligence of buildings to the tune of nearly $30 billion in annual revenue. Mike Ellis is the company’s chief customer and digital officer, adding customer responsibilities to the CDO title. He joined Johnson Controls in October 2019. Diane Schwarz is the company’s chief information officer, who joined the company in August of 2020. Finally, Vijay Sankaran is the company’s chief technology officer, and he joined the company in May 2021.
Ellis describes his role as chief customer and digital officer as deciphering the impact of the company’s efforts on customers, engaging them to understand what is most important to them. The goal is to innovate in collaboration with them, identifying ideas that will make a difference in their operations. Additionally, Ellis is responsible for digital product innovation and enterprise marketing, as the CMO reports through to him.
Schwarz has been a CIO multiple times over at companies like Hunt Consolidated and Textron. She has what she refers to as the traditional CIO purview of infrastructure, applications, and websites. Beyond that, she owns the customer experience, including “how our employee operates with all of our applications, how they get the day-to-day job done,” she noted. Schwarz added, “Mike owns the customer’s experience with our products, but then when you have the overlap of the Venn diagram, as the customers interact with portals, billing and how to schedule a ticket for field service; that’s where it goes back into the CIO responsibilities. It’s not, black and white to say that everything the customer interacts with Johnson Controls is under Mike’s umbrella. We have to navigate what really is the product experience versus the application experience.”
Sankaran has also been a CIO previously at TD Ameritrade, where he also ran an innovation program for the company. He oversees products for Johnson Controls. “When we think about product, it’s really the game-changing part of what’s going on in our industry right now – the software part of that product,” he said. “[We work on building] the right thing and build the thing right. My focus is all around building the thing right and building out a world-class digital software engineering organization at Johnson Controls.” His team’s focus is on edge Internet of Things (IoT) through a software and data platform called Open Blue. It is a platform that allows Johnson Controls’ customers to drive energy efficiency and sustainability by managing their spaces, smart buildings and then applying artificial intelligence [AI] and machine learning [ML] to be able to generate those insights. This creates a closed-loop so that we fully get to the smart autonomous buildings.
“We’re building the software and all the connectors and the data structures and the AI models in my new organization to support that and work closely with Mike around the customer needs and experiences, and closely with Diane’s organization around the broader ecosystem of service and support and infrastructure and cybersecurity to make sure that the pieces that overlap in that Venn diagram come together seamlessly,” noted Sankaran.
The group that now reports to Sankaran to bring this to life used to partially report to Ellis, who recognized the value in unifying the edge software engineering capabilities together with the integrated Open Blue platform. This has proven to be a strategic differentiator for the company. Sankaran has accelerated Ellis’ vision by implementing the scaled agile framework across the group to accelerate speed to market.
Schwarz noted that a key to determining where one’s responsibilities begin and the next one’s ends boils down to solid communications both informal and formal. “We absolutely get that we need to work productively on figuring out the handoffs and providing clarity to our teams,” said Schwarz. “[We are] a company going through a huge transformational shift to become digital to the core. The kinds of problems that we’re solving are new to the organization.”
When asked about the formal structures in place to facilitate the forging of strong bonds across the company, Schwarz offered the example of cybersecurity. There is an enterprise cybersecurity group, which reports to her, and there is a product cybersecurity team that reports to Sankaran. Though there is some overlap between what they do, they are distinct disciplines. Schwarz and her enterprise chief information security officer (CISO) attend Sankaran’s product cybersecurity briefings, and likewise, Sankaran and his CISO attend Schwarz’s enterprise cybersecurity briefings. This is indicative of a broader desire to keep each other informed especially in the areas where roles overlap.
Ellis notes that the approach Johnson Controls has taken in defining these roles and responsibilities has facilitated the 136-year-old company moving from industrial speed to the speed of a software company. It speaks volumes as to the company’s commitment to a digital future that it has three leaders of such consequence reporting to the CEO of the company. To have that degree of digital sophistication represented at the executive level bodes well for the company to accomplish its goal of becoming digital to the core.
In June, Sanjib Sahoo was named executive vice president and chief digital officer of Ingram Micro. He takes on this role with the company at an inflection point in its digital journey, as well as at a time of changing ownership for the company. Platinum Equity announced that it completed the acquisition of Ingram Micro from HNA Technology Co., Ltd, a part of HNA Group, on July 7, 2021 for a total enterprise value of $7.2 billion, in a transaction that includes $5.9 billion of equity value.
