12/5/17
By Chris Davis and Brandon Metzger for CIO.com
Technology is transforming our world at an unprecedented rate. New technologies like virtual assistants and augmented reality are changing consumer expectations faster than ever. The impact of cybersecurity breaches is intensifying. And digital enablers are allowing upstarts to steal market share from incumbents in a matter of months or years, rather than decades.
While it is tempting to believe that these disruptive times will eventually stabilize, our analysis suggests that the rate of technological progress will only accelerate. If this year indeed represents both the fastest rate of change we ever haveexperienced, and the slowest rate of change we ever will experience—as many experts have posited—then this raises a critical question for executives in all industries:
How do I understand the consequences of accelerating technological change, and position my company to capitalize on the opportunities presented by emerging paradigms?
To accomplish this, companies can develop innovation systems that consist of a variety of methods and processes, ranging from strategic foresight to a portfolio of corporate innovation programs. One such program — innovation labs — is gaining steam in corporate America, with some of the biggest and best-known companies opening new outposts focused on developing and scaling breakthrough technologies, processes, and business models.
Through Metis Strategy’s work with Fortune 500 companies and rapidly growing businesses alike, we have identified seven critical factors to consider when creating such a corporate innovation lab.
The charter is a concise description of the innovation lab’s objectives and its method for achieving them. But a charter is not just lofty PR: many of the best innovation labs use their charter as a guiding light that provides a deeper sense of purpose and direction. Subsequently, the charter should also clarify what the lab is not focused on.
Consider the differences between the charters of Lowe’s Innovation Lab and of Bayer’s U.S. Innovation Center and Science Hub:
While Lowe’s focuses on identifying and utilizing new technologies to enhance the retail experience, Bayer’s priority is forming partnerships to accelerate drug discovery. Given their differences, it should be no surprise that these innovation labs utilize different metrics, governance models, funding sources, and innovation ecosystems to accomplish their objectives.
Large companies thrive when business conditions are certain and their targets are clear. While execution metrics can measure the performance of existing business models, they are less capable of accurately quantifying progress at innovation labs, where the work is sometimes less precise, longer term, or more conceptual. Kyle Nel, Executive Director of Lowe’s Innovation Lab, has noted that “it does not make sense to apply mature metrics to something in its nascent form.”
Innovation labs can develop a portfolio of innovation metrics to measure not only the results of the innovation effort, but also the preconditions and innovation process itself.
With this focus on measuring both process and progress, innovation metrics help labs assess their innovation maturity, but may also bolster the support of their executive sponsors, especially in the early days. For example, Harvard Business Review notes that “revenue generated by new products,” an output metric, is the metric most commonly used by senior innovation executives. By establishing a portfolio of innovation metrics that also includes input and development metrics, the conversation can shift from focusing solely on results to focusing also on the maturing evolution of the innovation capability. This ability to develop unique innovation metrics has helped Nel push back when Lowe’s executives expect significant revenue growth from new and disruptive products.
Innovation is as much a cultural attitude as it is a business process. A generic approach to innovation may begin by defining the customer and uncovering their unmet need, formulating a hypothesis on what product or service the company can offer to meet that need, and validating the hypothesis by using customer feedback to rapidly experiment and iterate. Further, to foster the right mindset, innovation labs should:
That said, many of the best labs develop unique processes influenced by their charter. Consider Lowe’s Innovation Lab (LIL), which uses a narrative-driven approach to identify and articulate opportunities. First, LIL conducts market research, compiles trend data, and collects customer feedback on unmet needs and pain points. Next, LIL shares this information with science fiction writers who create strategic documents in the form of comic books, which follow characters through a narrative arc that illustrates a new solution to the character’s problem. Then Lowe’s executives use the comic books to make prioritization decisions, and, finally, LIL works with its partners to create the solutions introduced in the comics.
Another example of an organization employing a unique process is X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” which is charged with creating world-changing companies that could eventually become the next Google. X adheres to a three-part formulafor identifying opportunities: (1) it must address a huge problem, (2) it must propose a radical solution, and (3) it must employ a relatively feasible technology.
Using this formula, X has spun out numerous subsidiaries under the Alphabet umbrella. One of those companies is Waymo, the autonomous vehicle pioneer that Morgan Stanley recently suggested could be worth $70 billion.
