Check out highlights from the 2024 Metis Strategy Summit | Read more

October 29, 2024
Virgin Hotels, New York City, NY

We are thrilled to announce that our Metis Strategy Summit will take place live in New York City. On Oct. 29 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., we’ll hear from technology leaders, investors and entrepreneurs about the trends shaping the business and technology landscape today, from the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence to the macroeconomic and geopolitical shifts impacting global organizations. Other topics include:

Please note, this is an invite-only event for C-level technology leaders. If you are interested in attending, click here to request an invitation. Stay tuned for a venue announcement and agenda updates coming soon. We look forward to seeing you in New York!

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Click here for highlights from our most recent Digital Symposium, and stay tuned to our YouTube channel for videos of our panel discussions.)


8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Registrant Check-in

Arrive early to check in and collect your event materials. This time allows you to settle in, familiarize yourself with the venue, and start connecting with other attendees before the day’s sessions kick off.

Additional arrival information will be distributed to ensure a smooth start to your day.


9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Welcome and Opening Remarks

Peter High, President of Metis Strategy, kicks off the event with a brief introduction of the day’s sessions and the Metis Strategy team.


9:15 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
AI-Driven Customer Experience

This discussion will explore how organizations are using AI to deliver more personalized and dynamic experiences for customers and employees, and how the digital customer experience is evolving in the era of generative AI agents and more powerful models


9:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.
Project-to-Product’s Next Frontier

The ongoing shift to product-oriented operating models has begun to erode the traditional silos between business and IT and presented technology leaders with new opportunities and challenges. This panel will examine the future of the product model as companies become increasingly experience-centric and AI becomes a bigger part of the equation.  


10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Entrepreneur Spotlight: Augment CEO Scott Dietzen

The rise of generative AI sparked a wave of coding assistants promising new paradigms for software development and greater productivity. In this panel, Augment CEO Scott Dietzen will share insights on the current state of the industry and where coding assistants are headed next. 


10:30 a.m. – 10:50 a.m.
Coffee and Networking Break

Take a moment to grab a coffee and meet fellow attendees. This break offers a great chance to start conversations, share perspectives, and establish connections that will enrich the discussions throughout the day. Use this time to engage with industry leaders and peers before diving into the sessions.


10:50 a.m. – 11:20 a.m.
To Innovate at Scale, You Have to Modernize. How Companies Balance Both. 

To take advantage of the latest technologies, organizations need a modern tech stack. At the same time, they need to ensure necessary legacy systems don’t become a drag on progress. In this session, panelists will share how they are driving ambitious modernization roadmaps and creating the mindset for change.


11:20 a.m. – 11:50 a.m.
Advancing Data Strategy and Measuring AI’s Value

As AI experiments have flourished, technology leaders are now focused on another acronym: ROI. Panelists will share how they are measuring AI’s business value, identifying initiatives that will drive the greatest impact inside their organizations, and ensuring a strong data strategy to guide it all.


11:50 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.
Fireside Chat: The Path from CIO to CEO

Mike Clifton joined Alorica as CIO in 2021. This spring, he was named Co-CEO. The former technology and operations leader at Cognizant, Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, and the Hanover Insurance Group, among others, will share lessons learned throughout his journey and offer tips for CIOs seeking to expand their purviews. He is joined by fellow Co-CEO Max Schwendner.


12:05 p.m. – 1:05 p.m.
Lunch and Networking Break 

Recharge and refuel while continuing the conversation with colleagues and new connections. Whether deepening discussions from the morning sessions or exploring fresh ideas, this lunch break offers the perfect setting for meaningful exchanges in a more relaxed environment.


1:05 p.m. – 1:35 p.m.
Next-Gen Talent Operating Models

In today’s talent landscape, a mindset of continuous learning is key to success. This session will explore how companies are upskilling their teams for the future while navigating a world of work in which tech and business teams are more intertwined than ever.


1:35 p.m. – 2:05 p.m. 
Responsible AI: Value Proposition and Opportunities 

Operationalizing AI is widely believed to be a compelling and potentially game-changing value proposition but one that comes with a myriad of unique and dynamic risks. Organizations are therefore aiming to practice “responsible AI”, the development, deployment, and use of AI capabilities in a transparent, accountable, legal, and ethical manner. Panelists share their insights and approaches for developing and deploying AI responsibly for the benefit of their respective organizations and their many stakeholders.


2:05 p.m. – 2:20 p.m.
Unlocking ROI: Cloud Strategies for the Next AI Wave

This session will explore the symbiotic relationship between cloud and AI, the modernization decisions CIOs can make now to prepare their companies for the next AI wave, and the workload considerations needed to ensure newfound AI efforts deliver ROI. 


2:20 p.m. – 2:50 p.m.
The Expanding Innovation Ecosystem 

Technology leaders today understand that new ways of thinking don’t come only from inside an organization’s four walls. These leaders will share how they are leveraging external partners, peer networks, and new innovation frameworks access to new technologies becomes ever more democratized,  


2:50 p.m. – 3:05 p.m.
Fireside Chat: Tanium CEO Dan Streetman

As hackers get more sophisticated and new tools proliferate, today’s cybersecurity landscape is more complex than ever. In this discussion, Tanium CEO Dan Streetman shares how technology leaders can manage through that complexity and protect their organizations from the next wave of threats.


3:05 p.m. – 3:35 p.m.
The Changing Role of the Technology Leader: Executive Recruiter Perspectives

The role of today’s digital and technology leaders seems to be changing as quickly as the technology they oversee. In this panel, executive recruiters share perspectives on how the title and purview of the modern technology executive is evolving as advances in AI and other innovations reshape organizations around the world.


3:35 p.m. – 3:50 p.m.
Fireside Chat: Remaining Nimble and Resilient in a Constantly Changing World 

With the US Presidential election just days away and the global economic outlook in flux, companies across the globe are preparing for a variety of scenarios that could impact their strategies going forward. In this fireside chat, the Co-Head of the Goldman Sachs Institute will discuss how technology leaders can put their organizations in a position of readiness and resilience as they prepare for the opportunities and challenges ahead. 


