CIO Classified

Today’s modern CIO is expected to do much more than just keep the lights on and make sure you can log in to your system. Join Sanjay Macwan, CIO and CISO at Vonage, and Harry Temkin, CIO at DriveWealth, as they discuss their evolving roles before revealing what makes an effective leadership model, including the main drivers behind employee productivity and retention.

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Quotes

“CIOs should obsess about this every day: how do we make sure that our employees and company are able to do their job better? … So one of the things that I really obsess about is self-serve and automation. How do I create self-serve models through automation so that if you're a salesperson, he or she is able to get things done in a self-serve model and they don't have to ask for it on a regular basis?” - Sanjay Macwan, CIO and CISO at Vonage

“From a retention standpoint, an employee that feels empowered and has the ability to make decisions and impact strategy is typically one that you keep for a very long time and feels very satisfied. They feel like they actually own something.” - Harry Temkin, CIO at DriveWealth 

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Time Stamps:

* (2:01) Sanjay & Hary share more about their respective roles

* (4:32) The next big projects coming out of Vonage and DriveWealth

* (8:22) What drives employee retention (with examples) 

* (15:37) How automation can drive employee productivity

* (22:17) How a customer-centric culture can influence innovation 

* (29:47) The evolving responsibilities of the modern CIO

* (32:31) Sanjay and Harry ask each other questions

* (38:40) Secrets more CIOs should know 

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Sanjay on LinkedIn
• Connect with Harry on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Vonage
• Learn more about DriveWealth

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The constantly shifting demands of digital users are forcing IT leaders to anticipate the next curveball -- that’s why we talked to Brian Shield, SVP & CTO, Boston Red Sox and Fenway Sports Management, and David Vidoni, VP of IT at Pegasystems, about simplifying their IT departments in order to remain agile. In this episode, Brian & David reveal their secrets to providing a world-class experience that's constantly changing with consumer preferences, plus how they’ve accelerated the digital transformation journey, and much more.

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Quotes

“The key thing for any organization, or any CIO, is that you have to get rid of a lot of your legacy. If you're so overwhelmed with legacy technologies, systems, and processes, it's very difficult to think strategically. When you do implement technologies, you need to implement ones that, if not future-proofed, at least give you a long runway so that you feel like you're not going to have to revisit these on a very regular basis.” - Brian Shield, SVP & CTO at Boston Red Sox and Fenway Sports Management

“It all comes down to going back to basics. The simple things – do you have applications that create data with a high degree of quality upfront? Do you have people responsible for those systems that will maintain that data? Then behind the scenes, is the plumbing to bring that data from point A to point B simplified and straightforward?... When you get to the point where you need to do reporting or other analysis, a lot of the headaches and problems have already been dealt with.” - David Vidoni, VP of IT at Pegasystems

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Time Stamps:

* (1:47) Brian & David share more about their respective roles

* (5:15) Projects on the horizon for the Boston Red Sox and Pegasystems

* (7:22) Simplifying the digital transformation journey 

* (12:35) Data literacy at the board level 

* (20:17) Making bets on new technologies 

* (23:16) Finding the right outside partnerships

* (25:52) Secrets more CIOs should know 

* (31:59) Brian and David ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Brian on LinkedIn
• Connect with David on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Boston Red Sox and Fenway Sports Management
• Learn more about the Pegasystems

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Data is everywhere, in everything, but how do you know if your company is optimized for a data-driven future? A new term is emerging that might be the best way to tell: data intensity. You’ll hear from Jay Upchurch, EVP and CIO at SAS, and Oliver Schabenberger, Chief Innovation Officer at SingleStore, as they define data intensity, share advice to improve data literacy, and discuss why curiosity is key for innovation, employee retention, and more.

