CIONET

Catriona Campbell – Client Technology & Innovation Officer at EY UK&Ireland is the author of the intriguing book “AI by design: A Plan for Living with Artificial Intelligence”. She is our keynote speaker at the CIONEXT conference on 26 April 2023 sponsored by UiPath. In this #LeadershipDeepDive interview Hendrik Deckers interviews Catriona about her projects, leadership style and innovation at large.

“We have to transform business and for that we need to have the capital investment, the technology infrastructure and the talent for this”, says Catriona Campbell who frequently stresses the importance of people in the great business puzzle.

From Catriona’s experience we learn that AI needs to be carefully harnessed for the benefits of humanity, with ethical issues and the guardrails deeply encoded into its core. EY innovates close to the client, with a people-facing, accessible, and scalable approach. Automation is certainly another important factor in the journey towards the future and Catriona praises the progress in that field.

What is the double diamond methodology in innovation? Does the Goldie chatbot at EY know all the answers? And finally, should we be afraid of AI? Watch the whole Leadership Deep Dive Interview with Catriona Campbell to learn the answers and get to know Catriona in the challenges she faces in the jousting field of innovation.

Niklas Sundberg – Senior Vice President & CIO at ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions & author of “Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders”, an innovative and practical guide for CxOs on Sustainable IT – was our keynote speaker at the Race To Net Zero CIONEXT Conference on 7 December 2022, sponsored by @BT and @PaloAltoNetworks. In this #LeadershipDeepDive interview, Hendrik Deckers asks Niklas about the relation between IT and the Sustainability Agenda.

“Just within the ICT sector today, we’re consuming roughly 3-4 percent of the world’s electricity”, says Niklas Sundberg in an attempt to illustrate how important the role of CIOs may prove in environmental challenges.

Big questions were the motor of this captivating interview packed with precise data. With Niklas’ playbook having the potential to be a gamechanger among digital leaders, the gentlemen tackled world-important issues such as circular economy, green reporting and legal solutions, or hyperscalers and their influence.

How to move to the cloud without punches of conscience as to your impact on the environment? What is the process to assess sustainability progress in a business? Is the future about limiting more than just carbon emissions? You will find answers to these questions and more on Niklas Sundberg’s personal story, including his adventure with ice hockey, in the full interview.

#DigitalLeadership #CIO #CXO #CTO #Sustainability #Government #CIONET #innovation #technology #data #GreenIT

Robbert van Rutten – Senior Vice President & Downstream CIO at Shell is one of the 6 Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year Award 2023 in the B2B category. In this #LeadershipDeepDive interview @Hendrik Deckers asked Robbert about Shell’s “Powering Progress Program” and the company’s ambition to become net zero by 2050, creating cleaner energy solutions (including low carbon fuels and EV charging stations) and the challenge to meet the ever increasing energy demand.

“Roughly about half of the CO2 reduction that we need to achieve by 2050 has to come from technologies that are currently not developed or deployed yet”, says Robbert.

Robbert also explained the idea behind the Market Hub e-commerce platform, which provides a B2C experience for B2B customers at Shell and talked about the market standard first strategy, next to reversing the strategy to rely heavily on IT transformation partners and bringing back insourcing of technical delivery capability.

Can sustainability and Net Zero goals be reached without a grand ambition to build out a global low-carbon energy system? Is data democratisation going to change large organisations very quickly? What are the strategies to attract and retain top talent? Watch the full interview to find out!

Johan Haelterman, Chairman of the Executive Committee at NBN (Bureau for Standardisation) talks about NBN as a knowledge provider and how standards can be a source of wisdom.

NBN is a publisher of standards located in Belgium. They are responsible for the development, publication and sales of standards. What NBN does is capture the knowledge of experts and make this knowledge available. Together with its sector operators, NBN acts as the Belgian knowledge centre for all activities related to standardisation. They play a societal role by helping companies, consumers, public authorities and other stakeholders to strive for higher quality within an international competitive context. Today, NBN has a portfolio of more than 42,000 standards. And more than 1,000 are added every year. Both in our professional and private lives, standards are everywhere.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive Interview, Hendrik Deckers talked with Johan about the future of standards and what role NBN plays as a knowledge provider. They also talked about different standards and how standards are developed. As well as their purpose and benefits, and the role of standards in the race to net zero.

