CIO Talk Radio

Guest: Atefeh (Atti) Riazi Title: Chief Information Officer, NY City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Guest: Mark A. Stone Title: SVP and Chief Information Officer, Safety-Kleen While we work to optimize business performance through IT, politics has crept in at the middle management and even average technology worker levels, even though average workers usually dislike/avoid politics and politicians. How do we deal with this silent killer?

Guest: H. William Haser Title: Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Tenneco Guest: Yuvi Kochar Title: CTO and VP of Technology, The Washington Post The role of CIO Role came into existence because technology became increasingly intrinsic to doing business and being competitive. However, today's CIO often has to juggle many different skills: the financial acumen of a CFO, the strategic understanding of a marketer, savvy shopping skills, and the people skills of an HR executive. Will CIO's become extinct? ...Or will their jobs just be absorbed into other management positions?

Guest: Bryan Sivak Title: CTO, District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) Innovation has provided the customer relationship tools we routinely use to  learn more about our customers, provide transparency as required, or interact with them in real time, both ways.  Now that we're collaborating with them to give them these things they want/need, what about pushing the envelope? Encourage them to dream even bigger, demand even more, and then we innovate to surpass even those expectations? Can current IT transform business into an innovation machine that will make this happen?

Guest: Mark Allan Lohsen Title: Vice President, Information Technology, and CIO, Veolia Environmental Services North America Corp. Guest: Peter Whatnell Title: Senior VP and Chief Information Officer, Sunoco Finding ways to quickly build capacity or ramp up the capabilities of business in conjunction with IT, in order to enable them both to nimbly respond to market changes, is rather like training a couple of pachyderms to perform a ballet. How does such a delicately orchestrated dance impact the economics of IT? How could it affect IT budgeting, allocation, sourcing, or procurement? And, in turn, how could those changes impact the relationships/interactions between a CIO and CFO?

Guest: Ina Kamenz Title: Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Thermo Fisher Scientific Guest: Vasant Dhar Title: Paduano Fellow, Professor, Head of the Information Systems Group, and Director for the Center for Digital Economy Research at the Stern School of Business at NYU We justify positive Return on Investment (ROI) for new IT initiatives to make a business case, but what are we doing about discovering and measuring negative Return on Unawareness (ROU) and Return on Negligence (RON)? After all, isn’t the net value IT brings based on the ROI - (ROU + RON) formula?

Guest: Kevin M. Larson Title: VP and Chief Information Officer, AAR Corp. What are the secrets for gaining unswerving customer loyalty? ...A good product or service that provides good value for time/money! ...building personal relationship with the customer! ...resolving customer complaints quickly! ...open and frequent communication with customers to be sure they are happy and stay that way! ...Now, a quick poll: Are we leveraging IT to do enough of all of the above, in order to gain True Blue customers, both “internally” and “externally”?

Guest: Marlin Mackey Title: Chief Information Officer, Department of Information Technology, state of New Mexico Guest: Steven John Title: Chief Information Officer, H.B. Fuller Company A versatilist survives by being able to do everything. A competitor survives by being better than others. A chameleon disappears into any environment. All are survival strategies of sorts. But what exactly is it that defines a CIO who can be plugged in anywhere and be successful, survive and thrive? What are the elusive, defining qualities of the essential CIO?

Guest: Stuart Kippelman Title: Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Covanta Energy Guest: Tony Bender Title: VP and Chief Information Officer, Alberto Culver If business people still base 40% of their major decisions on gut feeling, isn't that a bit like gambling? With big money riding on a decision, why is it so hard for business and IT leaders to make decisions based on BI and the numbers? Is it because some data may be missing, or that we don't have one version of the truth? Why exactly does the gut win out over the head and BI?