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Quotes

“I think to the traditionalist…the idea of citizen ‘anything’ scares them, you know? It's just different. I think that's where companies, especially modern companies, lean into that uncomfortableness. They lean into it for scale and how to grow. They lean into it for curiosity. When you shy away from the idea of enabling the citizens, then that means you're not feeding fuel to the curiosity that propels us forward.” - Jay Upchurch, EVP and CIO, SAS

“Data intensity is a manifestation of tech intensity. We ask ourselves, ‘What data resources do we have? What data resources do we need to become more data-driven, and what can we build with it?’ It's recognizing that data intensity is increasing everywhere, and that is a good thing. There's more data and we have more uses for data. You want to go from a more descriptive, backward-looking, historical-looking approach to data to a more forward-looking, predictive approach.” - Oliver Schabenberger, Chief Innovation Officer, SingleStore

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Time Stamps:

* (1:47) Meet Oliver & Jay, and learn about SAS and SingleStore

* (6:45) What is data intensity? 

* (12:12) Why data intensity can become the new KPI 

* (15:03) Are CIOs responsible for employees’ data literacy?

* (22:36) How promoting curiosity can help employee retention 

* (26:42) What managers can do to improve the employee experience 

* (29:27) Secrets more CIOs should know 

* (32:50) Oliver and Jay ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Jay on LinkedIn
• Connect with Oliver on LinkedIn
• Learn more about SAS
• Learn more about the SingleStore

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, we talk to two executives at the opposite ends of the spectrum: Matthieu Houle, VP of IT and Digital Tech at ALDO Group, a half-century old retailer, and Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CIO at AppDirect, a cloud-born tech company. Despite coming from different IT landscapes, Matthieu and Pierre-Luc share a similar approach to future-proofing their companies’ IT. You’ll hear insights into staying ahead of the curve, like how to leverage data, prioritize projects, and more.

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Quotes

“If you look at the corporate employee, look at [IT] as a product… Where is the value? How much are we willing to invest? What are the usage metrics? The growth metrics? Where do we need to remove friction? A lot of IT is about removing friction.” - Matthieu Houle, VP of IT and Digital Tech at ALDO Group

“The good news is that over the years we've been able to abstract more and more of the work that IT does and rely on cloud providers, whether they’re infrastructure or software as a service. Meanwhile, the core of our efforts do not have to be managing the low-level anymore, and that allows us to be technology experts, but framed as ‘how does technology actually help business?’ - Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CIO at AppDirect

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Time Stamps:

* (1:47) Matthieu’s role at Aldo and Pierre-Luc’s role at AppDirect

* (5:09) The changing scope of the CIO’s role across industries

* (14:27) Matthieu’s product approach to IT leadership

* (18:15) What data-driven business alignment looks like at AppDirect

* (20:12) Building agility and resilience into a tech stack 

* (23:32) Aldo and AppDirect’s next big projects 

* (26:30) Matthieu and Pierre-Luc share their CIO secrets 

* (28:51) The future of digital IT and shadow IT

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Matthieu on LinkedIn
• Connect with Pierre-Luc on LinkedIn
• Learn more about TELUS International
• Learn more about the ALDO Group

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Michael Ringman, CIO at TELUS International, and Sesh Tirumala, Chief Information & Data Officer at Anaplan, discuss how they’re ensuring that their organizations are benefiting from strong data management strategies. Plus, they provide their perspectives on dealing with the “SaaS overload”, what they see as the future of the CIO role in cloud-based enterprises, and much more. 

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Quotes

“We've got to be able to pull in a large amount of data in ways that our customers can see the value and better understand the trends of what's happening in their environments. But, there's also an element of being able to provide small data… Like, how long have they been a customer of this organization? Acknowledging those little pieces of very helpful information go a long way.” - Michael Ringman 

“Data management, data privacy - those are the fundamentals, but the more important thing is how do you manage the connectedness of this data? So, that way you can then answer a lot of the key business decisions and questions.”  - Sesh Tirumala

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Time Stamps:

