CIO Classified

Key Takeaways The best companies prioritize using the best software tools. Create communication flows that build your company’s culture and community. Having an advanced tech stack signals to your employees and potential hires that you are both forward-thinking and open to new ideas. Key Quotes “If you're going to adopt something horizontally, look for something where the internal champions are fr...

Key Takeaways The more diverse your teams the better your products and services will be. Women, especially women of color, have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Prioritize bringing more women into tech and leadership positions. Engineers are critical to the corporate ecosystem. Be sure to give them support to be creative and innovative. Key Quotes "There's huge value in bringing di...

Key Takeaways Remote work looks different for each employee. Ask them what would make them feel comfortable. Ensure your employees take care of their mental health while working from home to avoid burnout. Make sure leadership is ready to adapt to remote work, and not just the workers below them. They need to lead by example. Key Quotes “The hybrid worker requires radical flexibility.” - Gary "Don...

Key Takeaways CIOs provide a unique and invaluable perspective for boards. CIOs need to be bold and seek out board seat opportunities. Even the most accomplished CIOs can't just wait for the right opportunities to find them. Manage your board portfolio in a realistic and exciting way that makes you excited to get to work. Key Quotes “As a CIO, we see everything. We are the people that are between...

Key Takeaways You need to proactively analyze your systems and data to ensure they are secure. Make sure your employees networks are protected at home during remote work. Do not rely too heavily on black boxes.   Key Quotes “Remote work has opened more windows and doors for the bad guys. And they'll just have a field day if we're not careful.” - Fleming "As the CIO, every single project you have n...

Key Takeaways Having an excellent employee experience is the first step to having a great customer experience. You need proactive support. Don’t wait for a user to come to you with a problem. Figure out what’s best to build versus buy.   Key Quotes “If you get the best talent in and you get bad tools, then there is no way you're going to be successful.” - KC "Start with the business problem and bu...

Key Takeaways Having a fear of failure inhibits innovation. Ask your employees how you can best fit their IT needs, because some employees will be too shy to ask for help or assistance for more seemingly basic questions. Be proactive in approaching your users—don’t wait for them to come to you. Key Quotes “People who are playing a role of a CIO now are more business-centric and less technology-cen...

Key Takeaways The path to growth is through excellent consumer experiences. In order to effectively solve business problems you need to work cross-functionally. Goal setting is key to creating successful business practices and achieving great outcomes. Key Quotes "Not every problem requires a technology solution. I think there are many cases where you can leverage processes or people in a thoughtf...

Uzi Dvir, Global CIO of WalkMe and Hitendra Mishra, VP Information Technology at Stitch Fix, discuss how digital adoption impacts all of us. They also dig into how to collaborate while working remotely, and how they’re applying AI to push their companies forward. Key Takeaways Digital adoption is a key part of any industry. Make sure you’re investing in onboarding so that your employees can feel c...

Alvina Antar, CIO of Okta and Sharon Mandell, SVP Chief Information Officer of Juniper Networks, discuss the importance of mentorship on the road to becoming a CIO. They also unpack how a strong network of industry peers can help you not only do your best work but help you decide what work is worth focusing on.  Key Takeaways There's a common misconception that your company or your product's value...

Key Takeaways Your team doesn't have the time or patience to hunt for the resources they need to do their work. CTOs and CIOs have tremendous power to build more robust, essential knowledge hubs to help their teams find the information they're looking for, or document a newly minted process. Prioritizing projects is an art. CIOs have to learn how to weigh one project's impact against another's whi...

Every week, we sit down with CIOs from some of the world’s top companies to uncover the strategies that have been fundamental to their skyrocketing success. In each episode, we ask our guests which three areas of investment are so important, that they consider them uncuttable budget items. Tune into this episode to hear the budget items our CIO guests couldn’t live without! Key Takeaways Your empl...

What is coming on season 2 of CIO Classified? On this episode, we give you a sneak peek. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Key Takeaways  The age of the untrained employees having to double as IT staff is over. The IT roadblocks of the past have been paved over by more end-user-friendly systems that dedicated IT staff can use to run complex information architectures seamlessly. CIOs can't afford to work with blinders on. Staying plugged into your industry's ecosystem, and in lock step with industry experts is absolute...

George Llado, SVP & CIO at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and Phil Fasano, CEO of Gigster, discuss the essential role CIOs play at this moment, and trace their influence in digital transformation. As two heralded CIOs, George and Phil share the lessons they've learned in their careers and look at the future of the CIO. Key Takeaways CIOs need literal and figurative investment from the executive team of...

Key Takeaways Security and productivity shouldn’t be at odds with each other. Teams need to build security into their architecture intelligently so security standards are embedded in the way teams work, not added on as an afterthought. The best CTOs, CIOs, and CEOs craft their businesses processes with security in mind. If you’re building with blinders on, just focusing on eliminating all risk, yo...

Robert Dixon, Former CIO of PepsiCo, and Rick Rioboli, EVP and CIO of Comcast Cable, both remember when the role of the CIO was relegated to the back office. Now, CIOs are leading critical business initiatives as more and more companies go through digital transformations. On this episode of CIO Classified, they discuss how to be successful as a CIO and build with customers in mind. Key Takeaways I...

Key Takeaways Even when you're working remote, you can still stay connected to your community. Whether it's sending out a weekly email to your peers, joining a group chat with your colleagues, or checking in on Twitter — you can stay close to the folks you'd normally see at the office or in-between talks at a conference. Building smart, well-rounded teams can seem daunting. Companies that focus to...

Key Takeaways What we view as "soft skills" or "social skills" are really catalytic skills that drive connections between coworkers, forge alliances between departments, and make teams more productive. CIOs have to build infrastructure to support those skills. The idea of building a secure perimeter around a physical location is fading in the age of remote work. Instead, CIOs are focused on securi...

Key Takeaways The role of the CIO is intertwined with the role of the CTO. To build efficient processes, you have to have the right tech stack in place in addition to the right systems for leveraging that tech stack. Tech debt piles up when you're moving too fast. When a project's finish line is in sight, don't sprint to it and gloss over dependencies that could bog down your engineering organizat...

Earl Newsome and Jonathan Reichental are like most CIOs in that they think at scale. But, what sets them apart from the pack is their ability to think so thoughtfully about the future, plan their goals, and accomplish them. On this episode of CIO Classified , Earl and Jonathan lay their plans for the smart cities of the future, discuss why culture is a key ingredient to a thriving company, and div...

For Eric Tan, CIO of Coupa, and Lev Gonick, CIO of Arizona State University, succeeding as CIOs has meant finding solid footing in a rapidly shifting landscape. On this episode of CIO Classified Eric and Lev discuss how they're designing IT systems to support remote work, using storytelling as a key tool for tech adoption, and preserving the culture of their IT organizations.  Key Takeaways CIOs n...

Your office probably looks a bit different these days. It might look a lot like... home.  As more and more companies are moving to a remote-based work model, IT professionals are working to stay ahead of that seismic shift in the way we work, by building the systems that we need to stay productive.  On this episode of CIO Classified, we talk to Wendy Pfeiffer, CIO of Nutanix, and Tony Saldanha, Pr...

CIO Classified is a podcast that features roundtable discussions with IT leaders about their most pressing challenges and how they solve them. Each week, we sit down with TWO top CIOs for a candid conversation. These CIOs come from different industries, different backgrounds, and company sizes but they share one similarity: They are driving their companies’ digital agenda and building the infrastr...