Guest: Christopher J. Rence Title: Chief Information and Business Transformation Officer, FICO Guest: Paul Cushing Title: Senior Vice President, Technology and Media Infrastructure, ESPN When does it make sense to go with a private, internal cloud? Once the decision is made to go with a private cloud, how do you decide if it should it be built totally from scratch? If you plan to outsource some aspects, how do you choose the right vendor? How do you plan a private cloud implementation from beginning to end and avoid any problems that might darken your cloud investment?

Guest: José Carlos Eiras Title: Author, THE PRACTICAL CIO, and former CIO, GM Europe and DHL Express - US Guest: Merv Tarde Title: VP, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Vice President of Facilities and Property Management, Interstate Battery System of America, Inc. How aware is your IT team about the whole business ecology system as opposed to leaving it to the "suits" by default? What if your whole IT team was just as focused on paying attention to customers, competitors, and partners as the sales department? Shouldn't an external focus be an official responsibility of each IT worker with accountability to bring feedback on what is happening, what our competitors are doing, and what's important to our customers? How can this be put into practice? What are the expected challenges? What could we gain or lose from this approach?

Guest: Dr. Larry Barton Title: Professor The American College, and Crisis Consultant Guest: Joe Beery Title: Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Life Technologies Great IT should be transparent in its role of enabling business, but when a business crisis happens, then what? Can/Should IT step to the forefront and work to turn the lemons of the crisis into a better, more efficient business?

Guest: Dave Kamath Title: CIO, IDEX Corporation Guest: Mike Kozlowski Title: CIO, VP Information Technology, Rust-Oleum Corporation Guest: Steve Romeo Title: Vice President of Information Technology, Breg, Inc. Successful companies cater to customers who may then become enthusiastic "fans," so how can IT cater to its customers and win them over as fans? As an IT leader, it is important that business stakeholders recognize a positive perceived and real ROI on their company's IT's initiatives, if IT is to get the respect it deserves as well as funding for future initiatives. How does an IT leader increase the perceived and real ROI of IT projects and make business stakeholders fans of his IT?

Guest: Bruce Schinelli Title: VP of IT and Chief Information Officer, TTX Company Guest: Shawn Banerji Title: CIO Practice, Russell Reynolds Associates, Inc. The higher you rise, the harder you land when you fall! With everyone scrutinizing you closely for mistakes or weaknesses, as you join an organization as the new CIO, what can you do to avoid a fall from grace? What can you do within your first few months to establish a strong foundation for yourself as an IT leader, and win the hearts and minds of everyone who matters, above you or below?

Guest: Bob Burg Title: Lecturer, Co-author "The Go-Givers" Guest: Daniela Crivianu-Gaita Title: Chief Information Officer, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto Guest: Matthew Mitchell Title: Chief Information Officer, AARP Certainly any IT leader is a fierce go-getter. He/she had to work long, hard, and tough to get to get to that top job. But is hard work as a go-getter sufficient to achieve truly stellar results? What advantages can the IT leader who puts his team, his colleagues, and his company first, gain from doing so? Can he/she be a Go-Giver at work without giving in the other parts of his life, like family? How do you balance work and life? What is the difference between a go-getter and a "Go-Giver"? And, more importantly, does being a giver pay off better?

Guest: Dr. Wendell Jones Title: Chief Executive at SIM, and Former VP, Worldwide Service Delivery, Compaq Computer Corporation and Analyst, Cutter Consortium Guest: June E. Drewry Title: former Global Chief Information Officer, the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies; Executive Coach Guest: Michele G. Heffner Title: Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator of the Office of Technology Strategy, Office of Governmentwide Policy, General Services Administration (GSA) Guest: Rick Pastore Title: Writer, Managing Director, Content & Events, CIO Executive Council Every IT leader (or potential leader) has deficits that are the difference between where he or she is now and reaching his or her full potential as a CIO. If you know what your deficits are where do you get help? If you don't know, how do you find out? How do you promote best practices? How do you discover new thinking? Where do you find a sounding board for your ideas? If the practice of leadership is lonely, where would you find camaraderie?