Why are standards important in business and in society? What is the purpose of standards? How many standards exist? How is the process of publishing standards? What's the role of standards in becoming more sustainable? Watch the full interview to find out!

Alex Bowles – Partner & Head of Infrastructure and Service Management at John Lewis Partnership – is nominated to the #EDLOTY Award in the B2C category! Register here: https://www.cionext.com/16 and join us on 1st February 2023 at #CIONEXT | Let’s talk Money to find out how the Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year are managing their 2023 technology budgets and what measures are being taken to save money in this pivotal year.

The John Lewis Partnership is the UK’s largest employee owned business and two retail brands: John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive interview Hendrik Deckers discussed with Alex the exceptional business model of the John Lewis Partnership, where each employee becomes a “partner” and owns shares of the company and the impact on the business, employee motivation and company culture. Alex explained how the organisation transitioned from a system that allowed only 50 000 customers to shop weekly to over 200 000 customers and, at the same time, significantly enhanced customer experience.

Was moving away from a project-focused to a program-focused IT environment what enabled that change? How has customer behaviour changed in the past 2-3 years and how did it affect the John Lewis Partnership? What actions have been taken to make sure ethics and sustainability are at the core of the brand? Watch the full interview to find out!

Jean-Christophe Witz – CIO at Husky Injection Molding Systems – is nominated to the #EDLOTY Award in the B2B category! Register here: https://www.cionext.com/16 and join us on 1st February at #CIONEXT | Let’s talk Money to find out how the Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year 2023 use technology to save money “with IT” and not “on IT”!

Husky is a leading global technology company that serves the medical and packaging industries. Operating in over 140 countries, since 1953 Husky has been pioneering technologies that enable the delivery of essential needs to the global community with industry-leading expertise and service.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive Interview Hendrik Deckers talked with Jean-Christophe about developing and redefining Husky’s operating model for the Beverage and Packaging Line of Business. This huge program started in 2017 and led to significant changes in the operating model by cutting costs, allowing for breakthrough innovation and confirming quality and speed improvement.

Jean-Christophe explained also how he deals with change management and above all, culture and people change by cooperating closely with the leadership: „This is what I love in transformation and really my passion around seeing teams evolving, setting up first what's the end goal. And what we've done just concretely is working with the leadership to work together to establish what's our future state as a team.”

Watch the full interview to learn more!

Christian Palomino – Global IT VP at Meliá Hotels International – is nominated to the #EDLOTY Award in the B2C category! Register here: https://www.cionext.com/16 and join us on 1st February at #CIONEXT | Let’s talk Money to find out how the Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year 2023 use technology to save money “with IT” and not “on IT”!

Meliá Hotels International is the biggest Spanish company, third in Europe and the biggest leisure focused hotel company in the world with more than 390 hotels throughout more than 40 countries.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive Interview Hendrik Deckers talked with Chris about current challenges for the hotel industry and Meliá Hotels International’s journey to become data and cloud centred.

“It's very beautiful to see how digital transformation that started with technology now is permeating to all sides of the business. It's something amazing”, says Chris and adds: „Many people say that digitalisation is about processes, people, and technology, and I don't agree. You need data in that equation, because that's what makes you really agile as a company, because you are able to understand what's going on inside and outside of your company”. In 22 months, Chris and his team implemented agile and switched to cloud, introducing a new reservation system. This gigantic change cut costs and allowed the organisation to respond faster to change.

In this inspiring conversation Chris talks about the importance of diversity and new opportunities that arose after the pandemic. Watch the full interview to know more!

Daniel Gebler – Founder & CTO at Picnic – is nominated to the #EDLOTY Award in the B2C category! Register here: https://www.cionext.com/16 and join us on 1st February at #CIONEXT | Let’s talk Money to find out how the Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year 2023 manage their IT budgets in times when higher rates of return are demanded from business leaders!

