I'm based in the San Francisco Bay area, after innovating as CTO/CIO in various industries for decades. Now that the latest world-changing technology is here, I saw an opportunity to help large complex enterprises automate business processes and deliver advanced analytics. To that end, I founded an enterprise AI software company that leverages this new technology to help with risk management, cybersecurity and data privacy from a CIO/CTO governance perspective for strategic adoption of AI.
I have always been able to recognize emerging transformative technologies, from the PC, to the internet, to most recently AI. At each of these points, I saw opportunities to leverage these new technologies to create tremendous value.
My focus has always been looking for opportunities to help companies that are interested in leveraging new technologies. It’s been my lifelong passion for learning in engineering, architecture, and strategy that’s naturally put me on a CTO path, as I really enjoy implementing emerging technologies.
Having been successful in technical companies, I wanted to bring what I’ve learned to non-technical companies. I quickly discovered that at a non-technical company, there was no technical leader for the business side of the house, and that led me to taking a CIO role.
It has never been my vision to reach the CIO role, it has just been a part of my journey. My outlook has always been based on three pillars - Strategic Vision, Always Be Learning, and People First. These three things are what guide and drive me, regardless of role or whether or not I’m a tech leader.
My first mentor was my father, who used to take me on the weekends to help implement technology solutions at the public schools in our district. This gave me an environment of independent problem solving where there wasn’t an apparent answer. Through that experience, I learned how to effectively figure things out without anyone telling me how to do it and that built up my courage and confidence for implementing technology solutions.
When I got into my first professional job post-college, I got connected to a technical executive who saw potential in me and encouraged me to leverage my skill at pattern recognition. Our close collaboration over several years helped me develop my ability to see and think strategically and use that as a catalyst to build and lead teams.
I have always sought out mentors throughout my career who I believed would help me learn and evolve through their experiences.
Because the CIO is not always the technology leader for the organization, I see a future where the technology leader needs to merge the internal focus and the customer focus to yield a single, unified technical direction for the organization.
I've always been on the customer side - building core technologies to deliver to customers. When I took a CIO role, I discovered this big disconnect between the technology that supports the business and the technology that supports the customer. Those two things need to merge. Technology leaders need to evolve to be more involved in the architectural direction of the product and less of a technologist supporting the business.
What skills do you think leaders of the future will need in order to thrive?
As mentioned, my three pillars are Strategic Vision, Always Be Learning, and People First. “Strategic vision” - aligning the technology of the business with its strategy and direction. “Always be a learning” - leaders cannot lead if they are not always learning about their business, its technologies, its customer needs, and emerging and possibly disruptive technologies. “People First” - attract and retain talent and keep that talent closely aligned with the business strategy and direction.
These are core skills that will be critical to navigating our accelerating future.
“Always be learning.” Going to industry events, reading trade publications, taking training courses for emerging technologies, digging into complex projects involving diverse teams, and being as open as possible to relationships - you never know who might teach you something.
Obviously, AI. What is less talked about is quantum computing and the inevitable security challenges that will follow.
"Always be learning."
I haven’t focused on achieving things in my career. I believe my achievements are natural results of applying my three guiding pillars. Focusing on building things, learning things, and cultivating relationships has yielded all my achievements to date.
I had the opportunity to found two companies to successful exits, helped build two unicorns and one decacorn, and taken two companies public.
I am actively involved in EO, sponsor the Women in Tech group, and is on the advisory council for the Robert Enterprise Development Fund, which funds for-profit companies that hire disadvantaged workers to help them join the workforce. I feel helping others is critical so serve as a mentor at YPO, and a business coach through Vistage.
A big thank you to Michael D. Reed from Enterprise Sight for sharing his journey to date.
If you would like to gain more perspective from Tech Leaders and CIOs you can read some of our other interviews here.