If companies believe an innovation lab will help them more effectively navigate the waters of disruption, it is essential that they recruit for passion and cognitive diversity, rather than just skill. Labs often include a wide range of technical and non-technical roles, from data scientists and designers to experts in anthropology and psychology. Breadth and depth of both skill set and mindset are essential components of a successful innovation lab that creatively explores new technologies and business models.
Ideal job candidates should be innate risk-seekers, strong questioners and connectors, and comfortable with failure and restarts. Deloitte Center for the Edge Co-Chair John Hagel described people who have these traits as personifying the “passion of the explorer.”
Organizations searching for these passionate explorers will find advantages and disadvantages in looking both internally and externally. Internal employees may more deeply understand the customer, but they also may have difficulty looking at problems from a different perspective. External hires may bring new viewpoints and skills, but recruitment may prove challenging.
Companies can use several tactics to attract talent. Buzzfeed’s Open Lab for Journalism, Technology and the Arts, for example, targets specific individuals and groups based on their past projects. Recruitment efforts have been successful, in part, because Buzzfeed offers company resources that support their creative freedoms. Alternatively, companies can be deliberate in how they share their innovation initiatives with the public. For example, Airbus has a blog that reports news from the company’s A3 innovation lab, Airbus Ventures, and from other teams across its innovation ecosystem. This type of focused communication both targets and attracts an audience of individuals who are the most knowledgeable and interested in innovation currently taking place within the industry, and, in so doing, Airbus can create an informal pool of potential new hires.
The process for establishing a funding source will differ depending on the company. For example, Allstate CIO Suren Gupta has described how a formal Innovation Council evaluates ideas and allocates funding. At other companies, if the innovation ties closely to a particular business unit, then funding may come from that group’s budget.
Though the specifics will vary, a generic process for establishing funding may include
The actual size of the budget depends on whether a lab is building the technology itself, partnering with other organizations, or acquiring a company, product or talent. Amazon and Google have spent millions of dollars developing parcel delivery drones. Meanwhile, companies like UPS and Daimler AG have opted to partner with—and make strategic investments in—established drone makers. This lowers both the risk and the cost of innovation while still allowing the company to develop new capabilities.
Regardless of how funding is established—or the size of the budget itself—it is critical to measure how much money was spent at each stage of the process: preparation (i.e. percentage of capital budget allocated to innovation projects), development (i.e. R&D spending at each phase of development the innovation process), and results (i.e. percentage of sales from innovation projects). As with the portfolio approach to general innovation metrics, the use of financial metrics across the innovation lifecycle reduces the focus on ROI, which can cripple innovative projects in the early stages.
Silicon Valley is the quintessential innovation ecosystem. The region’s unique characteristics undoubtedly make Silicon Valley the right innovation ecosystem for many labs—particularly those charged with discovering and/or acquiring startups, or gaining business and technical intelligence about emerging technologies.
Other locations should not be overlooked, however. Cities such as New York City, Austin, and Chicago in the U.S.; London, Paris and Berlin in Europe; Tel Aviv in the Middle East; and Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo in Asia all offer rapidly maturing innovation ecosystems, each with their own unique advantages and disadvantages.
To determine the ideal location for an innovation lab, consider which ecosystem characteristics (such as those highlighted in the adjacent visual) best support the objectives defined in the charter.
For example, former ADP CTO Keith Fulton (now CIO of Bank Systems with Fiserv) has described how ADP’s innovation lab is focused on creating “best-in-class user experiences.” Accordingly, ADP opened its second lab in Midtown Manhattan, since the proximity to top visual design and creative firms provide high concentrations of the right skill sets.
There is one final challenge, even for innovation labs that successfully deliver results in accordance with their charter: integrating the innovation with the core organization. From Kodak’s invention of the digital camera to Xerox pioneering the GUI, there is no shortage of companies that failed to capitalize on their innovations.
To be sure, innovation integration is the culmination of an innovation lab successfully delivering on its charter, so the way in which the company captures the value of the innovation very much depends on decisions that were made along the way. We recommend that executive sponsors and innovation leaders discuss early and often what successful innovation integration looks like. Here are a few key questions to consider:
While there is no set template for innovation integration, a definable, well-articulated vision of what the desired success will look like should be a primary priority, not an afterthought.
