586: In this interview, Jennifer Charters, CIO of Flagstar Bank, focuses on how Flagstar is expanding its digital capabilities and how it remained resilient during the pandemic. Jennifer speaks on the coopetition between traditional brick-and-mortar banks and FinTech firms and how smaller banks can benefit greatly from developing ecosystems to leverage FinTech’s digital capabilities. Additionally, Jen describes the investments Flagstar has made in its own digital capabilities including cloud infrastructure and various platforms. She gives her perspective on the culture of IT, growing the opportunities for women in technology, the advantages of Flagstar’s announced merger with New York Community Bancorp, and trends she foresees.
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585: In this interview, Dave Evans, assistant professor at Stanford and best-selling author, discusses his latest book, Designing Your Work Life, which highlights how employees and managers can improve the work experience. Dave provides strategies that people can use with their current jobs to make their career more fulfilling, the three kinds of overwhelm employees can feel, how they can mitigate these before overwhelm turns into burnout, and how managers can help employees develop their own pathways in the company. Finally, Dave talks about how remote work has made face-to-face interaction easier, yet made onboarding new employees and informal interactions between employees more difficult to facilitate.
584: Brian McCarson, Intel’s Group VP of IoT, shares his perspective on the evolution of the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. Brian speaks to the increasing affordability and accessibility of both IoT and AI and how their development in other industries has brought it to the industrial sector. We talk about each service’s growth from something out of a science fiction novel available to large-scale enterprises to the ways in which AI and IoT have now intersected with and augmented the capabilities of small- and medium-sized businesses. Brian credits this evolution to open-source ecosystems where online innovators have helped improve the scalability of AI integration. Finally, he talks about how Intel specifically has helped scale manufacturing capabilities through automating processes and leveraging a place in an ecosystem of technology ingredient providers for small- and medium-sized enterprises.
583: Chris Bedi, Chief Information Officer of ServiceNow, focuses on the topic of digital transformations within companies and steps organizations have taken to foster resilience during the pandemic. Chris shares his perspective on how companies are doubling down on digital transformations, how AI is being used to improve the employee and customer experience, and how virtual agents are augmenting reality to assist remote employees in areas where they would have normally asked co-workers in person. Additionally, he talks about the future of app development, its minimum requirements, integrating AI into the development, and leveraging the growth of low-code/no-code to encourage citizen app developers. Finally, he touches on the topic of structuring the IT team to equip non-IT team members to think about machine learning and take advantage of new evolutions in technology among other topics.
582: In this interview, Yves Behar, Founder and Principal Designer of fuseproject, discusses the importance of product design and how companies can think about developing their own products. Yves discusses the importance of integrating storytelling and intent into product design. He also speaks on the importance of continuously improving product designs and using the problems and frictions that arise as opportunities for improvement. Additionally, Yves talks about bringing these designs to market from team alignment to marketing strategy. Finally, Yves talks about his team’s work on the VOX ventilators as a response to an open innovation challenge and how it is important to sometimes allow your team to drive the ideas and support them along the way.
581: In this interview, Michael Wondrasch, EVP & CIO of Avantor, provides an overview of Avantor’s business and the digital and technological aspects behind its mission of accelerating the speed of science. Mike explains how he sees the barriers between suppliers and customers are fading, why the technology implications that arose during the pandemic are likely to stay, how Avantor implemented and navigated a hybrid work environment during the pandemic, and how the merger with VWR helped consolidate its e-commerce platforms and focus on being more customer-centric. He also describes how the differences between the CTO and CIO titles tend to be company-specific and some of the trends in technology he is looking forward to.
580: In this interview, R “Ray” Wang, founder and chairman of Constellation Research, shares insights from his book on data-driven digital networks (DDDNs) and why he believes digital transformation alone is not enough for companies to survive. He explains how digita0l transformations need to extend beyond integrating new digital channels and include transformations in the business model, the monetization model, the technology, and the culture. We discuss the shifting ways investors are looking at their fundamentals in companies and how businesses must develop unusual ecosystems and joint ventures in order to compete with these emerging digital giants. When it comes to data, Ray believes third-party data collection isn’t sufficient and what is really driving the future is first-party data. He describes the five key elements of building a DDDN, how it is causing industries and the respective total addressable markets to drastically change, and how government regulation should be analyzed through a cost-benefit analysis of its effect on customer value. Finally, Ray provides a framework for how older companies can compete with DDDNs.
579: In this interview, Michael Taylor, Chief Technology Officer of World Wide Technology, focuses on how the company sees the future of digital and technology. He explains how he views the dot com bubble as the advent of the impact that technology could have on business and why a culture that encourages furthering innovation is crucial during a time of uncertainty. Michael talks about the strategic role he plays as CTO and how his focus is as he describes moving from “the art of the possible to the art of the probable.” He provides a few key themes of WWT’s Technology Strategy connecting technology to business outcomes, digital to physical worlds, and strategy to delivery. Additionally, Michael stresses the importance of engaging with employees during difficult and uncertain times as well as how the expansion of remote work and introduction of hybrid working models lead to more flexibility and invite the opportunity to attract a more diverse talent pool. Finally, he describes how he divides his time among his team, his customers, and his ecosystem to see from different lenses how organizations are thinking about disruption and taking advantage of emerging trends in technology.
578: In this interview, James Sills provides an overview of M&F Bank, how the pandemic has affected the digital customer experience and digitization of banking, and how M&F Bank has managed the differences in digital adoption across consumer age demographics. Additionally, he gives his perspective on that state of racial injustice and social inequity in America, the importance of engaging with minority populations within and outside the company, and how businesses can leverage partnerships with minority-owned businesses and minority-focused organizations to support the push for social justice. Finally, James discusses his career evolution including his experiences as CIO of the state of Delaware and how his current position is taking advantage of ecosystems to foster innovation and keep pace with some of the tech trends he and his team are excited about.
577: In this interview, Janet Sherlock, Chief Information Officer of Ralph Lauren, explains her purview as CIO and how the company’s Flexible Work Arrangement and virtual stores put the company in a stronger position going into the COVID-19 Pandemic. Janet debriefs some of the learnings and silver linings from the pandemic, specifically on how it accelerated a streamlining of processes; why those changes won’t go away any time soon; and how ingenuity, innovation, architecture, and agility are key to Ralph Lauren’s continued success. She emphasizes Ralph Lauren’s strategic focus on experience, data, and automation. Finally, we discuss lessons on recruiting for board-level positions, balancing her doctoral candidacy with career and family, and trends that she is looking forward to.