* (2:07) Michael and Sesh’s backgrounds & current roles 

* (2:44) Avoiding SaaS bloat & how to recover

* (6:31) Finding value in big data & converting into results 

* (17:36) Misconceptions about SaaS and data 

* (22:19) Using data to build a better employee experience

* (28:37) Michael and Sesh ask each other questions

* (31:52) Micahel and Sesh share their top CIO secrets 

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
• Connect with Sesh on LinkedIn
• Learn more about TELUS International
• Learn more about the Anaplan

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Alex Hood, CPO at Asana, talks with Wendy Pfeiffer, CIO at Nutanix, about new challenges in the hybrid workplace model, and how they can be overcome with effective asynchronous collaboration. They also share advice on adapting to a generation of employees that has grown up with technology, from providing faster problem resolution to equipping digital-native employees with the right tools, and much more.

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Quotes

“Most work actually gets done cross-functionally, so you need to have a defined workflow that is the map of how work gets done across the organizations, and then have some monitoring on them to make sure that you're continually reflecting and speeding yourselves up. Most of the folks who try Asama start because they say handoffs are very difficult, and they don't want things to fall through the cracks. That's some of the problems that we try to solve by just linking data, tools, and teams together for these handoffs and workflows, and then allowing for some monitoring reporting so that they can get better every time that they run it.” - Alex Hood, CPO at Asana

“The very notion of hybrid work is supportive of people who prefer to work in many different modes. I think it's by shining a light and looking at places where we have an opportunity to improve where we ensure people don't get left behind… I do think that technology plays a big role in this as does our own openness in leadership to accept new viewpoints and to think differently.” - Wendy Pfeiffer, CIO at Nutanix

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Time Stamps:

* (2:07) Alex and Wendy’s background & current role 

* (3:00) Challenges in the hybrid workplace

* (8:45) Optimizing asynchronous collaboration

* (23:55) Organizing workflow structures 

* (26:08) Adapting to a digital native workforce

* (43:14) Ensuring tenured employees are not left behind

* (45:30) Alex and Wendy ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
• Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Asana
• Learn more about the Nutanix

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Changing workforces and new technologies are altering the talent pipeline, but how can companies adapt? In this episode, Dr. Hank Foley, President and CEO of New York Institute of Information Technology, and Santhosh Keshavan, EVP and CIO at Voya Financial, discuss how companies and academic institutions alike can ensure they’re adapting to the workforce of tomorrow, address the pain points of today, and much more. 

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“A cornerstone of today, and for particular the kinds of students in technology, is that they want to be able to do everything through their smartphones…. It was incumbent upon us to get everything right from billing, to financial aid, to signing up for courses, to looking at your degree, to doing your degree audit, to registering, and eventually to graduation. If you want [students] to feel and have respect for the institutions, then you gotta be doing these things.” - Hank Foley, PhD

“The appetite [for talent] is endless, and that's where the challenge forms. It’s not just, ‘Boy, I'm sure every company is looking for such-and-such talent.’ No, because tools and technology change so fast. We do not necessarily over-index on one tool or one technology itself. We want the basics, right? It's more about having the right attitude as well, wanting to be a team player and a willingness to learn newer technologies.” - Santhosh Keshavan

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Time Stamps:

* (1:00) Dr. Foley and Santhosh’s roles at NYIT and Voya Financial 

* (3:00) IT and Tech talent pipeline shortage 

* (8:45) Partnering with academic institutions 

* (13:15) Prioritizing talent acquisition and retention 

* (21:55) Keeping up with a rapid rate of change 

* (22:41) Designing an optimal student experience  

* (27:00) Keeping skills sharp after graduation 

* (31:25) How to partner with NYIT and other institutions

* (36:50) Dr. Foley and Santhosh ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Dr. Hank Foley on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Voya Financial
• Learn more about New York Institute of Technology

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Developers are now responsible for implementing digital security policies in software, but few understand the fundamentals of cybersecurity. In this episode, Samir Sherif, CISO of Imperva, and Yonatan Eldar, CTO of Apiiro discuss ways to bridge the gap between security and development, as well as share best practices for cloud security and much more.