More than ever before, established companies are struggling to keep up with both the deployment of new technology by their competitors and consumers’ rapidly changing expectations. Careful consideration of these seven factors can empower companies to build an innovation lab that fosters energetic challenges to preconceived notions, creative experimentation with new technologies and business models, and thorough exploration of potential products and services that will enable it to survive—and thrive—amidst the accelerating forces of disruption.
As technology becomes increasingly integrated with business, companies are demanding better and newer technological products, or solutions, to boost business performance, facilitate smooth operations, improve product delivery and enhance the customer experience. This has also caused the role of CIO to change in recent years, from one of process-centric IT leadership and a focus on cost-cutting to developing innovative, value-creating solutions for their company. However, even today, many CIOs are not invited to sit at the table when future vision for their companies is discussed. This may be due to the perception that IT’s primary role should be to resolve issues with existing technology, rather than the view that IT can be a hub for innovation within the company. Moreover, business executives outside of IT often fail to recognize that IT must balance the priorities of all other divisions in the company, in order to come up with its own prioritization of projects. As such, there is a lot of pressure on IT to deliver solutions in a timely manner and meet business expectations. Furthermore, many companies are better at defining corporate strategy than business unit or divisional strategy, as divisional heads often focus on execution rather than planning. This means that overarching corporate goals may not be translated into divisional goals and are not executed on throughout the company.
In light of the issues above, there are several steps CIOs and/or IT leadership will need to take, to ensure that IT is regarded as a key driver in their companies. First, the CIO needs to develop a strategic vision of how IT can deliver enhanced value to the wider company, as well as lead their departments to execute on this vision. In turn, IT needs to become much more connected with the rest of the company, in order to respond to, as well as understand how changes in the competitive landscape, industry or the company’s business priorities could affect IT’s priorities. However, this is not a miniscule task for any CIO or IT leader. Where should they start?
Metis Strategy’s Strategic Translation, Alignment and Refreshment (STAR) methodology provides an integrated and cascading strategic framework that helps CIOs and IT leadership address questions surrounding IT strategy. For instance, what does IT need to do to empower and enable the execution of corporate and/or divisional strategies? What does IT need to do on its own to generate value? Additionally, what IT projects are being funded and how do they relate to the strategic goals of IT and/or the business? The STAR methodology focuses on all of these questions, while providing a mechanism to align IT’s priorities to value-driven strategic imperatives. Firstly, the methodology suggests that strategic planning and alignment begin with the development or refinement of strategic objectives at the corporate level. The next step in the methodology is to translate corporate objectives into divisional objectives. After that, detailed tactics (i.e. executable actions) are developed for each objective. Then, success measures are developed for both objectives and tactics (referred to as goals and measures, respectively) to ensure effective tracking and monitoring. This framework is referred to as the OGTM (objectives, goals, tactics and measures).
However, it is important to note that the OGTM framework is not an IT-specific strategic framework, even though in our experience, IT strategy has proven to be an excellent use case for it. In fact, the OGTM framework can be applied beyond IT, to other aspects of a company. For instance, OGTMs that are created at the CEO level can be cascaded to, or linked with OGTMs at the divisional level, thereby ensuring that corporate strategy is baked into the entire organization’s strategic planning and executed on in a holistic manner. The methodology also proposes that separately, all of the company’s business and IT projects should be evaluated based on standardized criteria. Next, projects can be grouped into portfolios that are aligned to the corporate and divisional objectives that were identified by OGTM. Finally, portfolios can be prioritized across the organization for budget, resource allocation and decision-making.
Consequently, Metis Strategy’s STAR methodology can better position IT leadership and their departments to become better integrated with the rest of their organization, as well as take on a more influential role in driving company strategy. For both business and IT executives, the STAR methodology can provide a comprehensive and logical framework to address challenges around project and portfolio management, prioritization and resource allocation. Lastly, our STAR methodology assessment is designed so that it can and should be performed on a company multiple times, to ensure that as corporate objectives evolve, divisional objectives, goals, tactics, measures, and projects can be refreshed as well.
Metis Strategy has conducted STAR methodology assessments for clients across a wide variety of maturity levels and industries. For a sample case study on the assessment, please refer to www.metisstrategy.com/what-we-do. For further inquiries, please refer to Implementing World Class IT Strategy by Peter High.
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12/17/2018
By Peter High. Published on Forbes.
Matt Harris has been investing in FinTech companies since before the term was coined. He was initially drawn to the field partially due to the lack of attention it was getting 20 years ago. I recently caught up with him, and we covered the core four segments of FinTech: payments, lending, investing, and insurance. (He also argues in this this interview that real estate is worthy for consideration as a fifth segment.) The broader interview will be published shortly. Of interest in this segment of our interview was his contrarian perspective on blockchain. He is an investor in crypto-currencies, which he personally invests in, and shares the reasons why he believes blockchain is a hammer in search of nails.
(To listen to an unabridged podcast version of this interview, please click this link. This is the 30th interview in the Tech Influencers series. To listen to past interviews with the likes of former Mexican President Vicente Fox, Sal Khan, Sebastian Thrun, Steve Case, Craig Newmark, Stewart Butterfield, and Meg Whitman, please visit this link. To read future articles in this series, please follow me on on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: You are on the investment committee of a digital currency group, which you have referred to as a firm that provides a front-row seat to cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Cryptocurrencies, specifically Bitcoin, have been in the news quite a bit over the past few years as fortunes have been made and lost because of cryptocurrencies’ extraordinary volatility. What is your thought process on the evolution of cryptocurrencies, and how bullish are you in that space?
Matt Harris: I have been referred to as a Bitcoin maximalist because as it relates to crypto assets, I tend to be dramatically more bullish on Bitcoin than any of the other currencies or assets that have been developed. While I believe fixing prices is all inherently speculative, I get the use case for Bitcoin, and I have spent hundreds of hours speaking to owners of Bitcoin. While there are unfortunately no users of Bitcoin, the owners of Bitcoin tend to believe in it the same way people have believed in gold as a store of value for millennia. This store of value is not necessarily seen as stable on a short-term basis, but it is seen as a store of value that is divorced from the whims of governments and the inflationary tendencies of fiat currencies. It is instinct, rather than universal. Similar to many people, I have never owned gold in my life, but roughly five percent of people with means end up owning gold, and they view it as a hedge against inflation and chaos. For this new generation of mostly young people, the idea that gold has inherent value makes little sense. Frankly, other than the fact that gold has been valued that way for hundreds of years, there is no inherent logic in gold being valuable, so Bitcoin is far more appealing to this demographic.
To read the full article, please visit Forbes.
12/10/2018
By Peter High. Published in Forbes.
It has been eight and a half years since General Stanley McChrystal retired from the United States Army. Since then, he has been busy. He has built a thriving consulting firm, The McChrystal Group, which focuses on leadership consulting. He has lectured at Yale University. He has spoken at conferences around the world, and he has written three books, including the best seller, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World.
His most recent book is Leaders: Myth and Reality. General McChrystal and his co-authors, Jeff Eggers and Jay Mangone, explore a variety of different genres of leaders from geniuses, founders, politicians, reformers, heroes, and zealots. While he asserts that a group’s performance is less about the leaders ability and more about the surrounding factors, General McChrystal claims that the best leaders are those who are empathetic to the group’s position at a given time and are able to constantly adapt. Throughout our conversation, we also discuss General McChrystal’s evolving opinions on Robert E. Lee, his experience with his nemesis in Al Qaeda Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and why he dedicated his book to John McCain and John Lewis.
(To listen to an unabridged podcast version of this article, please visit this link. To read future stories like this one, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
12/03/2018
In 2017, John Chambers retired from Cisco Systems, a company he had run for more than two decades. During his time with the company, it had grown from $70 million in annual revenue to $47 billion. Once he retired, he had a chance to reflect on his career, as well as to plot his next move. The former led to his authoring a new book Connecting The Dots: Lessons For Leadership In A Startup World. The latter would have him starting his own venture capital firm, JC2 Ventures.
