10/01/2018
By Peter High. Published on Forbes
Steve Randich has been a CIO many times over at organizations like the Chicago Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, and with Citibank prior to taking on his current post as CIO of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc., better known as FINRA, which is a non-governmental organization that regulates brokerage firms and exchange markets. When asked about the evolution of the CIO role, he indicates that he has not seen much evolution, but that may be because he was a strategic leader, driving innovation from the CIO post long before others were presumptuous enough to think to do so.
At FINRA, Randich’s innovations center around leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to better surveil markets and broker-dealers. He also has led one of the most dramatic implementations of the public cloud. So extensive is the implementation that Amazon Web Services considers FINRA a best case example of the use of its technology. Randich has become an evangelist of the public cloud, citing it as the single technology across his career that actually gets cheaper as you use it more.
In this interview, he offers insights into all of the above and more.
(To listen to a podcast version of this interview, please visit this link. To read future articles like this one, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: Could you give a rundown of FINRA’s operation and your role as the Chief Information Officer?
Steve Randich: FINRA goes back to 1937 when it was known as the National Association of Security Dealers. After going through some mergers, other regulatory functions, and stock exchanges, the company became known as FINRA ten years ago. FINRA, which employs roughly 3,500 people, focuses on protecting investors by surveilling both the markets and the broker-dealer activities. As CIO, I run a 1,100-person organization, which focuses on building surveillance systems that assist our staff in examining firms and regulating the markets.
High: How are the new weapons in the IT arsenal implemented into FINRA’s strategy?
Randich: FINRA processes enormous amounts of data as the company handles upwards of fifty billion transactions on a daily basis, including all of the quotes, orders, and trades collectively across the equity markets in the United States. Additionally, the company looks at the historical data to identify trends over time, which exposes market manipulation, insider trading, and fraud in the markets. Several years ago, FINRA decided to use open-source, big data technologies on public cloud platforms to handle the large amounts of data efficiently and with scale. Today, those efforts are largely completed, and we are now moving into machine learning and advanced analytics. This will enable machines to do more of the surveillance, which allows our surveillance analysts to avoid the work that is better suited for the machines.
To read the full article, please visit Forbes
9/24/2018
Bill Ritter was the 41st Governor of Colorado, serving in office from 2007 until 2011. One of the areas that he emphasized in office was progressive energy policy. Since leaving office, he has continued to work in energy. The first way in which he has done so has been through the Center for the New Energy Economy, which he started in 2011 at Colorado State University. The mission of the organization is to advise state governments on energy transition, particularly away from coal.
Second, Ritter joined Blackhorn Ventures as a strategy partner. His three areas of emphasis there are on the built environment, the energy sector, and the transportation sector.
In this interview, Ritter discusses his time in office, his work since leaving office, and the path ahead, as he sees it.
(To listen to a podcast version of this interview, please visit this link. To read future interviews like this one, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: You were the 41st Governor of Colorado, serving from 2007 to 2011. One of the areas of passion throughout your life and as your time as Governor has been the new energy economy. Could you talk about this and how you see it developing?
Bill Ritter: As Governor, my team and I focused on our ability to utilize Colorado’s energy resources in a more environmentally favorable fashion than we had in the past. It was critical that while we worked towards this goal, we did so in a way that developed Colorado’s economy equitably, and we did not want to harm the utility customers. To make this transition, we focused on the four E’s: energy, environment, economy, and equity for customers. To achieve our goal, I signed 57 bills into law that transformed what had been a traditional fossil fuel economy into one that was focused on growing renewables, transitioning from coal to natural gas, and energy efficiency, which targeted energy conservation.
To read the full interview, please visit Forbes.
84 percent of sales leaders say they don’t believe they have the sales talent they need to succeed in the future. Why is that? Moreover, what can companies and their sales leaders do about it? I had a chance to speak with Byron Matthews, the Chief Executive Officer of the sales training, consulting, technology and research company Miller Heiman Group about approaches to use to improve sales.
(To read future stories like this one, follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: How has sales changed in the digital age?
Byron Matthews: The reason that sales has changed is that buyers have changed. Buyers have access to more information than ever before; buyers aren’t necessarily better informed, but they’re more informed. What we know for sure, what Miller Heiman’s research has shown, is that buyers are engaging sellers further along in the sales process, and only 23 percent of buyers are looking to sellers as a primary source of information.
Buyers are getting better at buying faster than sellers are getting better at selling.
Years ago, it was enough for a seller to meet with a potential buyer and ask great questions, to get a sense of the buyer’s needs, then come back and present them with a solution. In the digital age, that won’t cut it; you’ll just be wasting the buyer’s time. It is no longer just about providing information to a buyer, it’s about inspiring the buyer. In today’s selling environment, you need to provide a buyer with perspective on something they haven’t processed or thought about.
What inspires buyers are data-backed insights that make them think differently. Once buyers start thinking differently, they’ll start listening and looking to you for information. In a word, selling has become more sophisticated; sellers need to draw on their IQ, their data-backed knowledge, just as much as their EQ, their relationship-building skills.
To read the full article, please visit Forbes.
9/19/2018
On September 13 at Lenovo’s Transform 2.0 conference in New York, Lenovo, a technology leader in intelligent transformation, and NetApp, a hybrid cloud and data company, announced a global multi-faceted, partnership to bring innovative technology and a simplified experience to help customers modernize IT and accelerate their digital transformation. As innovation leaders in high-performance computing and flash storage solutions, Lenovo and NetApp are uniquely positioned to bring leading technology and scale to enable customers worldwide to modernize their IT architectures from the edge to the core network to the cloud.
The two companies are co-developing the largest range of new Lenovo-branded storage products that combine NetApp’s all-flash data management solutions with Lenovo’s ThinkSystem infrastructure. These new products will utilize core software technology from NetApp and will be manufactured by Lenovo, leveraging Lenovo’s supply chain
Additionally, Lenovo and NetApp announced a new joint venture company in China to deliver storage products and data management solutions localized and tailored to meet China’s specialized requirements and distinct cloud ecosystem. The new venture is expected to be operational by spring 2019, pending local approvals.
Just prior to the announcement, I sat down with Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing and NetApp CEO George Kurian. Yang said, “Customers want a total solution. They want to reduce their vendor footprint where they can. This union brings together the capabilities of complementary players.”
9/17/2018
Seasoned technology executive Stephen Gold has joined Hudson’s Bay Company as the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Digital Operations Officer. In that role, he is responsible for leading the technology and digital strategy for the company, with a focus on aligning the end-to-end customer experience through data and digital innovation across the enterprise and HBC’s brands in North America. With his appointment to this role, HBC is aligning its digital operations and technical teams under a single Center of Excellence.
HBC CEO Helena Foulkes noted, “Steve is a seasoned technology and digital leader, who has a deep understanding of the retail market and has a proven track record of delivering large-scale technology initiatives that positively impact business outcomes. Steve is attuned to the customer-centric approach we are driving across all our business touchpoints, and his ability to blend technical complexities with consumer-friendly solutions furthers HBC’s commitment to seamless experiences for our customers.”
Blackstone Chief Technology Officer Bill Murphy has been a CTO multiple times, but he personifies the diversity of the role. At Capital IQ, he was a co-founder and CTO, where his responsibilities included overseeing all product design, development, infrastructure, and technology support and was involved with all operations of the business. That entrepreneurial experience has served him well now that he works with so many businesses across the Blackstone portfolio, on top of running the technology portfolio within the company. He brings a consultants mindset, as well, having spent the early part of his career with Sapient.
Murphy believes that his role today is to embrace and dream ahead of the broader business with technology, to assemble a team to enable innovation, and to develop and integrate technologies that are, to the greatest extent possible, future proof.
He covers all of the above and more in this conversation.
(To listen to a podcast version of this interview, please visit this link. To read future stories like this one, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: Could you describe your current purview as the Chief Technology Officer of Blackstone?
Bill Murphy: Blackstone is an Alternative Asset Manager with over $400 billion in assets under management [AUM] for pension funds and other types of institutional investors across different segments. We invest in a variety of areas, such as private equity where we buy companies, and real estate where we buy buildings. We also invest in a hedge fund called GSO Capital Partners, which manages corporate credit and other types of debt instruments.
I had an interesting migration coming over from Capital IQ, where I was part of the founding team. At Capital IQ, I was responsible for building a product for our customer base, which was made up of hundreds of thousands of financial services employees. We were focused on meeting one need exceptionally well, and while over time we built many use cases, they were inwardly focused. On the flip side, Blackstone must meet the needs of our 2,300 employees, which is a relatively small number given the impact that we have across all of our different businesses. Unlike at Capital IQ where we investigated a few deep use cases, Blackstone is focused on a coordination of many small use cases across an extremely broad spectrum of what we are trying to accomplish as a business. Furthermore, I lead a strategic venture effort that works with our vendors by occasionally investing money off Blackstone’s balance sheet, which has been successful on multiple occasions. Blackstone’s belief is that the better we understand the business, the more likely we are to make the right types of investments in small companies. By doing so, we are able to help them shepherd through such that not only Blackstone gets a great product, but the market does as well. Lastly, across our portfolio, I advise and help create a community across many companies, and we have some specific disciplines of that in our portfolio operations group. We are continually tweaking this to try to make it better because the needs of technology are rapidly evolving. It gives an interesting perspective, and there is never a dull moment with variety.
9/12/2018
Global interconnection and data center company, Equinix, Inc. today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Charles Meyers to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Meyers will also join Equinix’s Board of Directors. He succeeds Peter Van Camp, who has served as interim CEO since January 2018. Van Camp will resume his role as Executive Chairman of the Equinix Board of Directors.
Regarding Meyers’ new role, Van Camp noted, “Charles is an outstanding leader who has been a major contributor to Equinix’s success over the past eight years, playing critical roles in the company as we have quadrupled in size, growing from $1.2 billion in revenue to the $5 billion plus we expect to generate this year. Charles brings that rare combination of a world-class operator combined with a passion and drive for strategic innovation. These characteristics, and his proven track record of delivering value for our customers and our shareholders, make him an excellent choice to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead.”
