5/14/18

By Peter High. Published on Fobes

Puneet Bhasin joined Unum in March 2018 as chief information and digital officer — a new position that recognizes technology’s central role in achieving operational excellence and the company’s long-term business objectives.

Unum is an $11 billion revenue provider of employee benefit solutions, including disability, life, accident, critical illness, cancer, hospitalization, dental, and vision insurance, as well as benefits education, enrollment support, leave management, and claims service. The company has four businesses — Unum US, Unum UK, Colonial Life and Starmount.

“This is an exciting time to join Unum’s team,” Bhasin noted. “The company is undertaking a digital transformation that will help it take strong strides toward delivering the best customer service experience in the industry. Our information technology team will play a leading role in this process.”

Bhasin reports to Unum Group President and CEO Rick McKenney, and oversees the continued execution of a comprehensive, long-term information technology strategy to support Unum’s vision. He will also lead a multi-year digital transformation journey and work with the executive team to translate the strategic business plan into a technology, product and services roadmap.

To read the full article, please visit Forbes

5/14/18
By Peter High, published on Forbes

Of all the CIO-plus roles that exist, that of chief information officer and chief technology officer may seem to be the one that is least expansive. Each are technology roles after all, right? Pawan Verma’s purview offers an interesting counter-point. In his case, his responsibilities include traditional information technology, but it also includes data and digital marketing, supply chain, and customer experience, among other areas. As such, he has remarkable influence over Foot Locker’s customer journey’s no matter the channel they choose to engage with the company.

In this interview, he offers thoughts on his breadth of responsibilities, innovations he is driving, his thoughts on the customer experience of the future, and much more.

Peter High: You are the Global Chief Information Officer and Technology Officer at Foot Locker. Could you give an overview of Foot Locker’s business?

Pawan Verma: We are a global brand. We do business in North America as well as in Europe, parts of Australia, and New Zealand. All in, we have approximately 3000+ physical stores and sizable engagement from our consumers. We are primarily focused on the athletic footwear and apparel business. However, I would say that we are in the engagement and experiences business.

The youth that we connect with and are engaging with either digitally or physically are interested to know about the new sneakers that are coming. The sneakers are not only for them to wear, but they are a status symbol or currency. The products that we sell are not only used on the basketball court, but there are a lot of products that we sell that are used as a lifestyle products.

We have a diverse portfolio of products and have about $7.8 billion in revenue. Consumers engage with us in different ways. We do not focus on what channel the customer is using. Instead, we believe in listening to them more than selling to them. We are here to create that emotional engagement experience in what I call a “phygital” world. By that I mean we want to be part of the customer’s journey whether it is in the store, on their mobile device, on the web, or anywhere else. We want to add value to that customer journey in whichever way we can to help them in that consumer journey.

The kids that we are servicing happen to have high mobile penetration. Somewhere between 85 percent to 90 percent connect with us on mobile. They connect with us for our launch experiences, and it is a high energy culture around social, digital, and physical. That is why I use the term “phygital,” which commands all those experiences. It is at the center of that engagement, and it caters to that energy that they are creating.

High: You have a diverse role yourself. Your title is Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information and Technology Officer. As we peel back the onion, I was amazed by the number of responsibilities you have. Can you give a brief overview of all that your role encompasses?

Verma: There are four primary functions, but they are all intertwined. The first big function for my team is the global technology piece. They are focused on the core, the POS systems, the dotcom systems, the infrastructure, and the mobile piece. This is the typical CTO responsibilities.

The second big part of my function is creating the customer experience across all the different touch points in the form of data and digital marketing. All the digital marketing functions include performance marketing, mobile marketing, how we activate, how we create demand, SEO, and so on. The reason that mining the marketing data is one of my functions is because I believe that we need to create this platform wherein our consumer can engage with us, and that engagement can only be encouraged if you are activating a given marketing method based on what the customer is looking for. To do that, you must listen to those signals and connect them back.