Picnic is the world's fastest growing online retail supermarket that was founded in 2015 and over the past 7 years grew to ca. 1 billion EUR in revenue and gathered a customer base of 2 million users in 3 countries that place 300 thousand orders each week.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive Interview Hendrik Deckers discussed with Daniel the key milestones and reorganisation points in a rapidly growing scale-up that a successful company has to navigate effectively, as well as changes in the role of a CTO every step of the way. Daniel explained the design behind Picnic’s end-to-end eCommerce & eLogistics platform, why RPA or Low Code/No Code solutions were not a scalable long-term option for Picnic and what alternatives were implemented.

How to develop a business model where customers can shop online but still pay the same for their groceries as in a traditional supermarket? How can retail catch up with premium customers’ needs? How to attract the right talent and empower tech employees?

Watch the full interview to find out!

Åshild Hanne Larsen – VP Subsurface Excellence & Digital at Equinor – is nominated to the #EDLOTY Award in the B2B category! Register here: https://www.cionext.com/16 and join us on 1st February at #CIONEXT | Let’s talk Money to find out how the Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year 2023 use technology to save money “with IT” and not “on IT”!

Equinor is an energy company with major focus on petroleum but also active in the renewable sector – producing energy from wind & solar power and expanding its business by adding low carbon energy, carbon capture and storage to its portfolio.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive Interview Hendrik Deckers asked Åshild about the company’s journey to becoming data-driven and various data tools that are currently in place at Equinor. Interestingly, gaming technology and AI is being used in the program called “AIM” – Artificial Intelligence Maturity – to design optimal wells, their location and trajectory. They discussed the company’s roadmap towards “net zero” by 2050, as well as creation and use of the Reservoir Experience Platform that helped Equinor develop competitive advantage on the market. Additionally, Åshild explained in more detail her engagement in initiatives such as Girl Tech Fest and her other efforts in supporting women and girls aspiring to work in the technology sector.

Don’t miss this inspiring conversation and watch the full interview!

Table of contents:

01:13 | Introduction

02:00 | Åshild’s background

05:46 | About Equinor

09:24 | Åshild’s role

11:25 | Data lake program

13:13 | The Reservoir Experience Platform

16:29 | AI at Equinor

18:39 | The Fiber Optics Project

21:23 | IT & Digital at Equinor

24:02 | Cloud & Cybersecurity

26:27 | The role of CIO

29:23 | Management & leadership style

36:07 | MBTI: strengths

37:50 | Passions & women in technology

44:14 | Alternative career paths

46:44 | MBTI: development areas

49:15 | Values

53:16 | Mentors

57:01 | Most brilliant failure

01:01:39 | Best and worst things in life

01:05:38 | Personal mantra

1:07:45 | Advice for aspiring digital leaders

Tomasz Blicharski – EVP and Board Member at Żabka Polska, Managing Director at Żabka Future – is nominated to the #EDLOTY Award in the B2C category! Register here: https://www.cionext.com/16 and join us on 1st February at #CIONEXT | Let’s talk Money to find out how the Finalists of the European Digital Leader of the Year 2023 increase their wallet and market share to help bring the best possible business results to their organisations!

Żabka is a convenience services ecosystem based in Poland with over 9000 convenience stores. Its innovative approach to the younger generation of consumers resulted in opening the biggest chain of autonomous stores in Europe. During the pandemic the company expanded its business by launching a daily catering service and a SaaS marketplace for catering providers.

In this #LeadershipDeepDive Interview Hendrik Deckers asked Tomasz how to create accessible autonomous services, attract new consumers using innovation and design digital products – Apps in particular – that catch the eye of the clients, create buzz but also inspire long-term loyalty. They discussed Żabka’s digital transformation which started off with data analytics, machine learning and AI, and how these tools are currently used to optimise store locations and product offerings.

What are Tomasz’s predictions for the future of retail and convenience services? How to make sure innovations are customer-focused and bring value to the business? Watch the full interview to find out!