3:50 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks

Peter High, President of Metis Strategy, will reflect on the day’s key takeaways and the insights shared both onstage and off. As the event draws to a close, Peter will set the stage for future discussions on innovation, technology leadership, and transformation.


4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Reception

Enjoy light refreshments and continue the conversation in a more casual setting. The reception provides a final chance to network, solidify new relationships, and unwind with peers after a full day of learning.


(Click here for highlights from our most recent Digital Symposium, and check out our YouTube channel for videos of the panel discussions.)

This article was written by Leila Shaban, Research Associate at Metis Strategy

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the 17th Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. Highlights from the event are below. Check out Metis Strategy’s Youtube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for recordings of each conversation. 

Companies continue to make progress in their AI journeys, deploying the technology to drive efficiency, productivity and innovation. Technology leaders are focused now on driving adoption, generating buy-in for new initiatives, and rolling out new training programs to ensure teams across the enterprise are able to take advantage of what AI has to offer. Below are a few highlights from the event: 

Building a foundation for AI at scale

Nearly all CIOs on stage said scalable infrastructure and high-quality, accessible data are key to driving value from AI initiatives. Over the past few years, many organizations have focused on building data platforms, shifting to cloud and rethinking ways of working in order to deliver AI at scale. “Having a really good data infrastructure is foundational to taking advantage of any of these generative AI capabilities,” Priceline CTO Marty Brodbeck said. Many speakers noted their current efforts to get reliable data into the hands of more teams across their organizations.

Nearly half of MSDS attendees said that the rapid evolution of AI, among other macro issues, will have the biggest impact on their organizations in the year ahead

Exploring new use cases

Many organizations continue to train generative AI on internal knowledge bases to streamline processes and enable more self service. CIOs also see potential around developer productivity.

Bristol Myers Squibb receives thousands of calls from physicians and nurse practitioners each day requesting information about specific, often technical, topics, Chief Digital and Technology Officer Greg Meyers said. MDs on the other side of the call often find those answers in internal documents. Now, an AI chatbot trained on the company’s knowledge base can search through the documents to retrieve answers to these questions much faster. With enough fine tuning, Meyers noted the chatbot could constrain search results to trusted documents and help agents provide near-immediate answers to customer queries.

At UPS, Chief Digital and Technology Officer Bala Subramanian recently launched an internal AI tool for email which can process the tens of thousands of customer emails UPS receives on a daily basis, connect relevant information across internal policies and procedures, and generate responses for contact center employees. This ultimately improves worker productivity and reduces response time. UPS also launched an AI chatbot to help employees answer HR questions. Subramanian noted that the company is proceeding slowly due to the sensitive information and personal data in HR systems, and emphasized the critical role of risk management and governance.

At AstraZeneca, AI is significantly reducing the amount of time it takes to conduct research. Cindy Hoots, Chief Digital and Information Officer, described a generative AI-enabled research assistant that quickly searches both internal and external data to answer complex scientific questions. The assistant has helped reduce the time it takes to conduct a literature review from months to minutes, she said. Hoots is now focused on scaling AI adoption. About 15,000 employees use the research assistant, she said, while roughly 5,000 use Copilot solutions and almost 80,000 have access to AstraZeneca’s internal ChatGPT. 

At KB Home, employees evaluate a number land deals across 35 markets every week. Aggregating property data from different sources to determine whether to make an acquisition used to take 30-90 days, CIO Greg Moore said. With AI, KB Home can now complete the process in less than two weeks. The faster turnaround now enables the company to make more evaluations and manage more potential deals in the pipeline. 

Developer productivity is another area of rapid experimentation. Many of the tools offered by major vendors are in their early days and have room to grow, said Brodbeck of Priceline. The team is exploring solutions that can learn from Priceline’s codebase and provide a richer and more contextual experience. Whether for code generation or another use case, Brodbeck said companies will likely need to deploy retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to deliver more productivity. 

At Augment, CEO Scott Dietzen is thinking about how to retrieve knowledge from internal codebases in a way that protects intellectual property and reduces the risk of leaking sensitive information. The team started with basic engineering tasks that can make developers more productive rather than trying to replace them altogether. Demand for these kinds of tools will last for at least a decade as organizations produce more software, Dietzen said.

The top use cases for digital assistants/copilots that are driving the most value for MSDS attendees are code generation, self-service chatbots, and enterprise search/knowledge management

Bringing the organization along on the AI journey

To drive a common understanding and widespread adoption of AI, CIOs have increased their focus on storytelling and talent development.

At Wilson Sonsini, Chief Information Officer Michael Lucas is focused on cascading AI communications across the firm. His team started with a general awareness campaign. That included employee town halls to communicate the broader strategy as well as AI-centric briefings to partners. Given the sea of media coverage about AI, Lucas encouraged leaders to develop their own elevator pitch to help their organizations clearly understand the company’s AI strategy. Driving a common understanding across the firm is key to driving adoption. “We feel like we need to learn, understand, enrich, and then apply and operationalize,” Lucas said. 

At Liberty Mutual, Global Chief Information Officer Monica Caldas is delivering customized employee training and connecting it to the company’s capacity demands across 27 countries. It’s part of a workforce strategy plan called “skills to fuel our future.” First, the company surveyed more than 5,000 employees to determine their skill level around topics like data, data engineering and software engineering. Next, the company mapped over 150 skills, connected them to 18 domains, and assessed how and where to invest in training. 

Now, Caldas and her team are helping employees apply that training to a variety of career paths. Instead of a traditional career development ladder, Liberty Mutual is evaluating how to map skills to different jobs and create a “jungle gym” or “lattice of opportunities.” The focus on specific skills, Caldas said, “will help you position your capabilities as a tech organization not just for today, but also plan out where it’s going.”

Education at the executive level is also critical. To bring executives along on the journey, Caldas introduced a program called Executech that helps improve organizational data literacy and elevates the digital IQ of decision makers. Enhancing teams’ tech acumen gives leaders the confidence to start conversations early about important technology topics like API integration. 