Chambers now offers capital and advice for start-ups who wish to follow the path toward the scale and the success that he achieved. He also has become an advisor to heads of states, as he consults to both India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
As Chambers contemplates where his success comes from, he returns to his roots in West Virginia. Born the son of two physicians, he was taught to value education from a young age. Chambers is a dyslexic, a detail that he kept hidden until well after he had ascended the CEO role at Cisco Systems. Through help from caring educators in his youth, he learned to turn his weakness into a strength. He now tells everyone about his dyslexia to inspire other dyslexics, but also to inspire anyone who feels they have an impediment that is holding them back. His refusal to let a weakness define him was, itself, a key to his success. He notes, “We all have setbacks, and your character is more of a product of how you handle these setbacks than your successes are.”
Chambers’ aims to help his home state and others learn the key lessons of Silicon Valley, and imitate the dramatic change that has transpired in France, a country he once vowed not to do business in due to its antiquated and often bureaucratic business practices. He hopes that the same combination of good government and ambitious entrepreneurs may lead to positive change in West Virginia and beyond. We cover all of this and more in this interview.
(To listen to an unabridged podcast version of this interview, please click this link. This is the 29th interview in the IT Influencers series. To listen to past interviews with the likes of former Mexican President Vicente Fox, Sal Khan, Sebastian Thrun, Steve Case, Craig Newmark, Stewart Butterfield, and Meg Whitman, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: You began your terrific book, Connecting The Dots: Lessons For Leadership In A Startup World, by discussing your roots in West Virginia. Could you reflect on the lessons you learned from your youth?
11/26/2018
By Peter High. Published on Forbes
Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) is a $13 billion dollar global life and health reinsurance entity based in St Louis, Missouri. A few years ago, the company developed a subsidiary called RGAX that is part innovation lab and part venture arm, focused on transformative initiatives. On its own site, RGAX is noted as “embracing the talent, resources, and more than 40 years of insight and innovation experience. RGAX partners with carriers and entrepreneurs to fuse industry expertise and outside capabilities.”
Two years ago, when RGA sought a leader of this function, they elected to elevate the chief information officer of the company, Mark Showers. He led RGA’s IT team for more than seven years, and, as such, knew the business inside and out. As RGAX would require defining areas ripe for transformation and build an ecosystem in the start-up and venture world to help deliver that. In this interview, he shares insights from his current role, how his time as CIO helped provide him the wherewithal to take it on, and as well as a variety of other topics.
(This is the 41st article in the “Beyond CIO” series. To read through past interviews with executives from companies like Waste Management, Biogen, Allstate, Aetna, Marsh & McLennan, and BMO Financial Group, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: You work for a group called RGAX, a wholly owned subsidiary and a transformation engine of Reinsurance Group of America. Could you describe the mission of RGAX?
Mark Showers: RGAX was established roughly three and a half years ago. At a core business level, the fundamental driver was to create a new and diversified set of earning streams for RGA. Specifically, it was designed to create earning streams within the health and life sectors that are outside of our core reinsurance business. We see ourselves as a mission-driven organization, and the mission we established at RGAX is to help people live longer, healthier, and more financially secure lives. While this broadens our base beyond the typical business of RGA, it is still targeted at the areas of life and health.
High: How do you think about the topic of innovation, and how do you direct the team to focus on the various areas in which it is involved?
Showers: RGA is built on innovation so we want to make it clear that RGAX is not the only place where innovation occurs. Because of this, we use the term ‘transformation’ to describe the work of RGAX. There are four pillars or lines of business where we focus our efforts: data analytics, digital distribution of life insurance, consumer engagement, and insurance services. We pursue each of these in three different ways:
Next month, Sasan Goodarzi will become the Chief Executive Officer of Intuit. He once made his ambition to rise to the CEO role clear to his superiors, and as they cottoned to the idea and more officially put in him the succession path for CEO, he was exposed to each business unit of the company. He notes in my interview with him that, though it was important for him to make his hopes clear, he also gained even more mightily when he focused on more on enjoying the jobs he took on for the opportunity and learning that each offered.
His three most recent roles have been Executive Vice President of Small Business, Executive Vice President and General Manager of TurboTax, and Chief Information Officer. Interestingly, he counts the CIO role as his most exciting. The reasons include the expansive view of the business that the CIO role offers, but also ability to influence the next generation of technology change that will position the company for growth.
Among the special attributes that Goodarzi holds dear, and will remain areas of emphasis in his administration will be the company’s culture and its focus on customers. He believes strongly that a fulfilling work environment yields better results for customers.