To read the full interview, please visit Forbes

5/8/18
By Peter High, published on Forbes

In March of this year, Kimberly Johnson was promoted from Chief Risk Officer to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Fannie Mae. In that role, she is responsible for leading technology, data, enterprise models, operations, the enterprise program management office, and resiliency. These shared services are a key component of Fannie Mae’s unified business strategy.

Johnson is a member of Fannie Mae’s leadership team known as the Management Committee. As COO, she is charged with continuing the innovation work already underway throughout the company. Johnson partners closely with business units and the enterprise innovation team to focus resources on innovations that have the potential to enhance the company’s business model, support the execution of strategy, and evolve the housing finance system for the better.

When asked about her new role, Johnson noted, “I am excited to serve as Fannie Mae’s Chief Operating Officer. This is an opportunity to accelerate our digital transformation by integrating our innovation efforts and our technology platform. I am focused on aligning our long-term capabilities with our business strategy to ensure that the company’s business model evolves to better serve the housing finance system.”

To read the full article, please visit Forbes

5/7/18
By Peter High, published on Forbes

Prior to joining $6 billion revenue Magellan Health as Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer two and a half years ago, Srini Koushik was a consultant with IBM, a CIO and CTO at Nationwide Insurance, a general manager of a business at Hewlett Packard, and an entrepreneur, having founded NTT Innovation Institute. This diverse array of experienced gave him a deeper understanding of the value he could drive as a CIO and CTO of Magellan Health.

That said, the nature of the role of CIO and CTO changed significantly in the five years since he last held the titles. Moreover, this was his first foray into healthcare. Since then, he has seen the profound impact that technology can have in impacting customer experience on both sides of Magellan’s business: healthcare and pharmacy benefit management. Moreover, by adopting a cloud-first approach, he could more easily help the company continue to scale up. He does this all in the service of driving what he refers to as the company’s Massive Transformative Purpose.

Peter High: You are the Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Magellan Health. Could you give an overview of Magellan Health’s business, as well as your purview?

Srini Koushik: We are a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company. However, we cover all 50 states, and we have counselors in seven or eight different countries across the globe. Magellan Health is in this business because we have a desire to help lead humanity to healthy, vibrant lives. Within Magellan, we call it our Massive Transformative Purpose [MTP]. This mission motivates us to do what we do.

When we talk about leading humanity to healthy, vibrant lives, we focus on the population that needs it the most. These are people with behavioral health and mental health conditions. These are folks that have been diagnosed across the entire spectrum of mental and behavioral health, from depression, anxiety, and addiction all the way to paranoia, schizophrenia, or PTSD.

We say people need it the most primarily because we are in 2018 and mental health issues still have a stigma associated with them. You tend to see these patients not for the primary diagnosis such as depression, but in a high-cost channel on the other end. It is as if they show up at the emergency room for a secondary condition, but that could have been avoided if you treated the primary condition.

While costs are important, we try to look at things from a member outcome standpoint. That is where we start and work from. That is how this company has had a history of 40 years of expertise in the behavioral health space. In the last two or three years, we have evolved that to a point where we are not only dealing with the behavioral health aspects of it but the total health of that individual.

Magellan Health has two big platforms for growth. One is the healthcare and the other one is in pharmacy benefits management (PBM). On the healthcare side, we have turned the tables. The traditional model for behavioral health has been that you have your healthcare provided by a certain provider. They carve out the behavioral health piece, and they allow companies like Magellan to do the utilization management and care management components of it. Magellan Complete Care, which we introduced in Florida a couple of years ago, turns the tables. This takes the individual and manages their entire health. Not just behavioral health or physical health, but other conditions as well. We introduced the nation’s first benefit plan aimed at the seriously mentally ill in Florida. When people ask me, I say, “We are actually a startup. We are 40 years old, but we are also a three-year-old startup,” because that was a first-of-its-kind plan. That was one where we entered into the market because it was absolutely the right thing to do and fit with our Massive Transformative Purpose.