9/11/2018
I have interviewed Mike Capone multiple times in his career. When he was the CIO and head of Product at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), he noted with satisfaction the advantages of having multiple roles in one company rather than the same role in many companies. Across his 26 years at ADP, he had many IT and business unit jobs including running one of ADP’s businesses.
That positioned him well when he joined what was then the largest New York based technology start up, Medidata Solutions as chief operating officer. At the beginning of this year, he took the biggest leap of all to become CEO of analytics software and visualization analytics leader Qlik. When I caught up with him in his office in New York recently, he was enthusiastic about his new opportunity and the space that his company is in. He also offered thoughts about the advantages he currently draws from his time as CIO now that they are among his clients. Finally, he offered suggestions for others who might wish to follow in his footsteps.
Peter High: Congratulations on ascending to your first role as CEO. Could you give an overview of Qlik’s business?
Mike Capone: Qlik is one of the world’s leading providers of analytics software and visualization analytics. We pride ourselves on our ability to solve both simple and complex analytics problems for our customers. Our strengths are working efficiently with end-users, being user-friendly, and building application analytics that benefit the entire enterprise in solving complex problems. Qlik’s vision is to embed analytics into every operational and strategic decision-making process inside every company. We strongly believe that data is the currency of the future, and therefore, organizations must become data literate to compete in the future.
To read the full interview, please visit Forbes
9/04/2018
Index Ventures General Partner, Mike Volpi, has an unusual distinction in the world of venture capital: he sits on the board of one of the oldest and largest automotive companies in the world, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (the company was actually formed in 2014, but the parts that came together are each quite old), and on the board of companies like Aurora, which provides self-driving car technology. As such, he understands and is helping to shape autonomous driving from the supply and demand sides deeper than most.
Born in Italy, raised in Japan, and educated in the United States, Volpi spent time at Cisco during times of extraordinary growth. As Chief Strategy Officer for the company he led corporate strategy, strategic alliances, and business development. During the seven years in which he held that role (spanning from 1994 through 2000), Volpi oversaw the acquisition of over 70 companies.
He started Index’s San Francisco office in 2009, ahead of the curve on tech’s move up the peninsula of Silicon Valley and into the city. Since then, he has led investments Arista Networks, Cloud.com, Hortonworks, Pure Storage, Sonos, and Zuora, among many other companies. We discuss the future of self driving cars, and several other topics in this far reaching interview.
(To listen to a podcast version of this interview, click this link. To read future articles like this one, follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: You have been a General Partner with Index Ventures since you joined the firm in 2009. One of the most prominent technologies you are involved in is the technology that powers autonomous vehicles. As you are an investor in that space, you have sat on the board of startups, such as Aurora, as well as the board of Fiat Chrysler. Could you elaborate on the different perspectives you gain from these diverse experiences with both digital native and digital immigrant organizations? Furthermore, can you talk about the progress that has been made in this industry now that the innovation that has been hyped up for years is becoming a reality?
Mike Volpi: There are two important messages to take away. The first is that the use of technology is enormously transformative and important to the business world, various segments of the industry, and society in general. There are 38,000 deaths in traffic accidents in the United States per year while places such as India see close to half a million deaths a year. This technology is built to change that and to create a safer environment for people to drive in. Additionally, this technology has a wide variety of ancillary benefits, such as the reduction of parking lots, the creation of urban driving environments, commute patterns, reduction of traffic, among others.
8/28/2018
It has been quite a decade for Frederic Kerrest. In 2009, he co-founded Okta after a long and productive stint at Salesforce. Since then, the company has gone from two to 1,300 employees, and has gone public. With a focus on web single sign-on, identity, and lifecycle management, Kerrest and Okta have become one of the ubiquitous digital native companies, leveraged by many household name companies.
As a firm that serves CIOs and CISOs in many cases, Kerrest had each of those roles at different times at Okta. He has ceded each, and now has people playing each role who not only run those internal functions for the company, but provide deep insights regarding the company’s product offering. In this interview, Kerrest talks about his entrepreneurial journey, the path to success, and what’s on the horizon for the company.
(To read future articles like this one, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: Since you co-founded Okta in 2009, the company has seen an enormous amount of change and growth. Could you elaborate on the genesis of Okta, focusing on what aspects from your prior experiences led you and Todd McKinnon to start the company?
Frederic Kerrest: All companies are becoming technology companies as they build applications and unlock new routes to the market that are engaging with their customers. Okta is focused on helping companies in this transition, both by improving the way they manage their extended enterprise, employees, contractors, and partners, as well as helping them improve their customer experience. Since starting in early 2009, we have gone from two to roughly 1,300 employees, zero to approximately $350 million in revenue, while serving 4,700 customers along the way. We went from two shared offices in one of my friend’s offices to ten locations in five countries. What is exciting is that from our perspective, we are just getting started.