AI adoption may not be uniform, and there is still lots to learn about how it will impact specific roles. At Eli Lilly, employees who have incorporated AI tools into their workflow are reluctant to give them up, said Diogo Rau, Chief Information and Digital Officer. However, widespread adoption is a continuous and sometimes challenging process, “a lot harder than anyone would guess,” Rau said. 

Rau often gets more questions about the risks of AI than how it can be used to improve products and services. Another challenge is that teams excited about creating AI bots aren’t always excited about maintaining or training them. “There are lots of good firefighters, but not every firefighter wants to be a fire inspector,” he said. 

62% of technology executives who attended the Metis Strategy Digital Symposium anticipate that the most significant impact that AI will have on talent is increased productivity 

Leveraging ecosystem partners

Achieving the transformative potential of generative AI will require collaborating with networks of vendors, startups, peers, and academics. In addition to providing technology solutions, these ecosystem partners can help upskill employees, explore emerging challenges, and prototype new use cases. 

Amir Kazmi, Chief Information and Digital Officer at WestRock, draws learnings from both established technology partners and startups. He also brings in academics and peers from other companies to share wins and lessons learned about generative AI.  

Regal Rexnord’s Tim Dickson, Chief Digital and Information Officer, uses hackathons and internal events with vendor partners to increase the company’s digital IQ. The company also offers self-paced training from about 10 partners that includes pathways to certification. In the past seven months, more than 100 employees have received training on GenAI fundamentals from Databricks and robotic process automation from UiPath, as well as certifications from Microsoft Copilot. Even if employees don’t use these tools every day, increasing the number of people with technical skills means more individuals “can at least help, or even lead, these initiatives across the organization,” Dickson said.

CommScope CIO Praveen Jonnala, like many other technology executives, is thinking about how to drive a cultural shift around AI. He spends about 80% of his time on organizational change management and culture. He is also leaning into existing partnerships to take advantage of new AI solutions and educate teams. For example, he took business teams to Microsoft for a full day to learn more about the technology and its ability to unlock new business opportunities. 

This article was written by Rana Abbaszadeh, a Senior Associate in Metis Strategy’s West Coast Office

As companies look for ways to harness data and AI to deliver on business outcomes, they first need to develop the foundational governance capability that enables them to do so effectively. Data governance requires significant time and resource investment, to be sure, but it ultimately enables organizations to realize the long-term value from their AI and analytics initiatives. 

At a high level, data governance refers to the development and management of information about an organization’s data. It includes maintaining a catalog of a company’s data from lineage to definition and utilization. When done well, data governance creates a single source of truth that can be used to unlock trusted insights, inform strategic decision making, and enable personalization at scale.  

Companies that implement data governance can:

Metis Strategy takes a strategic approach to data governance and recommends that organizations start with the data that drives significant value. For example, a retail company could focus first on the governance of customer and product data, as this information is core to the company’s growth. Focusing on high-value data helps generate buy-in from key stakeholders and builds momentum for governance initiatives. After that, organizations can turn to other data until governance becomes embedded into the company culture. 

This article will outline how to develop a data governance program within your organization, including the different roles and stakeholders involved.

Identifying governance opportunities

Using the Metis Strategy methodology, organizations can quickly realize value while improving overall data maturity. We recommend developing a cross-functional steering committee consisting of senior leaders across business and technology units who will guide the governance process. The steering committee is responsible for setting strategy, direction, and prioritization for the data governance program.

The committee’s primary responsibilities include: 

In addition to the responsibilities above, the committee also will evaluate the business case for specific initiatives, approve funding and resource requests, and guide program adoption throughout the enterprise.

Building the Governance Council

In addition to the steering committee, the data governance program should include a governance council that will scope, document, and monitor data assets and lead governance operations. The council should consist of individuals across different business units to provide varied perspectives across domains. Members take on roles such as data owner, steward and custodian to ensure accurate data sets for their respective business units. A high-level overview of this is shown below.

The Data Governance Council consists of several roles with varying responsibilities. Metis Strategy recommends the council have at least the following three roles:

Business unit end users

Business unit end users will have access to trusted data based on their business unit needs and role requirements. They will collaborate with the business data owners to ensure maximum utility of the enterprise data.

Conclusion

Data governance is critical to ensuring the success of strategic data projects across any organization. Having the right structures in place will enable a faster return on investment and allow the governance capability to scale throughout the organization. As more high-value use cases come to life, analytics and AI teams will be empowered to use trusted data to improve business performance, enhance the customer experience and improve operational efficiency.

Companies have had great success in initial governance efforts, unlocking the utilization of customer and product data to help drive product design and improve sales outcomes. For example, after developing a governance program around its consumer and product data, one retailer improved the personalization of a merchandising ad unit by 17% through an enhanced understanding of user engagement and behavioral patterns. Success in this area helped the company make the business case for future analytics and AI use cases. In this case, a strong data governance capability built confidence and momentum for the organization as it continued to scale its analytics efforts. 

To learn more about developing a robust data governance program, please contact us at information@metisstrategy.com

May 21, 2024
12 p.m. – 3 p.m. EST

Advancements in artificial intelligence have opened the door for innovative ways companies can deliver unique and personalized customer experiences. Join us virtually on May 21 for our next Metis Strategy Digital Symposium where global business and technology executives describe how AI has improved their organizations, how they are continuing to foster a customer-centric mentality, and what the future of technology and digital looks like in the Age of AI.

C-level technology leaders, register here reserve your spot and stay tuned for agenda updates. We look forward to seeing you!

(Click here for highlights from our most recent Digital Symposium, and stay tuned to our YouTube channel for videos of our panel discussions.)


12:00 – 12:15 p.m.

Welcome and Introductions

Welcome and introduction to the Metis Strategy team

Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


12:15 – 12:40 p.m.