You must work through that because the population we are talking about accounts for about 5 percent of the population, but about 40 to 45 percent of the costs in the system are driven by this population. As you can imagine, if you took the traditional cost view of it, this would be the last piece you would want to touch. However, we thought there was a different way for us to be able to address it. Magellan Healthcare has pivoted and started to focus on the population that needs the help the most.

Our second platform is the pharmacy benefits management platform. Our competitors are much larger, but our differentiation and our approach has been key. There are two primary drivers that drive our pharmacy benefits management business. One is the growth in the number of specialty medications. The FDA approved more than 60 specialty medications last year. The difference in specialty medications is that they are not broad-spectrum drugs that apply to a large segment of the population. These are drugs such as Harvoni, the hep C treatment. A regimen of Harvoni is about $80,000. It is a much smaller population that needs it, and it is a much more expensive treatment. We have the ability to manage the care for this specialty medication with a strict regimen. If you missed the regimen, you must go back and start the regimen again. By providing those capabilities to manage specialty drugs, we have been able to grow along with that trend.

To read the full article, please visit Forbes

5/1/18
By Peter High, published on Forbes

Last year, I featured the founder and executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs Kyle Nel in this column. We covered the remarkable innovations his team developed, and the creative methods used to drum them up. For his efforts, Lowe’s received numerous accolades, including being named number one on Fast Company’s 2018 Most Innovative Companies, for augmented and virtual reality, as well as being named number one for innovation among specialty retailers on Fortune’s 2018 World’s Most Admired Companies.

Nel recently left Lowe’s to develop his own firm, Uncommon Partners. His goal in so doing is to bring the magic of what his team undertook at Lowe’s to a broader audience. Nel noted that “We are a consulting and training firm that helps organizations transcend intrinsic human barriers – fear, habits and routine, and our struggle to make long, visionary leaps – to create breakthrough change. We use new tools, and re-designed tools, to help organizations dream bigger, break decision bottlenecks, and create measures that can guide anyone navigating new territory.”

The mission of the firm is to help organizations with behavioral transformation; to enable them to do the things they say they want to do: change nimbly, innovate meaningfully, and move faster than the competition to change customer behavior. In a world marked by uncertainty, organizations must adapt and change in order to get better at solving intractable problems. We all need to shift from a mindset of risk mitigation to that of racing to seize the opportunity.

To read the full article, please visit Forbes

5/1/18
By Peter High, published on Forbes

To read the full article, please visit Forbes

4.30.18

By Peter High, published on Forbes

When Anil Cheriyan joined SunTrust as Chief Information Officer six years ago, he inherited a siloed technology group. He got to work breaking down those silos, implementing a new operating model to drive alignment, cost transparency, and strategic investment decisions. He addressed SunTrust’s fragmented approach to digital by hiring business segment Chief Technology Officers, a Chief Data Officer, and an enterprise-level Chief Digital Officer, all of which reported to him as CIO. Cheriyan also oversaw SunTrust’s transition from an innovation strategy of ad hoc hackathons and collaborative office hours to a comprehensive framework that leveraged an agile way of working, a DevOps mindset, and new technologies like the cloud and AI.

His plans in retirement befit someone of his impressive background. Cheriyan will continue to advise start ups and fellow CIOs. This comes naturally to him as someone who spent more than two decades as a consultant with IBM and PWC.

Peter High: You recently retired as Chief Information Officer of SunTrust after a successful 6-year journey. What are you planning to do in retirement?

Anil Cheriyan: I do not have a detailed plan. I intend to take some time off and travel a little bit. I am on a few advisory boards of some smaller late stage growth startups. I also intend to pursue some public board opportunities. I do a little bit of consulting and advisory work through relationships that I have built in the past. I am not seeking a CIO type of job. I recently heard about the term portfolio career, and that is what I intend to do.

High:  You mentioned you are doing some advising on the boards of some venture-backed organizations. Can you talk a bit about that experience? How have you gotten involved? Also, what value do these organizations derive from having a CIO advising them?

