You've Been Heard

Dana Kline built an IT team from 1 to 11 at a PE-backed energy company. Then he created a vendor scorecard so tough that an Oracle VP said 'nobody ever measures us like this.'

Sandeep Shenoy has spent seventeen years integrating AI into medical devices at Viant Medical. He's not anti-AI. He builds it every day. But he's watched the industry rush to deploy systems trained on data sets that were never designed to be fair.

The problem isn't the technology. It's the history baked into the data. "When AI makes a mistake in finance, you lose money. When it makes a mistake in healthcare, you could lose a life." Early fitness trackers failed to read female heart rate patterns because of biased training data. That already happened.

We get into bias audits as continuous process, fairness by design principles, and accountability frameworks. Plus why ethics needs to move out of the compliance box and into business value.

The uncomfortable truth: patients have zero say in how these devices work. They just know a doctor told them they need it. By then, discrimination might already be built in.

Shane Petty works in midstream oil and gas where margins are tight and every dollar counts. He inherited a 30-year-old ERP that only twelve people in the country could support. Leadership thought SAP was running the show. Reality? One guy with an Excel spreadsheet was keeping everything alive.

"If I don't have that opportunity to speak into those things, well, then I'm just a robot, making sure that people are getting their monthly cybersecurity training," Shane says about working without executive vision.

We get into the three things IT sits at the center of, why walking leadership to the shop floor beats PowerPoint presentations, and how Shane saved $350,000 annually by replacing legacy systems. Plus his framework for getting heard when leadership has no vision.

The biggest takeaway? IT leaders aren't just the department of IT anymore. They're at the junction of leadership, processes, and people. That's where the real power is.

Dr. Sergio Sanchez has sat in seats most IT leaders never will. Operating rooms. Gaming studios shipping Call of Duty. Apple's Genius Bar. Catholic Church administration with 72-year-old nuns who never touched computers.

His diagnosis? IT speaks a language nobody else understands. "We assume that everybody has the same knowledge that we do," he says. Meanwhile, users with AOL accounts become prime targets for scams.

We get into why cybersecurity is a communication problem, not a budget problem. How to translate tech-speak for executives who sign the checks. And why programmers will become bug hunters in 18 months.

The biggest takeaway? "No matter how much money you invest in cybersecurity, take one person to click the wrong link and all that money goes out the window."

Ken Widner has a psychology degree, not a computer science one. That's not a footnote. It's the whole story. He was supposed to do marriage counseling. Instead, he became CIO at Do It Best, running IT for 9,000+ retail locations while integrating True Value out of bankruptcy.

His insight? IT leaders fail because they lead with logic instead of emotion. "Nobody cares if the system is up, if it's horrible to interact with," Ken says. While most CIOs show up to meetings with uptime charts, Ken shows up with stories from warehouse workers about how pick-to-light changed their lives.

We get into the squeaky wheel problem (availability bias in leadership), why your C-suite peers are team one (not your direct reports), and Ken's "challenge, align, commit" philosophy. Plus his take on AI hype, the Department of Prioritization vs. the Department of No, and why he spends more time with his CFO than his architects.

The payoff? Ken got a new tech center in Dallas approved not by making a business case, but by building relationships where his peers championed IT initiatives for him.

John Doherty is CIO at Columbia Forest Products, but he started in marketing. That accidental path gave him something most IT leaders don't have - he speaks business first, technology second.

The problem he keeps running into isn't technical. It's structural. IT gets called in after the business has already decided what they need. Someone shows up and says "we need SAP" and by then it's too late. The solution's chosen. IT's job is to execute, not influence.

We get into his mill ambassador program (people looked at him like he had three heads), why steering committees come before PMO, and the "yes, but" approach that turns IT from blockers into problem solvers. Plus his prediction on what part of IT will be fully automated in 18 months.

John's final message hits different: "Don't be a tech nerd. Find how to be a business person. Meet your peers where they're at. Speak their language, and you're going to break the stereotype that we're just a bunch of techies."

Juliano Giannerini runs IT at Baker Construction and fights the same battle every IT leader faces. Someone walks in wanting a new CRM. They need Spanish speakers at the service desk. They saw a demo and it looked amazing. Nobody asked what problem they're trying to solve.