Customer Experience in the Age of AI

Moderated by Steven Norton; Co-Head Executive Networks, Research, and Media; Metis Strategy


12:40 – 1:05 p.m.

Driving Digital Innovation Ahead of Disruption

Michael Lucas, Chief Information Officer, Wilson Sonsini

Moderated by Chris Davis, Partner & West Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy


1:05 – 1:30 p.m.

Shaping the Story: Future-Oriented Talent and Innovation

Amir Kazmi, Chief Information & Digital Officer, WestRock

Moderated by Alex Kraus, Partner & East Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy


1:30 – 1:45 p.m.

Entrepreneur Spotlight: CEO of Augment

Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


1:45 – 2:15 p.m.

Emerging AI Opportunities in Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare







2:15 – 2:40 p.m.

Blueprint for AI Organizational Readiness

Tim Dickson, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Regal Rexnord

Moderated by Michael Bertha, Partner & Central Office Lead, Metis Strategy


2:40 – 2:55 p.m.

Closing Remarks and Adjourn

Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


Click here for highlights from our February Metis Strategy Digital Symposium, or watch the panels on our YouTube channel. We look forward to seeing you!

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the 16th Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. Highlights from the event are below. If you missed the event, check out Metis Strategy’s Youtube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for recordings of each conversation. 

Our next event will take place May 21. More details and an agenda coming soon. CXOs, are you interested in attending? If so, kindly register here. We look forward to seeing you!

The COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chain challenges and the broad resurgence of artificial intelligence created a sense of urgency among many technology leaders to modernize and improve their organizations’ digital capabilities. Today, many companies are beginning to see the results of those investments and talking about the strategic ways technology can continue to enable innovation and resilience. Tech leaders recognize the importance of playing both offense and defense as they continue to navigate an uncertain business landscape, and the continued need to align talent and business strategies as they plan for future growth.   

Investing in resilience 

Some leaders outside IT may argue that there is never a good time to invest in IT. But given how quickly the competitive landscape is changing, organizations can’t afford to pause. For CIOs, a question is where – and when – to make those strategic investments.  

“It’s much more beneficial to invest in a downturn than in an upcycle,” said Gates Corporation CIO Diego Silva. During a downturn, there is more capacity and willingness for people to drive change, put new skills into practice, and move projects forward. The greater acceptance for change gives companies the opportunity to drive productivity and resilience, and ultimately put them in a position of strength when the next upswing comes around. 

Indeed, many organizations took advantage of time during the pandemic to invest in digital capabilities. When the world was in “shutdown mode,” Sunbelt Rentals Chief Digital & Technology Officer JP Saini invested in the organization’s omnichannel retail capabilities, talent development, new innovation models, and other initiatives to strengthen the resilience and adaptability of the enterprise. As Metis Strategy partner Chris Davis notes: “Businesses are cyclical, but progress and innovation don’t have to be.”   

MSDS attendees shared that the biggest barriers to advancing and maintaining digital capabilities are legacy operating models and legacy infrastructure

Managing both offense and defense

True transformation means not just building innovative products and services but also ensuring that all the processes that support those innovations are running as they should. For CIOs, that means playing both offense and defense well. 

At pharmaceutical firm GSK, innovation has long been a core competency. As leaders discussed transforming parts of the organization, there was growing recognition that the company had to balance playing offense and defense, playing to win rather than “playing not to lose.” Offense includes those digital and data capabilities at the core of a company’s strategy, while defense-oriented activities may focus on areas like responsible AI and cybersecurity. It becomes a virtuous cycle, GSK Chief Digital & Technology Officer Shobie Ramakrishnan said. “Defense in service of the offense becomes important.”  

Tech modernization is another area where offense and defense must be balanced. As Grainger CTO Jonny LeRoy noted, organizations that have been early adopters have a duty to tend to the IT garden over time, “to keep the weeds out.” Putting that into practice, Grainger is focused on the mechanics of how it grows, using its understanding of processes like customer acquisition and inventory management to guide the continuous development of its systems and solutions. Meanwhile, Grainger keeps an eye on the horizon and experiments with new technology as it comes so it can be ready for what’s next.  

Continuously improving

Responding to a fast-changing market requires organizations to deploy new capabilities quickly and pivot when necessary. That requires a mindset of continuous improvement and a constant search for opportunities to align people, process and technology toward a common outcome. 

Consider a zero-day cybersecurity vulnerability, one that takes advantage of an unknown or unaddressed issue and needs to be fixed immediately. Jen Felch, Chief Digital Officer and CIO at Dell, said the best way to be prepared is “not only to take care of it early, but figure out how to get fast.” While some may view behavior or process change as antithetical to speed, the efforts to make those changes and continuously improve can be major levers to increase speed and efficiency.   

Felch recognizes the desire for continuous improvement among teams as well, not only to build skills but also to see the results of their work. Rapid experimentation cycles have helped, she said: “let’s see what we can do in two weeks and build on that and see how it goes.” Giving appropriate context, bringing in knowledge from across the organization, and encouraging a test-and-learn mindset can also drive empowerment across teams. On the process side, constantly improving data quality, information retrieval methods and learning opportunities have also aided progress.  

The top talent efforts that technology executives are focused on to advance AI are widespread education/upskilling and scaling AI-based productivity tools 

Adopting new ways of working

Technology leaders are also adapting their talent strategies to better suit their strategic goals. Barry Perkins, COO at Zurich North America, noted that having a majority of technology employees in India limited productivity and agility. Noting “ABCD” – AI, Big Data, Cyber, and Development – as four critical digital capabilities, the company has begun to reassess its talent strategy, including which roles should be closer to headquarters. “We can’t have agility if we’re having conversations thousands of miles away with different time zones,” he said. “It’s much easier side by side.”  

Effective talent management also requires leaders to inspire teams about the organization’s future vision and help team members see their place in the plan. As Brinks Inc. CIO Neelu Sethi said, transformation of any sort is less about technology and more about people. She is working to create a true “three-legged stool” of people, process and technology rather than letting a single element be the focus.She also reiterated the need for true collaboration. “You cannot whistle a symphony,” she said. “It takes an orchestra.” 

