Jon Harding, Global CIO of Conair Corporation

Episode Overview

Among other topics, Jon discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:

• Overview of Conair and the role of CIO within the consumer goods industry
• The centralized structure of IT within Conair
• The methodology of expanding an organization’s information technology system on a global scale
• Vendor management practices, and the implications of local and more global partnerships for a major corporation
• The relationship between IT and marketing, and the push to take advantage of new and emerging technologies while working with marketing to drive additional business value
• Eye on the trends: The potential of big data, and the internet of things – ability of all sorts of devices to communicate

Jon Harding’s Biography

Jon is the Global CIO of Conair Corporation, a multi-billion dollar company focused on small appliances, personal care products, and health and beauty products for professionals and consumers.  Jon has worldwide responsibility for the company’s IT in support of both day-to-day operations and future business growth.

Before joining Conair, Jon was director of IT for the U.S. Snacks Division of Kellogg Company (formerly the Keebler Company) that Kellogg’s acquired in 2001. Prior to 2001, he held various IT leadership positions within the U.K. and European subsidiaries of Kellogg’s. From 1999 – 2001, he was the overall leader of a major business process and system change initiative for Kellogg’s Europe.

In 2013, Consumer Goods Technology magazine named Jon a visionary based on his innovative Marketing IT project which transformed Conair Marketing’s ability to provide timely insights on consumer buying trends for Conair products versus the competition.

Jon has a Bachelor of Science with special honors in Applied Mathematics and Computing Science from the University of Sheffield in England

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