Among other topics, Gene discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Gene Kim’s Biography:
Gene is an entrepreneur and author, focused on IT operations, information security, and DevOps. He is most well-known for his co-founding of the software company, TripWire, a security and compliance software company that was recently acquired by Belden, a manufacturer of networking and cable products. Gene wrote the original version of TripWire in 1992 as an undergraduate at Purdue, eventually co-fouding TripWire Inc. in 1997. Tripwire eventually grew to a 350 employee company with a customer base of over 9,000 organizations.
During his time at TripWire, Gene began his passion of studying high performing IT organizations, eventually codifying his observations of good to great IT transformations into 2 books, The Visible Ops Handbook, and Visible Ops Security. In 2010, Gene departed his CTO position at Tripwire to start the next chapter in his life. This eventually led to several books including Gene’s upcoming book, The DevOps Cookbook, and The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping your Business Win; the latter reaching #1 under Amazon’s Business Management sub-category.
In addition to his books and work at Tripwire, Gene co-founded the IT Process Institute, an organization committed to improving the operating performance of IT organizations across industries. He has been voted as an up and coming IT individual by publications including InfoWorld and ComputerWorld, and was given the Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2009 by Purdue University’s Department of Computer Sciences.
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Among other topics, Suren discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Suren Gupta’s Biography
Suren is the Executive Vice President of Technology and Operations for Allstate Insurance Company, the United States’ third largest personal lines insurer. Suren is considered an innovative force in enhancing delivery capabilities that support a 24/7 global operation, a topic we cover in some depth in this interview. Among other responsibilities, Suren leads a global organization that delivers innovative and transformational technological solutions for Allstate’s customers, agency owners and employees.
Prior to his tenure at Allstate, Suren served as Group Chief Information Officer and Executive for Wells Fargo, the American multinational banking and financial services holding company, where he was responsible for the re-engineering of the real estate lending division’s service delivery. Under his leadership, new delivery capabilities enabled the field sales force to serve customers more effectively with just-in-time information.
Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Gupta also served as a founding member of the corporate executive team of Airclic Inc., a start-up wireless Internet venture and was senior vice president, informational technology and operations for GMAC Residential, a division of General Motors.
Suren is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and received a master’s degree in computer engineering from West Virginia University, as well as an MBA from George Mason University. In addition to these accomplishments, he serves on the Chicago Public Library Foundation Board as well as the board of the American chapter for Pratham, a nongovernmental organization that provides pre-school education to children in India’s slums.
Among other topics, Stewart discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Stewart McCutcheon’s Biography
Stewart McCutcheon is Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Ecolab, Inc., a global leader in water, hygiene, and energy technologies services. Stewart is considered a visionary in the space of IT integration and transformation, a topic we cover in some depth in this interview. Among other responsibilities, Stewart oversees both corporate and functional information technology across the global company, which includes Ecolab’s operations within the region and its individual business sectors. Previously, Stewart served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Ecolab.
Before joining Ecolab through a merger with Nalco Holding Company, Stewart served as the Chief Information Officer of Nalco since joining the company in 2009. In 2010 McCutcheon was named as Nalco’s Chief Productivity Officer, a role in which he was responsible for improving productivity in the supply chain and procurement functions among others.
Prior to joining Nalco, Stewart had also served as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer for Acsis, Inc., a leading supply chain software provider. Previously, McCutcheon served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Elemica Inc.
Stewart holds a Bachelor’s Degree in mechanical engineering from the University of South Carolina, from which he graduated cum laude.
Among others, Peter discusses the following topics:
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Among other topics, Tom discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Tom Nealon’s Biography
Tom is a member of the Board of Directors of Southwest Airlines Co., a role he has held since December 1, 2010. On April 16, 2012, he also began serving as a member on the Board of Directors of the Fossil Group Inc. Tom was also the Group Executive Vice President of J.C. Penney, a role he assumed after having spent time as EVP and CIO. During his tenure with the company, he oversaw all of information technology including the design and ongoing development of systems and infrastructure to support the long-range plan and strategic business objectives. He also led the development of innovative technological and process improvements across J. C. Penney to improve customer experience and increase efficiency.