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“I think the talent that we're going to see evolving sooner than later is more technologists becoming better risk professionals, because cyber risk and information security challenges are not solved purely by security professionals. If we're going to continue to evolve and deal with this threat landscape, I think a change in industry from a talent perspective needs to be the adoption of risk capabilities.” - Samir Sherif

“From the security perspective, the smart thing for companies to do now is to push some of the responsibilities, knowledge, and awareness to the developers… We need to do that from day one. We need to think about security this way.” - Yonatan Eldar

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Time Stamps:

* (1:00) Samir and Yonatan’s roles at Imperva and Apiiro

* (3:00) Changing landscape of cybersecurity

* (8:45) Securing funding for cybersecurity 

* (13:15) Key security roles needed in the future

* (21:55) Maximizing security with the sacrifice  

* (22:41) Benefits of using a multi-cloud infrastructure 

* (27:00) Lessons learned from past cyber attacks 

* (31:25) Security secrets not enough execs know 

* (36:50) Samir and Yonatan ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Samir on LinkedIn
• Connect with Yonatan on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Imperva
• Learn more about Apiiro

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ravi Naik, EVP and CIO at Seagate, and Milind Wagle, CIO at Equinix, discuss the CIO’s role in enabling business strategy, the future of multi-cloud infrastructure, and share valuable insights and best practices for a successful cloud migration, and much more.

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“IT is like oxygen - it's expected to always be there. If you take oxygen out, you know what happens. That's really how I view information technology of today. The future is where technology is ubiquitous. It is easy to use and it works, and no one knows that it even exists. That's really a good IT organization.” - Ravi Naik

“You have to start with what makes sense for your workload... You have to fundamentally design your stack, evolve your stack, and adopt your hybrid multi-cloud strategy, because chances are that all the capabilities you're going to either build for your employees, customers, or your partners who are globally distributed - will require you to compose that experience across multiple applications or multiple data stores." - Milind Wagle

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Time Stamps:

* (3:04) Milind & Ravi’s roles at Equinix and Seagate

* (7:07) The future of IT Leadership 

* (8:15) Gauging employee experience on a mass scale

* (10:17) Future of data analytics and cloud infrastructure

* (16:55) Best practices for cloud migration

* (22:41) Benefits of using a multi-cloud infrastrastructure 

* (38:24) Secrets not enough execs know 

* (37:50) Miliand and Ravi ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Ravi on LinkedIn
• Connect with Milind on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Seagate
• Learn more about Equinix

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Prasad Ramakrishnan, CIO and SVP of IT at Freshworks, and Carter Busse, CIO at Workato, discuss how IT Leaders can play a vital role in the employee experience, getting ahead of pain points, their secrets to security and automation, and much more.

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“We get employees involved in the decision making process. We want them to have a say in terms of which tool they like, which vendor and features they like …We believe that the technology out there is now like a utility. Everybody has an opinion and everybody needs to participate in the process.” - Prasad Ramakrishnan

“I look up to [CIOs] that are really passionate about understanding how the business works… They're not necessarily concerned about the technology, but how they can enable the business to go faster and with the right cost measures in it, and really understand the business.” - Carter Busse

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Time Stamps:

* (2:22) Prasad & Carter’s roles at Freshworks and Workato

* (4:10) How they view the scope of the CIO’s role

* (6:10) Carter and Prasad’s secrets to gauging results

* (11:45) Getting ahead of pain points to create a great employee experience

* (16:48) Building resiliency during uncertain times 

* (26:15) Maintaining while scaling 

* (29:55) The future of automation in the employee’s security experience 

* (35:23) Secrets not enough executives know

* (38:20) Prasad and Carter ask each other questions

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Prasad on LinkedIn
• Connect with Carter on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Freshworks
• Learn more about Workato

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.