At Travelers, preparing talent for large-scale change has involved a focus on four areas: Customer First; Empower and Act; Test and Learn; and Prioritize. Chief Technology and Operations Officer Mojgan Lefebvre also emphasized the need for effective communication to drive trust and accountability through transparency. “People want to play a role,” she said. “Bringing them along and giving them that capability is important.” 

A majority of MSDS participants are either experimenting with Copilots or other generative AI tools to enhance software developer productivity or scaling the adoption of these tools

Advancing generative AI adoption

Naturally, artificial intelligence continues to be a priority in 2024. After a year of initial exploration and education, many organizations are ramping up AI experiments and seeing ways to expand AI across the enterprise. Underpinning all of this exploration is a focus on value delivery and safety.   

GSK established an AI policy and set up an AI governance council five years ago when the organization decided to scale AI across the company. Now, Ramakrishnan is thinking about additional risks around adoption and procurement to ensure AI can scale. Similarly, Travelers many years ago set up an AI accelerator team to explore potential use cases and create a framework for responsible AI use. Now, they are prioritizing a handful of use cases and in the process of scaling them across the organization.

“Generative AI is top of mind for every executive to accelerate their workforce and accelerate the products of the business,” said Varun Mohan, CEO & Co-Founder of Codeium. In a poll, participants said the biggest benefit to AI and generative AI adoption is increased productivity (67%), followed by improved products and services (17%). When it comes to advancing AI, 40% of attendees said talent efforts are focused on scaling AI-based productivity tools. 

Around two-thirds of respondents see increased productivity as the biggest benefit to AI/generative AI adoption

Many speakers said they are currently using AI for use cases such as developer productivity and internal process automation. A key outcome: speed. “The more we eliminate the drudgery from the process, the more we can start to deliver value,” said Jen Felch of Dell. At Travelers, Levebvre’s team is exploring how generative AI can be an assistant or collaborator, such as quickly searching through and summarizing documents or helping team members access needed information. The company is also exploring how AI can be used to improve job descriptions and recruiting processes. Lefebvre noted that while many of their use cases are internally focused, they want to be able to scale the technology and “make it good before turning it around with customers” as there is also a lot of external value to capture. 

At Grainger, LeRoy’s teams are experimenting with generative AI in technology (coding assistants) as well as customer service. Through internal hackathons, the technology team developed tools that are boosting employee productivity and allowing them to do more with a constrained budget. As use of these tools continues to scale, financial management becomes an important factor, LeRoy said. “Some of that is selecting the right model with the right capability level that’s not overly expensive, and managing how much information you put into them.” 

Our next event will take place May 21. If you are a CXO and interested in attending, please register here

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 15th Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. Check out some event highlights below, and stay tuned to the Metis Strategy YouTube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for full sessions.  

For businesses across the globe, 2023 was the year of generative AI. Since ChatGPT’s launch and meteoric rise last November, digital leaders have been experimenting with a range of new GenAI products and services as they searched for the most effective, and least risky, way to bring the technology to their organizations. As GenAI (and the hype around it) took off, it prompted important and complex conversations about the future of work and how to accelerate innovation while managing new and significant risks.

A little over a year in, leaders continue to experiment with new tools as a means to drive new value and improve the experience for customers and employees. They are also turning their focus back to the fundamentals, building strong data governance and data hygiene practices to ensure their organizations have the strategic and operational foundation needed to take advantage of their data. 

GenAI is still the shiniest thing out there, but as technology leaders look to 2024, they are focused on integrating it, and AI more generally, into their organization’s operating model and championing use cases that can produce tangible value at scale. 

Scaling AI’s ROI

If year one of generative AI was about deciphering its risks and enabling organizations to experiment safely, year two will be about finding ways to drive value at scale. With new use cases emerging regularly, technology leaders are figuring out how to prioritize the initiatives that show the most promise to the business. 

At BNSF Railway, CIO Muru Murugappan and his team use a value feasibility matrix to assess technical feasibility, timing, and complexity of new AI initiatives versus the expected payback. Some companies are also using business interest and executive sponsorship as criteria for deciding which initiatives to pursue. One overarching lesson: the more ambitious the project, the more challenges it is likely to face. 

In addition to delivering on generative AI’s opportunities, CIOs now are contending with a new set of costs as well. Speakers also highlighted the fact that simply “turning on” a new AI tool does not guarantee value. 

For many, the path to unlocking AI’s value means getting back to basics. “This is reinforcing the need for analytics fundamentals,” said Filippo Catalano, Reckitt’s Chief Information & Digitisation Officer. “If you don’t have good data practices, at best you’re going to use whatever others are using, but you will not be able to generate competitive advantage. Great data practices … become even more important.” 

Encouraging innovation while managing risk 

While new AI tools have helped organizations explore the art of the possible, they also have created a number of new risks, from more advanced cyberattacks to the negative impact of training algorithms on biased data. Just over one quarter of attendees cited data privacy as the largest AI-related risk to their organizations. The delicate balance for CIOs: managing the new risk landscape while empowering teams across the organization to experiment and innovate.

Martin Stanley, who leads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency R&D portfolio, is currently assigned to the Trustworthy and Responsible AI program at NIST. Among his team’s goals is promoting adoption of the AI Risk Management Assessment Framework, which provides a construct for deploying AI responsibly and managing risk among a diverse set of stakeholders. The framework means to address a few key concepts: building a language around AI risk beyond simply monitoring potential vulnerabilities, creating a shared understanding of how to manage that risk across the enterprise, and driving a trust-driven, “risk- aware culture” that influences how people interact with the technology. 

CIOs are working to build trust into every layer of the process. As Vishal Gupta of Lexmark noted, technology is only as good as people’s ability to adopt it and trust what it’s saying. “Otherwise, you really can’t do much with it.” At Lexmark, Gupta is taking a layered approach, creating trust in the underlying data via stronger governance and management practices; driving trust in AI and machine learning models by setting up an AI ethics board and rigorously vetting use cases; and continuously testing to validate AI’s ability to truly drive business outcomes. 