Cheriyan: During my career, I have built several relationships with Fintech venture capital funds, as well as general venture capital funds that are involved with late-stage startups. These are startups that are about $40 million to $50 million a year in revenue and growing. Their focus is typically to grow their revenue to $100 million plus. It is exciting and fun being part of these boards.

The career that I have had in consulting, as well as in driving IT for a financial services firm, enables me to help a lot of these startups in their revenue opportunities. What is the right messaging? Providing them with a CIO perspective. Helping them think through how best to attract and build the right talent, and so on. It has been fun, and it helps me network with influential people who are in similar positions as myself.

To read the full interview, please visit Forbes

4.30.18

By Peter High, published on Forbes

Halsey Minor was one of the digital media pioneers, having CNET, the first comprehensive consumer-facing technology content publisher, in 1993. The company grew, and, remarkably for the time, grew profitably. He would run the company for eight years, and it would eventually be sold to CBS in 2008 for $1.8 billion.

Halsey would go on to be one of the original investors in Salesforce, and he would be an active advisor to the company in its early days.

He continues to have his hand in a number of companies, including crypto currency company Bitreserve, and Live Planet, an end-to-end virtual reality video system that captures and distributes live and recorded stereoscopic VR and 360 degree video. We discuss all of the above in this interview.

Peter High: Please provide an overview of Bitreserve, and of why you are so excited about crypto currency.

Halsey Minor: Bitreserve was one of the first companies in the crypto space. I realized that bitcoin created a new monetary system, and the problem Bitreserve is looking to solve is getting money from the old monetary system into this new one.

The company was difficult to start because banks would not open bank accounts for companies with “bit” in the name. It was very prejudicial. We bought part of a New Jersey bank and after about two and a half years, we were in the same situation as Coinbase. Coinbase’s success is predicated on their access to US and European banking. Bitreserve is thriving and profitable, but the regulatory aspect was a headache. I thought there were others who were better suited to running the company, so I left and started Live Planet.

High: Could you provide an overview of Live Planet? What are the problems it is trying to solve, and how does this differ than existing solutions?

To read the full interview, please visit Forbes

4.30.18

By Peter High, published on Forbes

Lety Nettles has joined Novant Health as Chief Information Officer. Novant Health is a leading healthcare provider with 15 hospitals & more than 350 physician practices offering advanced medical treatments in NC, SC and VA. In her role as CIO, Nettles is responsible for providing world-class IT capabilities so that Novant Health can deliver upon its promise of “remarkable patient experience, in every dimension, every time.” She will report to Novant Health’s Chief Digital and Technology Officer Angela Yochem.

Nettle was most recently Vice President of Digital Technology Strategy & Portfolio at Baker Hughes. She has also held technology leadership positions at Walmart and at Dell, among other companies.

When asked about Nettles, Yochem noted, “Novant Health is a leader in patient care and digital engagement. With Lety’s deep experience in consumer technology and transformation, I am confident she will contribute to Novant Health’s innovative culture, and she will play a key role in enhancing digital experience for our patients and team members.”

To read the full article, please visit Forbes

4/23/18

By Peter High, published on Forbes

From an early age as an Estonian refugee in the United States, Toomas Hendrik Ilves understood the transformative power of technology. He learned to code in BASIC in the 1970s. He would go on to study psychology at Columbia University and at the University of Pennsylvania, but as Estonia gained independence after the Soviet Union collapsed, Ilves returned to serve his country. Some of the earliest reforms that he ushered in involved the use of technology in schools. He also understood that the blank slate that the country had at its independence was a rare opportunity to rethink how a government interacted with its citizens.

Through many waves of innovation, the country not only made tremendous digital advances, but it also future proofed its technology. Ilves would become president of Estonia in 2006, serving for two terms through 2016. Along the way, he defended his country during the first cyber war with Russia, and ushered a number of radical digital ideas. He describes all of the above in this interview.

Peter High: You have an international background. You were born in Stockholm, Sweden to Estonian parents. You spent much of your upbringing in the United States in Leonia, New Jersey where you graduated from high school. You have degrees from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. I am curious what you drew from the international experience in the development of your thought process?