Before his time at J. C. Penney, Tom served as the Senior Vice-President of Technology and Chief Information Officer of Southwest Airlines Co. At Southwest, he led the transformation of their technology organization and the improvement of all business processes surrounding customer interactions. His initiatives caused significant technology-driven improvements across most of the business from ground and flight operations to maintenance and engineering, schedule planning and even southwest.com.
Prior to his time at Southwest, Tom was a partner with the Feld Group, a position he undertook after spending time as the CIO of Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo.
Tom received the 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Award for Innovation Leadership and was recognized by Information Week as a “Premiere 100 CIO” in 2007. He has also served as a MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Award Judge since 2012.
Tom holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Villanova University and an MBA from the University of Dallas.
Among other topics, Marc discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Marc Saffer’s Biography
Marc is Chief Information Officer of J. Crew, a role he has held for three and a half years. During that time, he has played an integral role in transforming J. Crew’s technology, and helped improve the organization’s e-commerce operation.
J. Crew is the fourth company that Marc has served as CIO, having held that role at Duane Reade, Columbia House, and Footstar Corporation. He also was a vice president of IT at Macy’s, and he can still be seen every Thanksgiving morning piloting a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Among other topics, Kevin discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Kevin Hart’s Biography
Kevin is the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Cox Communications, a multi-service broadband communications and entertainment company with more than 6 million residential and commercial customers. In that role, he is responsible for providing overall leadership, strategic and operational direction to the planning and development of an integrated technological platform. He also aligns the technology strategy with overall business objectives.
Prior to his time at Cox Communications, Kevin was Chief Information Officer at Clearwire Corporation. While there, he was responsible for the company’s Information Technology, Enterprise Network Deployment Planning Office, and Business Process Management functions. His key accomplishments with Clearwire included leading the transformation of the IT organization during the deployment of the company’s 4G wireless broadband service across the nation.
Kevin also spent time as the CIO at Level 3, one of the world’s largest IP communications providers, and held leadership roles at Capgemini Consulting, International Paper and the former Southwestern Bell Communications (SBC).
Kevin earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tulsa and an MBA in Finance with Honors from Notre Dame.
John is the chief technology officer of CA Technologies. In that role, he is responsible for technical leadership and innovation, further developing the company’s technical community, and aligning its software strategy, architecture, and partner relationships to deliver customer value. John is also responsible for delivering the company’s common technology services, ensuring architectural compliance, and integrating products and solutions.
In 1999, John founded ITKO, and built the LISA product suite designed to improve the effectiveness of application development teams, especially those involved in custom applications, SOA, and cloud computing. The company was acquired by CA Technologies in 2011.
Prior to ITKO, John led SaaS and E-commerce transformations for global enterprises at Trilogy and Agency.com.
John earned degrees in business and computer science from Trinity University and Columbus University. And he has authored a best practices book, “Service Virtualization: Reality is Overrated.”
Brian is the Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer of Crawford & Company. With over $1 billion in revenues, Crawford is the world’s largest claims and third party administration solutions provider to insurance companies and self-insured entities. Brian is a member of the executive strategic planning team, and is responsible for technology and innovation strategy for the company.
Prior to his time at Crawford & Company, Brian spent time as the Global Senior Vice President of Technology at BCD Travel, the world’s third largest travel management company. He also spent time in the IT department at BellSouth and was a consultant at Ernst & Young.
Among Brian’s accolades are a Premier 100 award from ComputerWorld in 2008, and his team and he have been ranked in the Information Week500 list from 2009 – 2012.
Brian has a bachelor of science in business administration with concentrations in information technology, finance, and economics from Appalachian State University.
Horace is the Head of Information Management Services at Gammon Construction Limited, a leading construction company based in Hong Kong which has been building a wide range of construction projects for over 50 years. Horace is responsible for defining and executing the company’s IT strategy.
Prior to joining Gammon Construction, Horace was a Senior Manager in JOS Synergy, a joint-venture between Jardine Matheson and Canadian TELUS focusing on IT outsourcing services in Asia. Horace focused on IT operations and implementation of large scale ERP and IT infrastructure projects. Horace possesses a broad spectrum of experiences including information security, business process re-engineering, managing regional IT operation, and IT architectural services. With strong skills in communication and aligning IT with the rest of the organization, Horace is also experienced in pre-sales solutioning and large scale application systems development.
Horace has a Bachelor degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Warwick in the UK and an MBA from the University of Hong Kong.
