Associa CIO Andrew Brock expanded his C-suite mandate by parlaying his IT purview to helm proptech spinoff HOAM Ventures. Here’s his advice on doing the same.
This article was originally published on CIO.com by Michael Bertha, Partner at Metis Strategy
Early in his career, Andrew Brock was told by a mentor that, to reach the C-suite, you have to take assignments across the various drivers of a P&L: marketing, operations, information technology, and so on.
At the time, Brock had held finance-related roles of increasing responsibility at household brands such as Kraft and PepsiCo at the time, and the advice piqued in Brock a curiosity that has since marked his career. It led him to accumulate cross-functional experiences that eventually landed him at Associa, which, serving 7.5 million homeowners globally, is the world’s largest residential property management company.
In rather short order, Brock was tapped to lead the launch of Associa’s first client shared-service center, and the success of that initiative propelled him to the perch of CIO, where he inherited corporate IT and the remnants of a forgotten software development group that came via a previous acquisition. Again, his curiosity was piqued.
“I wondered if we could use the development group to start building our own products,” Brock explains. “We were paying a lot of third parties to provide digital services to our clients.”
As it turned out, they could, in fact, build their own products. Soon after repurposing the development group, Brock and that team launched the company’s first digital product: a solution through which residents could pay their HOA fees digitally. This solution, along with other early products the team developed, significantly reduced costs, inspiring Brock to consider whether these products might be commercially viable on the open market.
The opportunity, as Brock explained, was that the market was fragmented. Associa, as large as it was, owned less than 10% of the residential property management market, even as the market leader. This intense fragmentation meant fewer barriers to entry for entities looking to introduce new solutions, so Brock and his team determined that “if we built a product that worked for us, it could also work for the open market.” And they were right. As these products built a client base and a sales team was mobilized, it became easier to cross-sell more digital services, and by doing so, they created for Associa not only a new organic revenue stream, but a platform by which they could scale their acquisition growth strategy — which, in the era of prop-tech, focused increasingly on digital services.
Once the operation was earning profits and boosting EBITDA, Associa’s leadership formalized what had started as a few experiments into a proper business unit, and to address the reality that their customers consisted mostly of their competitors, they spun off a new entity, called HOAM Ventures, tapping Brock as president and CEO, a title he would add to his existing one Associa’s CIO.
If you, too, are a CIO seeking expanded roles in the C-suite, you’re likely wondering: How can I emulate this strategy? Brock, who admits that luck and timing have been paramount in his career, modestly offers the following advice.
Brock says he never would have earned more responsibility had he not brought order to IT proper. “Our systems had to be up, stable, and secure, and if any of that went off the rails, I would not have had the time or confidence of my peers to pursue this path.”
He emphasizes the importance of hiring leaders that can “manage the operations as you are leaning into the white space,” and he rejects the notion that, by empowering such a team, you might render yourself redundant. “It can be scary letting go, but it’s a necessary step to allow the space required to determine your beachhead, and, ultimately, scale any business.”
Brock suggests that, if, as a CIO, you lack a cross-functional upbringing, you can build these aspects of your resume in myriad ways. For example, you could volunteer to lead a large acquisition integration, which Brock sees being especially relevant. “You’re analyzing a company, function by function, examining their merits, and figuring out how to put the pieces together to maximize value.” Moreover, the highly cross-functional nature and visibility of integrations can only help you gain relevant experience, he says.
If your company isn’t acquisitive, Brock advises joining the steering committee of another cross-functional transformation program, an opportunity available to most CIOs. When such a program is executed thoughtfully, it wins hearts and minds, adding stamps to your functional passport.
Even with the right team and resumé, ascending to “CIO plus” requires some self-advocating. “Nobody is going to ask you to take on this role,” Brock explains. “There’s a lot on you to make your intentions known.”
For Brock, this meant talking with CEO John Carona. Brock recalls expressing early on that, while he was grateful and honored to serve as CIO, he was open to more. “I shared that if the opportunity were to present itself, I was keen to explore a broader leadership role,” he says.
