403: Sierra Ventures Managing Director Mark Fernandes discusses the five attributes he looks for in an entrepreneur. These five attributes include their ability to raise money beyond the early stages, their ability to attract talent, their ability to generate momentum, if they come prepared, and their ability to tell their story. In terms of what Mark looks for in a company, he cites that there needs to be a technology platform shift or a business model innovation that is applicable to something that they are doing. We also discuss Mark’s accidental path to the VC community, the CXO Advisory board Sierra has started, the importance of approaching investing from a bottoms-up and top-down approach, among other topics.
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402: UPS CIO Juan Perez details how the company has taken data from simply being an input for descriptive analytics to prescriptive analytics, which goes beyond predictive analytics. Juan has played an integral role in developing the company’s on-road integrated optimization and navigation system [ORION], which helps optimize the delivery paths that the company’s drivers take to make sure that they efficiently satisfy their service commitments to its customers. Juan also describes an advanced big data analytics project, which is designed to constantly take the massive amount of data points the company collects, learn from them, and use them to better predict what volume is going to come into their operations. We also discuss UPS’ strategic pillars, Juan’s take on artificial intelligence, the cloud, drones, and robotics, how UPS is using digital to enhance the physical experience that the customer receives, and a variety of other topics.
401: Express Scripts CTO emeritus Phil Finucane details Express Scripts’ integration with Cigna. While Cigna has a strong engineering organization, the two companies have different visions for how to execute a successful integration. Because of this, a large part of Phil’s job was to help Cigna understand how Express Scripts operated, to understand how Cigna operated, and to understand how the combined entity would interface with its business partners. From there, Phil looked to build a path that brought together the best of both worlds by bringing complementary strengths together. We also discuss the lessons Phil has pulled from his time in Silicon Valley, Express Scripts’ approach to eliminating technical debt, his take on artificial intelligence, and a variety of other topics.
400: Bestselling author Michael Lewis tells the story of his career and dives deeply into several of his most notable books, including Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, and The Undoing Project. Despite being discouraged from his thesis advisor at Princeton to pursue writing and consistent rejections from publishers, Michael always had a passion for writing, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he left Wall Street to pursue this passion. We also discuss how Michael organizes his ideas, how he has been able to defy pigeonholing his writing, how he is able to write about complex topics for those who are not expert in the topics, and a variety of other topics.
399: Intuit CIO Atticus Tysen describes how the company is looking to use data to give insights back to its small business owners and self-employed individuals regarding how their businesses are doing, as well as how the company can give consumers insight into their finances and help individuals file their taxes with more confidence using artificial intelligence and machine learning. While many believe that big data will only benefit large corporations, Atticus provides examples of how big data can help the little guy, whether he be a small business owner or a self-employed individual. We also discuss Atticus’ advice to CIOs looking to become more product-focused, Atticus’ take on AI and conversational user experiences, the evolution of TurboTax Live, and a variety of other topics.
398: Zoom CIO Harry Moseley discusses how collaboration needs are changing with new generations. Millennials and Generation Z make up about a third of the global population, and since these generations have grown up in a digital world, they have different expectations regarding how they collaborate in their personal, academic, and professional lives. We also discuss Harry’s view on artificial intelligence and 5G, his experience on the board of Rewards Network, his time as the first ever CIO of Zoom and his first experience as a CIO of a technology company, as well as a variety of other topics.
397: Atlassian’s President, Jay Simons, and CIO, Archana Rao, discuss the unique culture of Atlassian. Both note that the company is extremely open, honest, and direct. The work of the executives is transparent to the rest of the company. Archana believes that allowing people to see other’s work, performance, and perspectives provides a recognition that there are challenges everywhere and it builds an immensely strong culture because people tend to work well together in this way. Jay has seen the company go from 100 to 3,000 employees in his 11 years with the company, and he declares that this culture has scaled remarkably, which in his mind is a testament to foundational parts of the culture that the company created.
396: E. & J. Gallo Winery CIO Sanjay Shringarpure elaborates on the changes the company has made to achieve its transformational vision. One of the major changes has involved transitioning IT toward supporting four verticals supporting each of the business functions of the company. We also discuss the cultural changes necessary to realize this vision, Sanjay’s take on blockchain and the cloud, the Wine OS platform the company has created, and a variety of other topics.
395: Liberty Mutual CIO James McGlennon discusses the company’s agile and cloud transformation, which has included a multi-pronged approach designed to eliminate or refactor legacy technology, send existing employees to coding immersion programs, have 90 percent of teams working in an agile fashion, and move from one percent to 25 percent of technology in the cloud with a goal to reach 100 percent. We also discuss James’ take on artificial intelligence, robotics, and augmented and virtual reality, how Liberty Mutual works with its different customer groups, what the company does at the business unit level versus the enterprise level, among other topics.
394: Schneider Electric CDO Herve Coureil discusses how Schneider has blended talent in the new digital unit. Herve believes the organization needs to balance the internal and external view, Herve does not believe in a digital organization that only includes external digital talent looking in from the outside or an exclusively internal team that is made up of subject matter experts, without an infusion of external talent. To create a mix, Schneider has focused on reskilling, retraining, and learning internally so everybody has the basic skills that go with digital while simultaneously recruiting new talent that can bring subject matter expertise and new digital skills to the team. We also discuss Herve’s take on the cloud, AI, and blockchain, how Herve manages such a large, distributed team, how his experience as a CFO helps him in his current role, among other topics.
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