When an HR director demanded Spanish speakers for IT support, Juliano asked why. Turns out craft workers weren't calling IT about tech issues – they were calling HR about payroll. Adding Spanish speakers to the service desk would have solved nothing.

Always ask 'what problem are you solving' before evaluating any solution

We get into why IT gets handed solutions instead of problems, how to force clarity before anyone mentions tools, and translating technical needs into business language that actually lands. Juliano's framework: rules before tools, and always start with the problem statement.

Tim Elhefnawy came from operations before technology leadership. That combination gives him a perspective most IT leaders don't have.

He's watched tech leaders disconnect from the room in real time. Leading with technical objections when business needed risk discussion. Explaining integration test cycles that meant nothing to anyone while ignoring deal commitments.

The pattern? IT leaders who practice the art of no. Who wait to be brought in instead of inserting themselves into strategy from day one. Who think delivering the tech piece is their job while someone else handles the business piece.

That's not leadership. That's being a highly paid order taker.

Tim's three-step playbook for real business outcomes:

1. Understand the actual problem. Not the soundbite. Tim was told there was a physical delivery issue. He went to gemba. Talked to drivers. Talked to customers. What he was sold wasn't the problem—it was half truth. Skip this step and the project fails.

2. Solution with the right people before giving timelines. Don't cave to "how fast?" Get the right folks together. Walk through it. Give feedback timely—don't boil the ocean trying to achieve perfection.

3. Read back your understanding. The step everyone skips. Confirm you understood. Talk through solution ideas. Tim sees people have light conversations, say "yep we got it," then build the wrong thing.

We also get into knowing when to apply rigor versus when to just do it. Adding a CRM field that affects no workflows takes 30 seconds. But Tim sees analysts spend hours on regression testing and full CAB process—for a field. The waste is massive when you can't navigate what should go left versus right.

Tim's advice to every emerging IT leader?

"Don't allow yourself to be siloed into just technology. Learning business is just as important. You're going to be an incomplete leader without it."

Because how dangerous is a business leader who understands the market, the customer, and the technology?

Mark Baker is VP of IT at Block Imaging in Michigan. They service legacy medical equipment. Big iron MRI and CT machines that hospitals can't replace.

Which means Mark deals with Windows systems no longer patched, medical device regulations, and security frameworks spanning three decades of technology.

The fundamental challenge hasn't changed since Mark started at a small computer shop. Back then it was "what's a network card?" Now it's "we need AI." Different technology. Same conversation. A CEO gets on a plane, reads an article, comes back convinced this will solve everything. Mark's the one who explains physics.

We get into why 85% of AI initiatives fail to return value. Mark doesn't chase bleeding edge. He's a fast follower. He waits to see what actually works before committing. "I'm not looking for a solution that's looking for a problem. I actually have an issue. And how can I actually address this with what I know about AI today?"

We talk about the vendor myths that keep recycling with new labels. Cloud means you don't need backups. Wrong. It's more resilient, but not backed up unless you pay for it. New technology will save you money. Also wrong. AI tools are underpriced right now. OpenAI charges fifty bucks for something costing them two hundred to deliver. Those prices are going up.

Mark destroys the idea that IT projects happen overnight. "This did not occur overnight. This will not be corrected overnight." Projects are underestimated. The lift is bigger than anyone thinks. Trying to run fast without proper planning just means you pile the next thing on top of the last thing until throughput slows to a crawl.

We get into why Mark hates the word no. It shuts down conversation. When a request will blow up the security framework, he doesn't just reject it. He explains the why. He brings it to a conversation. "We have to be tactical about what we're doing and if it is the wrong path, bring that to a conversation, not just say no and walk away."

The biggest struggle? IT pursues technology for technology's sake. Mark's seen departments chase zero trust or cloud without asking if it aligns with where the business is actually going. The mistake is forgetting that IT exists to solve business problems, not implement the latest framework because it sounds impressive.

The answer? Push business knowledge down through your entire IT organization. From VP to intern. Everyone should understand how their work connects to company goals. Mark challenges his team to take accounting classes. Understand EBITDA. Learn the business, not just the tech stack. Because you can't speak business language if you don't understand the business.