Additionally, as he was coming up, Brock carefully cultivated his brand, so that when he would in fact get the chance to expand his responsibility, his peers would support his candidacy. “Of course, I’m the technology specialist when it’s needed, but that’s not how I brand myself or operate within the organization,” he says. “I try to ask operational and budgetary questions that demonstrate my grasp of the business. If you aren’t intentional about this strategy, you could get pigeonholed.”
Luckily, as CIO, you have a unique purview in the organization. “You’re the only person that can see holistically across the organization and how all of the systems, functions, and process work together,” Brock says.
By coupling this view with your responsibility to chart the company’s digital transformation, you discover new avenues to create areas of opportunity, he points out.
“There’s bound to be customer and business needs adjacent to technology that haven’t been explored: This is your chance to stake your claim. You have to discover it, want it, and raise your hand,” he says.
Highlights from our recent Metis Strategy Summit are below. Check out our Youtube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for recordings of the conversations.
Organizations across industries are moving beyond initial AI experimentation, focusing on driving implementation, proving and measuring ROI, and developing the next generation of talent as they apply AI to a broader number of business challenges.
As multiple executives emphasized, strong data foundations are essential to any successful AI implementation. Marina Bellini, President of Global Business Services at Mars, noted that the hype around AI has led to more focus on ensuring those foundations are in place. “This is the dream of the CIO: that people will actually start working on data quality.”
This year has also seen increased focus on AI’s ability to deliver value. Augment CEO Scott Dietzen said 2024 “is the year where tech teams are looking for proof and return on investment,” something not always clear or easy to measure for software such as Copilot productivity tools.
Organizations are finding new and innovative ways to apply data and AI to business challenges. Royal Caribbean Group CIO Martha Poulter described how the company transformed traditional food service operations into data-driven processes. Initially, “you would order what you thought, cook what you thought, and serve what you thought. It was gut based,” she explained. By measuring proteins before and after cooking and analyzing everything from ordering to de-thawing to waste, Royal Caribbean was able to generate tens of millions in savings while improving sustainability. “You’d never think food can be an AI problem, but it is,” Poulter said.
Similarly, Avis Budget Group is using an AI-based modeling and prediction system to address asset utilization challenges and ensure cars are on the road for the greatest amount of time. Chief Digital & Innovation Officer Ravi Simhambhatla explained how the company is aiming to break through the 70% utilization ceiling for its vehicle fleet. “If you have physical assets that aren’t being utilized, it’s costing the company money,” he said. “We hit this glass ceiling and asked ourselves why can’t we go to 80% or 90%? It turns out it’s data.”
Technology leaders discussed various approaches to managing and organizing AI initiatives across their organizations. A common thread across nearly all of them was the importance of bringing together technology and business leaders to identify valuable use cases and deliver on them faster. NRG’s Chief Data and Technology Officer, Dak Liyanearachchi, talked about establishing a transformation office that bridges data, business, and technology teams. At Berkadia, an AI Council that includes both business partners and technology leaders drives deeper engagement and keeps discussions focused on value, Chief Information and Innovation Officer Damu Bashyam said.
As mentioned throughout the event, these new organizational structures place particular emphasis on modern technology stacks and data practices. Nicholas Parrotta, Chief Digital and Information Officer at HARMAN International, outlined the company’s evolution from infrastructure-as-a-service to data-as-a-service, and using that data to create more personalized experiences on wheels as the world moves toward autonomous vehicles. “We start with how we do the big stuff with architecture, then product, and now data and being able to drive those as revenue and capabilities,” he said.
Capital One CIO Rob Alexander detailed the company’s platform strategy, explaining how the organization built dedicated infrastructure for machine learning, feature engineering, and now generative AI applications. When it comes to AI, he noted that while it’s “easy to get 70% accuracy out of the box, all the work is getting from 70-75% accuracy, which involves training and fine tuning.” Being in a position to leverage AI today has been a 12-year journey for Capital One, Alexander said, one that has included transforming “everything about who we are” to become a successful technology company and a winner in the banking industry.