Taking a human-centered approach

New AI tools such as developer copilots have the potential to drive significant productivity gains and reshape how many of us do our jobs. As humans and technology continue to interact in new ways, CIOs are focused on optimizing the digital employee and customer experience while helping teams navigate a changing world of work. Indeed, 50% of MSDS attendees plan to apply AI and generative AI to impact employee experience and productivity, with 30% planning to use it to improve the customer experience. 

At TransUnion, CIO Munir Hafez and his team are taking a human-centered approach to the digital experience with a focus on ensuring tech equity and establishing policies that allow teams to safely experiment with new tools, among other initiatives. When investing in employee experience, “our goal was to create a consumer-grade experience that enables employees to be engaged and productive in an environment that is integrated, modern, frictionless, and connected anywhere,” Hafez said.

AI’s ability to deliver frictionless employee experiences and deliver real productivity gains far beyond IT is likely to be a big focus for 2024. Many panelists noted how access to accurate, AI-enabled real-time data can help field managers make decisions more quickly, and how technologies like digital twins can streamline design processes and speed time to market.  

A world of possibilities in 2024

Navigating an uncertain economic environment and rapid technological advances are top of mind for CIOs in the year ahead. The convergence of these two factors continues to underscore the importance of bringing a strategic, value-based lens to AI development and adoption.

The hype around generative AI may come back down to earth in 2024 as companies begin to understand its complexities in the enterprise. “I think there is going to be…a little bit of a trough that we’ll hit with GenAI,” said Graphic Packaging International CIO Vish Narendra. “The commercialization of that is going to take a little longer in the enterprise than people think it’s going to.” 

As technology becomes embedded across a broader range of products and services, the spotlight will be on CIOs to show the art of the possible, create future-ready workforces, and manage risk. Given their broad purview that spans horizontally across organizations, CIOs are well positioned to influence and shape enterprise strategy in the year ahead, setting their companies up for continued resilience and growth.

December 13, 2023
12 p.m. – 3 p.m. EST

Our final Digital Symposium of the year is rapidly approaching. Join us virtually on December 13 as global technology leaders discuss the changing AI landscape, enabling data strategy at scale, the future of customer and employee experience, and what’s ahead for 2024.

C-level technology leaders,  to reserve your spot and stay tuned for agenda updates. We look forward to seeing you!

(Click here for highlights from our most recent Digital Symposium, and stay tuned to our YouTube channel for videos of our panel discussions.)


12:00 – 12:10 p.m.

Welcome and Introductions

Welcome and introduction to the Metis Strategy team.

Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


12:10 – 12:35 p.m.

Transforming Organizations for a Data-Driven Future

Filippo Catalano, Chief Information & Digitisation Officer, Reckitt

Moderated by Alex Kraus, Partner & East Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy


12:35 – 12:50 p.m.

The Future of Secure, Responsible AI with NIST’s Martin Stanley

Martin Stanley, Strategic Technology Branch Chief, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy



12:50 – 1:15 p.m.

Optimizing the Digital Employee Experience

Muru Murugappan, Chief Information Officer, BNSF Railways

Moderated by Michael Bertha, Partner & Central Office Lead, Metis Strategy


1:15 – 1:30 p.m.

Entrepreneur Spotlight: Pankaj Patel, Co-Founder of Nile Security

Pankaj Patel, CEO & Co-Founder, Nile Secure

Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


1:30 – 1:55 p.m.

Driving the Enterprise AI Mindset

Vishal Gupta, Chief Information & Technology Officer, Lexmark

Sumedh Mehta, Chief Information Officer, Putnam Investments

Moderated by Steven Norton; Co-Head Executive Networks, Research, and Media; Metis Strategy


1:55 – 2:10 p.m.

Entrepreneur Spotlight: Gustavo Sapoznik, Founder of ASAPP

Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


2:10 – 2:40 p.m.

Scaling Your AI Operating Model

Yasir Anwar, Chief Technology Officer & Chief Digital Officer, Williams-Sonoma

Cisco Sanchez, SVP & Chief Information Officer, Qualcomm

Moderated by Chris Davis, Partner & West Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy


2:40 – 2:45 p.m.

Closing Remarks and Adjourn

Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


Click here for highlights from our September Digital Symposium, or watch the panels on our YouTube channel. We look forward to seeing you!

This article was written by Marjorie Freeman.

A data strategy is a plan of action to manage an organization’s data assets across its technology, processes, and people. In practice, that entails understanding how data is generated, where and why it is consumed, and how its use helps organizations achieve strategic objectives.  

On Metis Strategy’s Technovation podcast, Peter High has interviewed many global, digital-forward CIOs about their data strategies. Below are insights from those leaders about how companies can use enterprise data assets to their fullest potential. 

Tie data to business outcomes 

Artificial intelligence has been top of mind for many organizations, even more so in 2023 with the rise of ChatGPT and increased discussion around generative AI. This has prompted a multitude of conversations around AI’s core facet: data, and how it can drive the business forward.

During the February 2023 Metis Strategy Digital Symposium, Krzystof Soltan, the Chief Information Officer of Vulcan Materials Company, and Anupam Khare, the Chief Information Officer of Oshkosh Corporation, shared their experiences building data strategy into complex, scaled organizations

At Oshkosh, Khare leads with the question: “How do we extract financial value from data by bringing people and data together?” The company is working to become what Khare calls a predictable enterprise, using four fundamental principles to guide the journey:

For Vulcan Materials, data strategy is linked to the organization’s technology strategy. “It always comes back to business value, the time to value, how fast we are able to provide the insights” Soltan said. Vulcan Materials’ looks to the following principles to guide its data and analytics work:  

Both Khare and Soltan’s stories underscore the need to tie data strategy to business value, work toward a common tech stack, and engage people at every level of the organization in the data journey.  