Ingram Micro’s CEO Alain Monie noted his excitement in Sahoo’s arrival at the company. “In his first few weeks in his new role as Chief Digital Officer, Sanjib has already proven to be an excellent fit to lead the continuation of Ingram Micro’s digital journey,” said Monie. “We are fortunate to gain a leader with a diverse and global background, tremendous technical depth, and a passion for creating an exceptional digital experience at this critical juncture in our digital evolution. He has been tasked with shaping and creating global competitive advantage and differentiation for our Technology Solutions and Cloud businesses through the development of innovative, world-class customer and user experiences.”
Monie also noted that Sahoo’s mandate includes leading the company’s current e-commerce platform IMOnline’s digital transformation to ensure the company’s customers can transact with Ingram Micro easily and intuitively.
Monie has tasked Sahoo with several initiatives related to building world-class user experience and platforms, including focusing on building changing consumption models and billing engines and leading modernization of the company’s legacy systems, which primarily serve the Technology Solutions business. “Data and machine learning is a critical component of where we are focused on building an insight-driven organization with the power of data,” said Sahoo. “Today, the vast majority of our revenues are derived from our Technology Solutions business and one of my big priorities is to focus on even better e-commerce execution through creating an integrated customer experience that is more self-service and enables solution-based selling through our platforms. There is a lot of work to lead digital transformation in a complex $49 billion annual revenue organization like Ingram Micro, but I am proud to be called on to continue the great journey that the company started few years ago.” In addition to platform innovation and e-commerce experience, Sahoo indicated that process automation will be an additional area of focus.
Sahoo joins Ingram Micro from XPO Logistics, where, for more than four years, he was the chief information officer of the Transport business. He was responsible for digital innovation, transformation, and overall technology operations including brokerage, intermodal, last mile, truckload, expedite, managed transport, and freight forwarding. Prior to his time at XPO Logistics, he was the chief information officer and chief technology officer of tradeMONSTER.
Yasir Anwar is the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Digital Officer of Williams-Sonoma. He refers to the company as a house of brands, which include Williams-Sonoma, Williams-Sonoma Home, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Teen, Pottery Barn Kids, Mark & Graham, and Rejuvenation. Technology and digital are the central nervous system of the company, Anwar notes. “We are the world’s largest digital-first, design-led and sustainable home retailer. For that, you have to bring the whole world together to serve the customer needs.”
Anwar sees the evolution of the head of technology role as key in this transformation. He notes that “traditional” CIOs have an internal operational focus. The merging of technology and digital in his title and responsibilities implies a focus on technology projects but also on outcomes. What value is being driven? “It always has to start with the customer experience,” Anwar says. “This is the merger of the technology strength, powered and coupled by customer experience, digital experiences, and the power of digital that has been unleashing in the world as we speak.”
The results speak for themselves. Williams-Sonoma has a 70% e-commerce revenue penetration, Anwar said, up from 58% prior to the pandemic. Achieving that from a technical perspective begins with a global multi-tenant platform and a modern e-commerce platform. “We are building on top of not just microservices, but micro front-end, which would allow us to have more nimble, small, modular services,” noted Anwar. This allows the company to go to market much more rapidly. The platform is used across all of the company’s brands, which gives the company an edge when it comes to innovation. The platform allows the company to test a new idea or feature on a single brand, gather data, and quickly roll it out to others if it is successful.
As with many other companies, the pandemic accelerated digital innovation. For example, Williams-Sonoma associates use a tool called Room Planner to help advise clients on what furniture fits best in which rooms. The pandemic pushed for a faster release of a customer-facing version of the tool, which enables a customer to use the measurements of a room in their house, and then fill the space with furniture from across Williams-Sonoma’s brands. This proved to be a game changer at a time when so many people focused on updating and upgrading their homes to make them more conducive to both work and personal life. The tool also provides a connection to a professional when a customer wishes to get advice or ask questions.
When asked for Williams-Sonoma’s points of differentiation, Anwar believes one of the biggest examples is the company’s in-house design. “Many other marketplaces…sell home furnishing items,” he said. “They [typically procure] those items. They’re sourcing those items from different vendors across the world, but they do not own the design of those products.” By contrast, each of the Williams-Sonoma brands have high-performing, passionate and inspirational designers. “We own and we design everything and then we work with our in-house manufacturing locations, which we have here in the U.S.,” said Anwar, “We make in America, and then we also go to our partners, wherever we need to get the quality and diversity of design manufacturing…. I don’t think there is a company that could claim that they have such a deep ownership of the design, freshness of the design, and then the quality of the design.”
Anwar and his team have focused on two key cultural pillars in their transformation. First was moving a culture of “managers managing managers” to “experts leading experts.” This entails upskilling the team dramatically to greater levels of depth of knowledge. The second was going from a focus on output to a focus on outcomes. The result has been a transformation from a traditional retailer to a true hybrid between traditional retail and retail tech. “Our business is completely running on the rails of technology,” Anwar said. “Our goal in the next few years is to [reach a point where] tech front-loads the business propulsion and growth.”