Leaders emphasized the need for pragmatic approaches to AI implementation. Mastercard CTO Ed McLaughlin noted three questions a review panel considers when evaluating the feasibility of a new AI initiative: “Does it work, is it worth doing, and does it align to our ethics?” If ChatGPT-style search responses are 10 times more expensive than traditional methods, for example, the question then is whether they can deliver 12 times more value or be that much more useful. McLaughlin underscored the need to assess both the right way to solve a particular problem and whether there are returns on the work being done.
Dietzen added that NPS and engineer satisfaction can also be indicative of value. “If you make engineers delighted, you’ll tend to do well in your organization,” he said.
Chris Davis, Partner and West Coast Office Lead at Metis Strategy, advises technology leaders to ensure that there is product management in every layer of the AI stack, including the application of AI to business processes, the marketplace of horizontal and reusable capabilities across use cases, and underlying foundational models and model development. Business value should be measured relative to components of the stack, especially with generative AI, Davis said.
Effective product management requires teams across the organization to sharpen their product mindset. Cigna’s Chief Digital & Analytics Officer Katya Andresen outlined three elements of that product mindset: identifying real problems for real users, validating through testing and learning, and unlocking value. She cautioned against common pitfalls like “death by a thousand pilots,” in which proofs of concept pile up and eventually become unmanageable. Organizational silos can present a challenge. “We find a lot of opportunities to streamline operations, but there has to be a really deep partnership across tech and ops,” she said. Otherwise, “tech gets upset that ops don’t use their products and ops says well what you gave us didn’t solve our problem.”
Organizations are rethinking their talent development strategies as the landscape evolves. That involves both upskilling internal talent and expanding talent pools across geographies. Land O’Lakes CTO Teddy Bekele described moving from a roughly 50-50 mix of in-house and external talent to a model in which contractors and third parties make up a more significant portion of the talent pool, taking on much of the development work while in-house employees lead the teams. The approach allows for increased flexibility in team sizes depending on shifting enterprise needs. The change was driven by three key factors: accessing expertise, maintaining flexibility to scale teams up or down, and increasing nimbleness.
Upskilling also remains a key focus. At FINRA, Chief Technology Engineering Officer Tigran Khrimian’s team is teaching developers generative AI skills and has seen demonstrable success with using natural language prompting to create “good code” for the company. “Developers with code assistant tools will replace developers who don’t use them,” he said.
Corning’s Chief Digital and Information Officer Soumya Seetharam detailed the company’s three-pronged approach to talent development: creating strategic digital and IT hubs around the world to ensure global talent access; launching a digital literacy program with dedicated “revitalization days” for learning rather than meetings; and expanding the talent pipeline through technology internship and rotational development programs globally. “In the future every person for every function will have some technology in their background,” she predicted.
Technology leadership roles are undergoing significant transformation, reflecting the strategic importance of technology in business operations. According to Katie Graham Shannon, global head of the Digital and Technology Officers Practice at Heidrick & Struggles, the traditional CIO title is becoming less common. Of 23 recent technology leader placements at Fortune 200 companies,18 did not have the CIO title, and 52% were newly created positions with expanded roles. She noted that there is also a shift in reporting structures, with more CIOs reporting to the CEO, and a greater focus on technology leaders’ ability to create and protect value and attract talent, among other responsibilities.
“If we could use the title ‘orchestrator’ it would make more sense,” Shannon added, explaining that today’s technology leaders create value and orchestrate initiatives across the entire C-suite. This expanded scope includes both customer-facing initiatives and internal operational efficiencies with “equal pressure and emphasis” in both areas.
The role is also becoming more business-oriented, particularly in relation to managing technologies like AI. “A properly formatted conversation about AI is not a tech conversation, it’s a business conversation,” observed Henry Man, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Candela Search. This presents an opportunity for technology leaders to “have a seat at the table” when business colleagues might lean out of technical discussions.
That expanded purview extends to technology leaders on boards or seeking director positions. “There’s no market for a one-issue board member,” said Art Hopkins, who leads the Technology Officers Practice at Russell Reynolds. “You need to show business acumen and a P&L. Go to the CEO and say I’d like to be the executive sponsor of this new incubator. This is a solid step in that direction.”