Develop a strong data governance plan

OneDigital, which provides customizable and cost-effective HR solutions to organizations and their workforces, acquires around 30 organizations per year. This is no easy feat, but CIO Marcia Calleja-Matsko strives to create a seamless experience for every organization that is onboarded.

When acquiring a new organization, especially one in a different vertical or industry, it is important to ensure there is a consistent record across multiple platforms, Calleja-Matsko says. Cue the single source of truth, or what she calls the “golden record.” Once that record has been created, it must be maintained.

Over the years, Calleja-Matsko has been working to build OneDigital’s data strategy in three key ways:

If data is the new oil and speed is the currency of business, then data governance is the link that fuses the two. For more, see Michael Bertha’s commentary: Data Strategy at the Speed of Business.

Drive data literacy across the enterprise 

CIOs play an instrumental role in creating a common language around data and making sure teams across the enterprise have the tools and concepts they need to harness data effectively. To develop this data literacy, many organizations have built enterprise-wide curriculums and training resources.

Monica Caldas, the CIO of Liberty Mutual, which has its own professional development training programs, including one specifically geared toward executives, said it well: 

“Technology is everybody’s responsibility these days in terms of understanding what it can do. Everyone that sits around the table needs to be beyond, ‘How do I click this?’ and [be] somewhat well versed [in topics like] what can an API do, and why does that matter.” 

Many organizations have launched digital academies to train employees on digital skills, including technology and data literacy. In 2019, for example, Toyota launched an academy to knock down the invisible wall often found between IT and the business and give end users greater knowledge of the software they use every day. “The idea was to not just train IT, but everyone across the organization.” said then Chief Innovation, Strategy and Digital Officer, Vipin Gupta. The approach has empowered associates across the business to truly understand how to capitalize on the tools, data, and processes at their disposal. 

Data literacy is also key to enabling citizen development, an approach that encourages those outside IT to contribute to software development, often via low-code/no-code tools. Paired with increased data literacy, this can make it easier for teams across organizations to apply data and analytics to their work and accelerate time to insight.  

Chief Information and Digitization Officer of Reckitt Benckiser Group, Filippo Catalano encourages executives to create opportunities for properly governed self-service data access:

You want to also make sure that, as much as possible, everybody in the company becomes a data scientist. … Get out of the way so you can unleash creativity, empower people everywhere in the organization to do what they need to do on data and analytics, but also to do it on the right platforms so that things are done in a fair way, but also in a safe way. 

CIOs, CDIOs, and CDOs are in incredible positions to influence the change they’d like to see within their organizations. Directly engaging individuals in the company’s data journey through hands-on learning opportunities can not only build knowledge and morale, but also can catalyze new competitive advantages.

Tell a compelling story

Any successful data strategy needs a compelling, ambitious vision and a clear path to success that resonates across an organization. CIOs, then, need skillful storytelling to get buy-in from multiple stakeholders and create forward momentum.

Telling the story effectively means, once again, putting business outcomes front and center. “I can talk all day about ‘hey, you should have data governance and you should think about a data lake or a single view of the customer,’” said Dak Liyanearachchi, Head of Data and Technology at NRG Energy. “All of those are really interesting, but what does it really mean to the organization?”  

One useful move includes thinking about data as an enterprise asset that requires strong partnership across every part of the business. While companies can notch small wins leveraging data within silos, the real benefit comes when that great work logically connects across the organization. 

“If you think about connecting the dots across the value chain, that’s where you start to see some significant business opportunities,” Liyanearachchi said. When that happens, “the value you bring multiplies at a faster rate.”  

September 20, 2023
12 p.m. – 3 p.m. EDT

Our next Digital Symposium is just around the corner. Join us on September 20 as technology executives and business leaders from across industries share insights on high-priority topics including data as an enterprise change agent, developing and scaling AI-led products, new approaches to talent development, and the future of customer experience, among other topics.

C-level technology leaders,  to reserve your spot and stay tuned for agenda updates. We look forward to seeing you!

(Click here for highlights from our most recent Digital Symposium, and stay tuned to our YouTube channel for videos of our panel discussions.)


12:00 – 12:10 p.m.

Welcome and Introductions

Welcome and introduction to the Metis Strategy team.

Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


12:10 – 12:40 p.m.

Strategic Automation Across the Enterprise

Amy Brady, Chief Information Officer, KeyBank

Ryan Kean, Chief Information Officer, Total Quality Logistics

Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy



12:40 – 1:10 p.m.

Developing and Scaling AI-Led Products and Services

Dak Liyanearachchi, Chief Data and Technology Officer, NRG Energy

Salumeh Companieh, Chief Digital and Information Officer, Cushman & Wakefield

Moderated by Michael Bertha, Partner & Central Office Lead, Metis Strategy


1:10 – 1:25 p.m.

Entrepreneur Spotlight: Domino Data Lab

Nick Elprin, CEO & Co-Founder, Domino Data Lab

Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


1:25 – 1:55 p.m.

The Future of the Digital Customer Experience

Fahim Siddiqui, Chief Information Officer, The Home Depot

Kristie Grinnell, Chief Information Officer, DXC Technology

Moderated by Alex Kraus, Partner & East Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy


1:55 – 2:25 p.m.

Data and AI Strategy as an Enterprise Change Agent

Rajan Kumar, Chief Information Officer, Intuit

Sesh Tirumala, Chief Information Officer, Western Digital

Moderated by Chris Davis, Partner & West Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy


2:25 – 2:55 p.m.

Talent Strategy in the Age of AI

Lakshman Nathan, Chief Information Officer, Paramount

Shubham Mehrish, Global Vice President, Mars

Moderated by Steven Norton; Co-Head Executive Networks, Research, and Media; Metis Strategy


2:55 – 3:00 p.m.

Closing Remarks and Adjourn

Peter High, President, Metis Strategy


Click here for highlights from our May Digital Symposium, or watch the panels on our YouTube channel. We look forward to seeing you!

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the 13th Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. As 2023 approaches the halfway point, leaders convened to discuss the rapidly changing economic, technological and geopolitical landscape and its impact on strategy in the months ahead.