In this interview, we cover his preparations for the CEO role, how he sees the company growing in his tenure, the role that artificial intelligence will play, and a variety of other topics.
(To listen to an unabridged podcast version of this interview, please visit this link. This is the 40th article in the “Beyond CIO” series. To read through past interviews with executives from companies like Waste Management, Biogen, Allstate, Aetna, Marsh & McLennan, and BMO Financial Group, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: In early 2019, you will ascend to the Chief Executive Officer role of Intuit. Congratulations. Can you talk about the point at which you found out about this news?
Sasan Goodarzi: I found out about the news several days before it went public. Intuit is an incredible company, and to have the opportunity to move into [outgoing CEO] Brad Smith’s role is truly an honor. Over the past eleven years, Brad has done a remarkable job of positioning the company for an incredible next chapter, so he deserves a great deal of credit for his leadership. Building leadership capabilities and mobility are core competencies for Intuit. Although this announcement is a visible one, we are extremely deliberate about ensuring that we have successors for key roles across the company. In his eighth year, Brad notified the board that he would be stepping down at some point in the future. The board and Brad agreed to the rigorous process of hiring an outside firm to look at external leaders, assess leaders within the company, and determine what the company needed in its next chapter. While that was taking place, Brad chose to do what we do across the company. Several leaders, including myself, switched businesses a few years ago. I have had the privilege of being in all of the company’s businesses, including the CIO role. The point of this switch was to ensure that we had strong internal candidates who could take over when Brad was ready to step down.
11/19/2018
Shaleen Devgun is a remarkable innovator in the chief information officer community. For the past three years, he has been the CIO of $4 billion Schneider National, a trucking and logistics company based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. You might suspect that running IT for a trucking company based in Green Bay might be an enormous challenge. His burden is a shade lighter inasmuch as two other members of the executive committee at Schneider National are former CIOs, including the company’s CEO Chris Lofgren. (In the past, I interviewed Lofgren about his rise from CIO to CEO.)
Moreover, he has taken a creative approach toward recruiting to his his humble city: he and his team work on tough problems. The logistics business has endless opportunities for greater efficiency and for revenue gains. Devgun’s Forbes CIO Innovation award was based upon his team’s work on a multivendor transportation marketplace with consumer grade tablets, Internet-of-Things devices, and apps. This is just one of several examples of the ideas that have led Devgun and others in the company to think of Schneider National as a technology company masquerading as a trucking company.
(To listen to an unabridged podcast version of this interview, please click this link. To read future articles like this one, please follow me on Twitter @PeterAHigh.)
Peter High: Please describe Schneider National’s business and your role as their Chief Information Officer.
Shaleen Devgun: Schneider National is one of the nation’s largest truckload carriers, and we are a leader in the transportation and logistics space. The breadth of our business is large as we serve our customers through a diverse set of offerings, from over-the-road [OTR] to intermodal, and we also have a healthy logistics business. I have been with the company for around a decade, and I am three years into the CIO role. As part of the executive team, I report to our President and CEO. In addition to my traditional CIO responsibilities, I have accountability for the business transformation, our logistics engineering efforts, and the corporate venturing around our technology.
11/13/2018
Dinu Parel has been named the new Chief Information Officer of Parker Hannifin Corporation, a Mayfield Heights, Ohio-based maker of motion and control technology products. Parel succeeds William Eline, who had been with the company for 40 years.
Prior to this role, Parel was CIO of Downers Grove, Illinois-based Dover Corporation, where he was the industrial conglomerate’s first ever CIO. I interviewed Parel earlier this year, in which he spoke about transforming IT from a traditional, back-office support function to an advisory function that helps drive business growth and innovative technologies such as Blockchain.
To read the full article, please visit Forbes
11/12/2018
Ralph Loura joined Lumentum on October 22 as the company’s new chief information officer. Lumentum is a $1 billion revenue manufacturer of optical and photonic products enabling optical networking and commercial laser customers worldwide. Until recently he was the Chief Technology Officer of Rodan + Fields.
“Ralph brings unparalleled information technology experience from premier companies to Lumentum,” said Alan Lowe, President and CEO, Lumentum. “He has a true passion for problem solving and innovation and is an industry-recognized IT leader. I’m sure he will be a great fit at Lumentum, and I am pleased to have him join our leadership team.”