It may seem strange to think of a technology or digital leader being responsible for aligning strategy across the enterprise. Since the inception of the CIO role, strategies were often created and then brought to them. They were not engaged in the strategic planning processes of the rest of the organization. Instead, they had to bring to life the outcomes of those strategies.
If you think about it, though, aside from the chief executive officer, only the chief financial officer and chief human resources officer has the breadth of purview comparable to a CIO or chief digital officer, and the technology and digital executives are increasingly involved in customer-facing activities in a way that the CFO and CHRO roles have not historically been.
Technology and digital leaders must recognize that they engage with the rest of the enterprise and the company’s customers, and that is rare if not unique. As such, they must leverage this advantage to a greater extent in fostering strategic alignment.
Strategic alignment means ensuring there is alignment from enterprise strategy to divisional, business unit, or functional strategy. This alignment is often misunderstood or lacking in companies, and that disconnect means wasted effort and money for the enterprise.
Further, a lack of well-articulated plans at the divisional level means the path to bringing those plans to life will be murky at best. For reasons of self-preservation and value-creation, technology and digital leaders must push for better.
Translating IT strategy from the enterprise level to the divisional level is important because it is at the divisional level where the work is done. Enterprise strategy typically calls out objectives related to revenue growth, cost efficiency, customer satisfaction, geographic expansion, product innovation and the like. It is the divisions of the company that determine how each of those will happen.
Let’s take revenue growth as an example. Growing revenue is vital to the health of a company, but each function — from sales and marketing to specific product or service areas — contributes in different yet important ways. The specifics of what each function will do needs to be formulated clearly to have teams go and find the new revenue through the various mechanisms available across the company.
Engage teams to conduct an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). Such analyses are typically simple, easy to understand, and ensure that leaders can gather information quickly, easily and at the right level of granularity:
As you gather feedback from these SWOTs, it is important to categorize the feedback into topics like people, processes, product, brand, geography or market, finance, customers, organization or culture, competition, technology, vendors or partners, and the like. These form the vestigial versions of objectives for the enterprise or division.
Optimally, you should gather that feedback into a common framework of objectives, goals, tactics and measures.
Each objective should have a goal associated with it. This is a success metric that helps chart the path to success.
Using the same rather generic enterprise strategies, the goals might be defined as revenue growth (grow revenue by 15% in the next year), cost efficiency (grow costs at a rate 5% under revenue growth in the next year), customer satisfaction (improve customer satisfaction with our products from 70% satisfied to 80% satisfied in two years), geographic expansion (open 10 new offices in the coming year) or product innovation (introduce two, $50 million revenue products in the next year).
Try to limit the number of goals to two, as if you go for more than that, the strategy is less of a filter and is permeable to too many ideas.
Next, the digital and technology leader can brainstorm tactics with members of the enterprise or divisional team who are experts in the area noted by a given objective. As noted above, these are the various actions available to the company (or division) that help it reach the goal(s) articulated.
It is important to note that tactics should never include the name of a particular solution. The extent to which a project name or a vendor product is noted in a strategic plan renders it more important than it is. The action is one thing; the means of delivering the action are another.
You may believe that Salesforce is the solution you wish to use for customer relationship management, but better to articulate the need for CRM than to note the solution. The solution should be debated.
The tactics can be more plentiful, and during the brainstorming phase, definitely err on the side of more rather than fewer tactics. After the list is finalized, the tactics should be prioritized. The prioritization should be undertaken based on the perception of which ones are being pursued today, which ones are likely to be pursued in the near term, which will be undertaken in the medium term, which will be undertaken later, and which ones may or may not be undertaken.
Finally, a measure or measures should be defined for each tactic. For the same reason noted for the goals, try to limit them to two. For the goals and measures, remember the acronym SMART.
Our current moment has provided an opportunity for CIOs and other technology leaders to be the catalyst for their firms’ strategic evolution. These executives should take advantage of driving digital change. Otherwise, they risk digital driving them.
Peter A. High is the author of GETTING TO NIMBLE: How to Transform Your Company into a Digital Leader and President of Metis Strategy, a management and strategy consulting firm focused on the intersection of business and technology.