Highlights from the event are below. Stay tuned to the Metis Strategy Youtube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for recordings of individual panel discussions. 

A changing geopolitical landscape and the rise of generative AI  

As tensions continue to escalate around the world, technology leaders must understand and prepare for new geopolitical dynamics. Jared Cohen, Co-Head of the Office of Applied Innovation and President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs, argued that the notion of hyperglobalization ended before the COVID pandemic and that the world now faces a reorientation of supply chains and capital flows. 

Technology executives are playing close attention to changing value chains and alliances. “Technology is changing geopolitics, and geopolitics is changing technology,” said Cohen. One of the biggest areas where technology is currently influencing geopolitics is in the area of generative AI, which Cohen dubbed as the “most disruptive experiment in anarchy” since the internet. He warned about the risk of people deploying large language models for “bad use cases” to cause real problems in international systems. While there is significant discussion around which companies have superior large language models, he noted a desire for the conversation to focus more on the implications of generative AI for the world. 

George Lee, another Co-Head of the Applied Innovation Office at Goldman Sachs, said generative AI is dominating discussions with boards and management teams around the world. While its rapid growth offers many fascinating possibilities, it has also disturbed the human desire for order and linearity. Lee noted how creators are being constantly surprised as the emerging technology develops. “Anyone who tells you they know where this is going, how fast it’s going, and what our destination is, is just wrong.”

MSDS attendees say customer service is a top AI use case in 2023.

Preparing organizations for generative AI at scale 

While conversations around generative AI have taken the world by storm, technology leaders today play a key role in translating the hype into reality. That means not only vetting new use cases for the technology, but also educating their teams about the benefits and risks of generative AI and creating policies that encourage innovation while ensuring responsible use.  

The three areas that leaders expect innovation to deliver the most value in this year are customer experience, internal process transformation, and product/service development.

“It takes courage to take a step back and say, maybe let’s not fall into the hype, let’s go about this in a methodical way,” said Digi-Key Electronics CIO Ramesh Babu. Babu created a community of practice around AI that includes stakeholders from across the organization and a list of key terms with consistent definitions to keep everyone on the same page. He also created a network of influencers within the company that serve as “education ambassadors” for the organization.  

Allen Smith, CIO at Baker Tilly, recommended leaders approach generative AI like they would any other technology. “There is a difference between home runs and singles. Singles in this case are your front. Go do something, show it, have a tangible example,” he said. “Now, it can be used to fuel the really good ideas.” He also expressed concerns about the security and privacy risks that generative AI poses, noting the dangers that may arise from inputting sensitive data into services like ChatGPT and the need to identify and mitigate potential bias.

Utilizing design thinking, and customer focus, to drive innovation

As companies continue to navigate an increasingly complex and competitive landscape alongside shifting customer demands, innovation will be a key source of differentiation for industry leaders. Many organizations find that design thinking frameworks help to formulate the strategy and direction that will help ensure they can harness that innovation effectively. 

Michael Newcity, Chief Innovation Officer at ArcBest and President of ArcBest Technologies, highlighted the importance of empathy and deep listening to uncover unsaid user needs. To advance design thinking, Newcity has sponsors responsible for thinking through ROI, teams, timing, and other tactical factors that will help gain executive sponsorship and drive innovation initiatives forward. 

Rob Krugman, Chief Digital Officer at Broadridge Financial Solutions, discussed the importance of understanding the value proposition for their customers’ customers, then working backwards to deliver value for Broadridge clients. “If we can solve the needs of that end customer, our client’s customer, the likelihood of us being correct is more likely than not,” he said. Across the ecosystem, “we’re all generating value, and we have a much better understanding of how to actually present and tell that story around value.” His team also works with the VC community to stay on top of emerging technologies and asks hypothetical questions to try and understand their impact on Broadridge. 

Krugman laid out two different types of innovation: sustainable innovation, led by the product organization, and disruptive innovation. The key to both: “iteration, iteration, iteration, all based on validation.”

Modeling change from the top down 

No matter the scope of a change initiative, whether adopting an emerging technology or implementing agile ways of working, leaders must act as role models for change within their companies and drive cultural transformation from the top down. 

Over half of respondents indicated that employee engagement is the strongest signal of organizational culture.

Hyatt Hotel Corporation’s CIO Eben Hewitt, who is working to nurture a product mindset and drive enterprise-wide behavior change, said engagement starts with the CEO and executive board. “When you see a boss acting that way, then you act that way,” he said. “You have to model it.” Hyatt also uses a “people playbook” to easily guide teams to resources they need for specific use cases, and Hewitt has encouraged the development of high-level cultural principles that inform behaviors throughout the organization.  

Ultimately, culture is the most important driver of any organizational change. While many are familiar with Peter Drucker’s quote,“culture eats strategy for breakfast,” Ascension Chief Digital Officer Rajan Mohan added that “culture eats transformation for lunch.” At Ascension, Mohan has helped lead a transformation that includes a digital product orientation, end-to-end accountability and a focus on Ascension’s mission to reach underserved communities. With that shift has come a new mindset, as well as metrics that are more closely tied to business outcomes. “We’re not just measuring for measurement’s sake,” he said. “It is to demonstrate and deliver continuous value.”

Kathy Kay, CIO at Principal Financial Group, said driving cultural change requires leaders first and foremost to be their authentic selves. That includes a willingness to be vulnerable. “If you can’t show vulnerability…I think it sets a tone for people feeling less open,” she said. In addition to bringing that openness to her role, she works with peers at Principal to ensure leaders are giving teams necessary support, removing blockers, and helping them understand how their contributions matter. Kay also discussed the importance of adapting communications to local norms, particularly when working with teams across the globe.

Building a high-performance culture is of course linked to finding and developing the best talent. World Fuel Services CIO Josh McLean said some of the best people typically look for three things in their work: aspirational goals that give a sense of purpose; challenging work that helps them learn and grow; and being surrounded by other highly talented people. “I try to make sure those things are all present and in harmony, or a work in progress to get there.”