How CIOs Are Effectively Adapting to New Economic Challenges with Jason Conyard, CIO at VMware, and Ginna Raahauge, EVP & CIO of Digital Transformation at Zayo Group

Just like the role of the CIO has transitioned from a back-office data manager to a business enabler, how CIOs build and maintain internal and external partnerships has also greatly evolved. In this episode, Madlin Sadler, COO of the International Rescue Committee, and Colleen Berube, CIO and SVP of Operations at Zendesk, draw insights from their own collaboration to talk about the many ways partnerships can be powerful—from bringing in new perspectives to providing resources and solutions—as well as share their advice on building strategic partnerships for today's CIO.

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Quotes

“The need to have great partnerships with people who are helping us push our thinking has been more critical than ever… particularly for us, meaning that we transform and innovate in a way that I don't think we could if we didn't know what was out there and what the world was capable of achieving with us. Partnerships for us are really pushing us to the next level.” - Madlin Sadler, COO of the International Rescue Committee

“Part of the value that you can bring as a technology leader is really not about the technology at all—it's about having the visibility to see what's happening in different parts of the business, and you can bring those things together and influence different thinking by looking more holistically at what could be happening in the company.” - Colleen Berube, CIO and SVP of Operations, Zendesk

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Time Stamps:

* (1:46) Meet Madlin and Colleen, and learn about their roles

* (6:38) How the role of CIO has evolved to include operations

* (11:21) Emphasizing productivity in the hybrid workplace

* (16:46) Why internal and external partnerships are important for success 

* (23:27) Secrets every CIO and exec should know

* (24:53) Madlin and Colleen 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 Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Madlin on LinkedIn
• Connect with Colleen on LinkedIn
• Learn more about the International Rescue Committee
• Learn more about Zendesk
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

Spending money is easy when investment opportunities are everywhere, but it’s harder to predict if something is worth the cost. In this episode, IT leaders from the public and private sectors tell us about the times their investments paid off—from new technology to the employee experience. You’ll hear advice from Tim Chester, VP of IT and CIO at the University of Georgia, and Carrie Rasmussen, CIO at Ceridian, on how to keep pace with the increasing demand for digital transformation, and much more.

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Quotes

“Frankly, it’s time to invest… AI machine learning and science hires are key, and we're investing in our high-performance computing to support faculty in those important fields.” - Tim Chester, VP of IT, CIO, at the University of Georgia

“We do have to put certain initiatives on the back burner, but more importantly, we are being asked how do we take inefficiencies and repurpose them so that it's not a budget cut, but a reallocation of funds through proper harvesting.” - Carrie Rasmussen, CIO at Ceridian

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Time Stamps:

* (1:46) Meet Tim and Carrie, and learn about their roles

* (5:35) How to priortize spending and when to reallocate funds

* (20:54) Peer leadership advice for discussing budgets

* (23:32) Investing in human capital with DEI efforts

* (35:40) Tim and Carrie ask each other questions

* (35:40) Secrets every CIO 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 Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Tim on LinkedIn
• Connect with Carrie on LinkedIn
• Learn more about the University of Georgia
• Learn more about Ceridian
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

The competition to attract and retain talent remains fierce, and today’s leading CIOs understand that creating an employee experience model should be just as high of a priority as technology and innovation. In this episode, we’ve compiled advice from CIOs and technology leaders who are creating employee-centric cultures at their companies, and examine strategies used by successful organizations—from VMware to the Boston Red Sox—that keep employees engaged, productive, and happy.

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Quotes

“The key is to offload work that doesn't require synchronous co-creation to the machine. Find ways to make that work readable, visible, doable, and extensible by the machine.” - Wendy Pfeiffer, CIO, Nutanix 

“You need to have a defined workflow that is the map of how work gets done across the organizations. Then, have some monitoring on them to make sure that you're continually reflecting and speeding yourselves up.” - Alex Hood, CPO, Asana

“We've done a few things to mix it up a bit in town halls. For example, we've had people on the team kick off the meeting. We've had some people singing—some people play the guitar. We've even had some people singing and playing guitar at the same time. We always try to mix it up and have something interesting upfront.” - David Vidoni, VP of IT, Pegasystems 

“There's a tendency to throw human capital at problems. We're looking at ways where we can bring a lot more automation and hopefully, a lot more efficiency to how their particular jobs operate. This way, people can be better informed and able to leverage data that they've never had before—really make decisions that otherwise were historically time-consuming.” - Brian Shield, SVP and CTO, Boston Redsox.

“If we can fundamentally change the culture and get into a place where people feel genuinely and sincerely delighted, surprised, and amazed by the experience of using technology, they will be more productive. They will feel good about who they work with and what they're doing.” - Jason Conyard, SVP and CIO, VMWare

“We've been really focused on the onboarding experience because so many people boarded during the pandemic. We've been trying to keep our game up by making it very simple and seamless, especially when you're doing it from a remote perspective.” - Ginna Raahauge, EVP and CIO, Zayo Group

“We get employees involved in the decision-making process. We want them to have a say in which tool, vendor, and features they like… We believe technology is now a utility and everybody needs to participate in the decision-making process.” - Prasad Ramakrishnan, SVP of IT and CIO, Freshworks

“We can't just assume people coming in know how to be a technologist, or know the basics of tackling technology. We have to create a great employee experience before they start, the day they start, and all the way through.” - Carter Busse, CIO, Workato

“Continuously learning about new technologies or new ways of working… that creates a resilient culture by default.” - Apratim Purakayastha, CTO, SkillSoft and SumTotal

