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.---------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---------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--------SponsorThis 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.--------LinksConnect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Madlin on LinkedInConnect with Colleen on LinkedInLearn more about the International Rescue CommitteeLearn more about ZendeskLearn 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.---------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---------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--------SponsorThis 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.--------LinksConnect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Tim on LinkedInConnect with Carrie on LinkedInLearn more about the University of GeorgiaLearn more about CeridianLearn 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.---------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---------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 --------SponsorThis 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.--------LinksConnect with Ian on LinkedInLearn 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. ---------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---------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--------SponsorThis 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.--------LinksConnect with Adam on LinkedInConnect with Marc on LinkedInLearn more about SimpliSafeLearn 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.---------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---------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--------SponsorThis 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.--------LinksConnect with Jason on LinkedInConnect with Ginna on LinkedInLearn more about VMwareLearn more about Zayo Group