Tim Stanley, Former CIO and Senior Vice President of Innovation, Gaming, and Technology of Harrah’s Entertainment.

Episode Overview

Among other topics, Tim discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy

• How first establishing the company’s direction creates a path for innovation
• The necessity of IT being used as a strategic weapon in leading innovation
• Tim’s method of using 6 vectors to structure the path that enables and leads to innovation
• The ways a company can leverage insights from their customers, particularly the importance of understanding digital interactivity and conducting rapid prototyping
• How every IT executive should in some way span out into the business in order to understand how to improve what the business does
• The importance of using alignment and analytics as strategic tools

Tim Stanley’s Biography

Until February of 2009, Tim was the CIO and Senior Vice President of Innovation, Gaming, & Technology for Harrah’s Entertainment. Over the last 10 years, he succeeded in enabling Harrah’s to become the largest provider of branded casino entertainment in the world. As the company’s Chief Innovation Officer he led multi-disciplinary teams focused on the creation and execution of new business initiatives and next-generation marketing, gaming, hospitality, service and technology innovations throughout the company. As SVP of Enterprise Gaming he was responsible for the strategy, product development, marketing & merchandising, revenue management, service delivery and financial performance of the company’s slots, tables and various other gaming products and operations domestically and abroad. As CIO & SVP of Information Technology he was responsible for the strategy, architecture, program management, development, support and operations of the entire portfolio of Harrah’s World-Class IT-enabled business systems, including Harrah’s award-winning marketing, operational and business-intelligence capabilities in the US and abroad. He and his teams have been perennially honored as one of the most innovative, successful and “Best Places to Work” in business and IT via the many awards and recognitions received.

Prior to joining Harrah’s, Tim was a partner with consulting firms USWeb and marchFIRST, the CIO of National Airlines. He has also held various leadership positions in the U.S. and overseas in the areas of IT, marketing, operations, R&D and consulting with Intel Corporation, Optima/KPMG, JetBlue Airlines, InnovaTech and Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Tim began his career as a U.S. Air Force officer, responsible for advanced missile guidance system technology projects and some of the original Global Positioning System (GPS) integration efforts in the US and abroad.

Currently, Tim is the President of Tekexecs – an executive advisory service and consultancy, and CXO of Innovatects – a business innovation and execution firm. Tim also lectures on Business, Innovation & Technology as an adjunct professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine, and is an Informatics Advisory Board founding member at UNLV.

Among Tim’s many honors, he was named Information Week’s “Chief of the Year” for 2007/08 for his unique Innovation, Business and IT roles and achievements. He has also been recognized by InfoWorld, Interactive Week, CIO Magazine, and CIO Insight.

Tim holds graduate degrees in International Business and Technology Management from Thunderbird (GSM) and Arizona State University, and a BS degree in Engineering from the University of Washington.

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