“If your team is happy and productive, that customer experience will resonate and other people in the organization will look to IT to help solve their problems rather than a potential blocker to getting things done.” - Johan Dowdy, Global Head of IT, Asana

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Time Stamps:

* (1:45) Why it’s important to create less work about work

* (8:05) Creative solutions to increase employee engagement

* (11:50) Ideas for optimizing the employee onboarding process

* (16:57) How to make employees feel like their voices are heard

* (21:36) How to build resilience into the workplace culture 

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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 Ian on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

Key partnerships between CIOs and their internal departments are evolving rapidly, creating new ways of working and opening up new revenue streams. In this episode, we talk to Adam Glick, CISO at SimpliSafe, and Marc Linster, CTO at EDB, about where they see relationships with CIOs going in the future and ask them their secrets for success when it comes to cloud infrastructure, data security, and more. 

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Quotes

“Where you're going to see a big separation between organizations is how they're wielding technology, so the CIO has a really large task. They're most successful when they're thinking about the needs of the business and the employee experience.” - Adam Glick, CISO, SimpliSafe

“I see more and more the CIO becoming a facilitator of information. Yes, IT has to be managed in the right way securely, but it has to be accessible – it has to be usable.” - Marc Linster, CTO, EDB

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Time Stamps:

* (1:47) Meet our guests, Marc & Adam

* (6:40) How to strategize for creating cloud infrastructure 

* (9:30) Cloud security best practices for CIOs

* (14:15) The CIOs role in strengthening data security

* (18:35) How CIOs can help CTOs turn volumes of data into actionable insights

* (20:42) What does the future role of the CIO look like?

* (23:25) Working with other departments to improve the employee experience

* (29:51)  Projects on the horizon for EDB and SimpliSafe

* (33:06) Marc and Adam 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 Adam on LinkedIn
• Connect with Marc on LinkedIn
• Learn more about SimpliSafe
• Learn more about EDB

The impact of today’s economic climate is felt everywhere – even in the CIO’s office. In this episode, we ask two leading CIOs how they save money on IT and talent while still producing results. You’ll hear from Jason Conyard, CIO at VMware, and Ginna Raahauge, EVP & CIO of Digital Transformation at Zayo Group, who discuss how to keep attrition in check and streamline and optimize your organizational costs, plus much more.

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Quotes

“We're seeing interest rate changes. There are concerns about the availability of fuel and the impact of the cost of power around the world. I think that's going to probably color the 2nd half of the year and almost certainly into next year as well. Now, some people of course will look at that and they'll be concerned… but I also recognize that this presents an opportunity for companies to cut some of the sandbags that have been weighing down the balloon as organizations have grown. They've probably focused on transforming and not necessarily turning things off, or optimizing business processes. As we see that challenge ahead, it also creates that opportunity for us to streamline and optimize.” - Jason Conyard, CIO at VMware

“Just because I can technically solve your problem doesn't mean I should solve it with technology. I think this does go back to the old adage of systems, processes, and data. I think if we give more of our users, customers, and partners access to data insights, they can make different decisions around things. Then sometimes, you can even avoid some of the process of reengineering that takes a long time and a lot of energy, and it isn't even a system or a process that you need.” - Ginna Raahauge, EVP & CIO of Digital Transformation at Zayo Group

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Time Stamps:

* (1:51) Meet our guests, Jason & Ginna

* (4:07) New economic challenges facing CIOs in 2022

* (11:04) Keeping attrition in check by improving the employee experience

* (17:04) When should I use technology to improve employee productivity?

* (21:53) Projects on the horizon for VMware and Zayo Group

* (28:03) Secrets CIOs should know 

* (32:25) Lessons CIOs can learn from working in a startup  

* (37:11) Jason and Ginna 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 Jason on LinkedIn
• Connect with Ginna on LinkedIn
• Learn more about VMware
• Learn more about Zayo Group

In this episode, Darren Person, Global CIO at The NPD Group, and Max Chan, CIO at Avnet, share their insights about the use of AI in enterprise industries and reveal how to reap its benefits without breaking the bank. They address knowing when it is time to introduce AI, how to approach boards about it, how to leverage AI to drive employee experience and expand your business, and much more.

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Quotes

“You cannot do AI or machine learning without good data. Don't ever think that AI is this black box that magically is going to solve all your problems. You have to go through the hard work, the iterations, the training of the models, testing the algorithm. Don't forget the importance that data is for this journey because without it, there's really no way to be successful and scale for your organization.” - Max Chan, CIO at Avnet

“Data tells a story. It's our job to figure out what story that data tells, and then how to make sure that we are telling the right story with it. Like anything in statistics, you can use data in a variety of different ways. It’s about the quality of the data that really drives that story. All these tools will help you get there, but at the end of the day, you still need to make sure that the story that you tell is accurate, to the point, and it's understandable within the data as well.” - Darren Person, Global CIO at The NPD Group

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Time Stamps:

* (1:53) Meet our guests, Max and Darren

* (3:33) The current state of AI for enterprise B2B and B2C companies

* (13:12) How to scale AI in your company

* (21:40) The approach boards should take toward AI

* (28:01) How to leverage AI to drive employee experience 

* (32:37) Secrets CIOs should know about data

* (31:59) Max and Darren 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 Max on LinkedIn
• Connect with Darren on LinkedIn
• Learn more about The NPD Group
• Learn more about Avnet

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

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

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

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