by Peter High, published on Forbes
3-15-2016
As I have interviewed IT leaders at many companies, there are a handful of companies that seem to have the biggest family trees in producing CIO talent. Few can match Ford Motor Company’s family tree. The CIOs at Boeing and Nike and executives above the CIO rank at Biogen and Deutsche Bank have each spent time in the IT department at Ford. I was curious about this phenomenon, but especially curious to hear from Marcy Klevorn, who for some time had been groomed to become the global CIO of Ford. Her highly regarded predecessor, Nick Smither identified her as a successor and then provided the kinds of opportunities for her in multiple units and geographies to ensure she would have depth and breadth of experience.
Since ascending to the top role in IT a bit more than a year ago, Klevorn has bolstered the IT strategy process and content, she has helped weave IT further into the narrative of customer experience and IoT trends that are important to the industry. All the while, she has used her love of cars as inspiration for new ideas on how IT can make Ford continue to improve.
(To listen to an unabridged audio version of this interview, please visit this link. This is the 34th article in the CIO’s First 100 Days series. To read the prior 33 with the CIOs of companies like Intel, GE, P&G, Kaiser Permanente, and AARP, among many others, please visit this link. To read future articles in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)
Peter High: You have spent a little more than a year in role as Chief Information Officer of Ford. You followed a leader who was deemed successful and was retiring. You had been with the organization for a while. I do not imagine it was a surprise as you transitioned to the role of CIO. I imagine this was a smoother transition than coming in from the outside. I would love to understand how you prepared yourself for the role prior to assuming the position, and the sorts of things you did in the early stages of your tenure to set you and your team up for success.
Marcy Klevorn: One thing that we think about at Ford is succession planning, and making sure we have a smooth transition to provide a stable environment for our team to continue to operate. The company continues to change and evolve, so we all need to change and evolve as well. I was conscious of making sure that we had a smooth transition in the handoff.
I worked with Nick Smither, my predecessor, and I did a live interview about the transition, and he offered feedback on why he thought I would be a good candidate and then asked me about what was important to me going forward in the role. Then that was broadcast to the entire company. That was one thing that set this was going to be a smooth handoff. We were aligned on the succession, and we were going to continue to work together until the final days. That was the public way we did that.
The transition happened at a time where Ford was changing, and disrupting itself, going from an automotive manufacturing company to a technology-led company, and a mobility/transportation company. Obviously, IT plays a big part in that. At the same time that this was happening, IT had to re-invent itself as well in response to the direction the company was taking.
Before Nick left, I asked him to participate in a video with me and my IT leadership team that we sent to the employees their first day back at work in 2015 – my first official day in the job – to talk about this transformation. I wanted to include Nick because I thought it was important to give that signal that we were not going to flip the switch and everything was going to change. It is a journey and evolution, and we were going to continue to support Ford as we change the company. Nick was involved in those conversations, so it was going to be orderly and smooth.
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