The “house of brands” approach works for Williams-Sonoma because each brand serves different phases of an individual or a family’s life. The stores, themselves, reflect those nuances. A Pottery Barn Kids will have a different look and feel from Williams-Sonoma. That said, there are many commonalities and best practices that the unified Stores team can apply across the brands. Technology reflects a similar strategy. “If you have brands which are running on different platforms, different versions, there is a ton of costs,” he said. “If you have tested something great in one brand, you cannot go live [with] another brand because there are so many nuances.” Anwar noted that at least 85% of the company’s technology stack is common for all the brands.
Each of these trends served Williams-Sonoma well, and the stock price of the company bears this out, as it has risen more than 450% since March 20, 2020, from roughly $36 per share to the current price north of $164 per share.
Anwar is proud of the degree to which the tech and digital team fostered nimbleness in the company. “The teams were ready, the infrastructure was ready, the websites were ready, the supply chain fulfillment operational teams were ready,” noted Anwar. “It is a unique situation for all [retailers]. As they say, everybody is going through the same storm, but on different types of ships.” Anwar and his team have helped Williams-Sonoma build a ship to withstand the storm, steering more readily toward opportunity and away from danger.
LoanDepot has named George Brady Chief Digital Officer, effective July 6. LoanDepot has funded more than $300 billion in loans since its founding in 2010 and currently ranks as the second-largest retail nonbank lender and one of the leading retail mortgage lenders in the United States. LoanDepot is an approved seller and servicer for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae.
Brady will oversee all of loanDepot’s technology capabilities, including the leading proprietary platform, mello, with a specific focus on spearheading loanDepot’s technological innovation. Brady will report directly to loanDepot Founder and CEO Anthony Hsieh. LoanDepot’s technology team, led by Chief Information Officer Sudhir Nair, will report to Brady.
“Pushing the technology envelope is in loanDepot’s DNA,” said loanDepot founder and chief executive officer Anthony Hsiea. “Since our launch in 2010, our technology-powered products and services have changed the game for both customers and originators by providing an exceptional experience they can’t get anywhere else.”
In describing Brady’s hire, Hsiea went on to note, “George is a world-class talent whose unmatched knowledge, skills and leadership adds incredible horsepower to an already exceptional team. Under George’s leadership, I’m confident we’ll drive our world-class platform, mello, to new heights and continue to cultivate a culture of innovation and technical excellence. We have a tremendous opportunity to not only continue our innovation path as a category leader, but to shape and change the entire industry.”
“LoanDepot has a deep understanding of how technology can push the boundaries to enable both consumers and originators to seamlessly and successfully navigate the lending process,” noted Brady. “Between its remarkable track record of digital innovation, the talent and passion of its outstanding team, and the commitment of a visionary CEO to stay on the cutting edge, loanDepot is in a unique market position. The time is right to set the new standard for technological excellence and expand our capacity to meet the changing expectations of our customers.”
Brady has spent most of his career in financial services at companies like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments, and Deutsche Bank. He was most recently the Chief Technology Officer at Capital One.
Peter High
02-02-2015
Excerpt from the Article:
Richie Etwaru is a man in a hurry. He took on his first CIO role in his late 20s. He would hold that same title at the divisional level at Barclay’s bank in his early 30s. In 2007, he began a successful tenure at UBS, rising first to the role of Chief Technology Officer of UBS Wealth Management Americas and later as Chief Innovation Officer of UBS Wealth Management.
He has since moved to Cegedim RM, which is a data, technology and services company delivering a portfolio of innovation to the life sciences industry, specifically pharmaceutical manufacturers. He is currently the Chief Digital Officer of that organization. As he has continued his speedy career ascent, he has also founded an online media organization (BRAINFOOD TV) and started a health data analytics organization (The Human API), all while pursuing a doctorate and writing a book.
In this interview, Etwaru discusses his career, what drives him and his thoughts on the path from CIO to CDO, among other topics.
CIO Insight: Richie, you grew up in IT departments, rising to become a CIO and CTO of multiple organizations. You then became more innovation-centric. How did this turn come about?
Richie Etwaru: I would love to say I was always innovative. That is absolutely not the case. I may have always had an innovative gene but I did not start to innovate purposefully until I studied the design of businesses. Businesses come down to capturing value between supply, demand generation and demand fulfillment. Once I understood how value is created and captured, repeatedly and sustainably I started to find ‘problems’ to solve. Innovation coupled with corollary problems is purposeful innovation because you may have an innovative gene for tinkering. I was tinkering for a while until I became ‘problem aware,’ leading to ‘purposeful innovation.’
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