Marina Levinson shares her journey from CIO to venture investor to startup advisor, revealing the skills, relationships, and mindset shifts needed to thrive across roles, how her experience as a tech buyer sharpened her investment approach, how she built bridges between enterprise executives and startups, and highlights such as how CIOs can play a bigger role in innovation ecosystems, why BGV invests in vertical AI rather than infrastructure, lessons from AiDASH, COVU, and Interactly.ai, what makes a solution “must-have” vs. “nice-to-have”, and advice for executives pursuing public or private board roles.

“The speed is so incredible. I can’t tell if I’m getting older and I’m slower, or if just the speed of this technology is so exponentially faster.” As CIO of Analog Devices, Nancy Avila leads digital transformation for a $9.5B semiconductor company at the forefront of AI innovation.

In this episode of Technovation with Peter High, Nancy Avila, Chief Information Officer of Analog Devices, shares how she returned from retirement to lead IT, data, and AI strategy at a company powering intelligent edge technologies. Nancy outlines her three-pillar strategy of operational excellence, process optimization, and innovation highlighting the company’s shift toward enterprise-wide adoption of agentic AI. She details how AI agents are boosting engineering productivity, improving anomaly detection in manufacturing, and transforming internal knowledge access. Nancy also discusses her approach to transparent decision-making in AI and cloud spend, how CIOs can shape business strategy in technical organizations, and her experience serving on public boards.

1013: Wyndham’s Scott Strickland on AI, loyalty, and how digital innovation is reshaping hospitality.

In this episode of Technovation, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Chief Commercial Officer and longtime CIO Scott Strickland joins Peter High to share how Wyndham is redefining hospitality with digital innovation, from its owner-first philosophy and the new Wyndham Gateway loyalty initiative to the creation of a guest engagement platform that powers mobile check-in, digital tipping, and personalized upsells; Strickland also discusses Wyndham’s $350M technology modernization journey, how it prepared the company for AI adoption, the role of data and personalization in shaping future guest experiences, the impact of user-generated content and micro-influencers, and practical leadership lessons for CIOs aiming to expand into broader commercial roles, proving that in hospitality, where there’s a Wyndham, there’s a way.

1012: Sokwoo Rhee, EVP of Innovation at LG Electronics and Head of LG NOVA, reveals how LG is rethinking corporate innovation through ecosystem-led venture building. In this episode we explore LG NOVA’s venture into healthcare, energy optimization, and AI innovation, including Primefocus Health and PADO, plus how public-private partnerships (like with West Virginia) power new business creation. Learn why LG is focused on vertical AI use cases, how they identify 5-10 year opportunities, and what it takes to build cross-sector teams for impact.

Build with AI. Lead with people.

She discusses Lincoln’s evolving enterprise AI strategy, why a model-agnostic approach matters, and how her team is redesigning workflows and talent models in parallel. From regulatory complexity to the rise of AI agents, Jennifer emphasizes the need to prepare rather than predict the future, and to keep human connection at the center of it.

Key topics include:

What if every human had an army of agents working for them?

Aaref Hilaly, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and veteran investor in AI-native startups, joins Peter High to discuss the transformative potential of agentic AI, the mindset he looks for in founders, and how legal, healthcare, and education sectors are poised for disruption.

Key highlights from the conversation:

Simplify to accelerate.

In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High speaks with Richard Jardim, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). Richard shares how his team is modernizing one of North America’s leading banks by focusing on technology simplification, speed, and agility in service of building a relationship-oriented bank for a modern world.

He details CIBC’s transformation journey, from migrating core platforms to the cloud and leveraging proprietary online banking infrastructure, to developing digital talent, integrating AI, and preparing for quantum computing. Richard also reflects on the importance of curiosity, communication, and adaptive leadership in today’s fast-moving tech environment.

Key topics include:

How CIBC simplifies its 1,200+ app footprint to increase agility

The bank’s strategy for scaling internal IP and AI skills

Bridging business and technology through vertical CIO alignment

Quantum computing as both risk and opportunity in financial services

Ukraine’s Digital Revolution: From Warzone to Innovation Hub

In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High speaks with Valeriya Ionan, Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine on Innovation, Digitalization, and Global Partnerships. Previously Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Valeriya played a pivotal role in launching Ukraine’s groundbreaking Diia ecosystem and driving the nation’s goal of becoming the world’s most convenient digital state.

She shares how digital public services, AI-driven education, and defense-tech innovation are reshaping Ukraine’s future, even in the face of war. With partnerships spanning global governments and tech giants, Valeriya offers a masterclass in crisis-driven transformation, digital infrastructure, and building agile government at scale.

Key insights include:

The evolution of Diia: from IDPs to e-marriage to war bonds

Scaling drone production from 7 to 500+ in three years

Ukraine’s “Win-Win” Innovation Strategy and defense tech surge

The rise of the CDTO and building a digital-first public sector

 Resilience is earned, not given. In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High speaks with Rusty Patel, Chief Information Officer at Baxter, about leading IT through one of the most consequential 13-month periods in the company’s history.

Rusty reflects on Baxter’s mission to save and sustain lives, the resilience required to restore operations after natural disasters, and the CIO’s role in both enabling innovation and enforcing enterprise discipline. He shares insights into simplifying a complex IT ecosystem, building financial acumen across the org, and advancing connected care and AI across Baxter’s portfolio of 1.5 million devices and 350 million patients served annually.

Key topics include:

Can AI transform a 200-year-old commercial real estate company?

In this episode, Peter High speaks with Yao Morin, Chief Technology Officer of JLL, a $24B global commercial real estate leader. Yao shares how she is leading JLL’s AI and data transformation which is reshaping how buildings are operated, how software is developed, and how employees work.

Yao details how JLL is building customer-facing AI products like the JLL Property Assistant, driving cultural change through AI literacy programs, and launching internal tools like JLL GPT that already see 17,000 daily users. She also explains why she believes Scrum teams will shrink, engineers will code less, and AI adoption will soon be table stakes across industries.

Key topics include: