Recap: This Week's Virtual CIO Virtual Summit For the past eight years, SIMCAC has proudly partnered with HMG Strategy to bring the foremost CIO leadership conference to the Capital Area. The theme for this year’s summit – Leading Courageously Through a Crisis – is very timely and resonated well with attendees from both the private and public. Hunter Muller, HMG Strategy CEO and Mike Huthwaite, SIMCAC Chairman, opened the conference, welcomed attendees, and teed up the first session: an interview of Kristie Grinnell, Global CIO at General Dynamics Information Technology, who shared how they are leading and communicating differently with employees in the work-from-home environment. This includes listening to understand their personal and professional concerns in these difficult times and demonstrating empathy and compassion, in part, by encouraging staff to take time for themselves and their families. A series of top-tier executives provided keynote addresses in the first set of sessions which helped position the agenda for the event. Snehal Antani, Former CTO within the U.S. Department of Defense, shared the leadership lessons he learned during his two years working for the military. These lessons include reflecting on whether he acted as a dictator or as an enabler during a crisis and whether he sought blame members of his team for mistakes or whether he encouraged them for continuously improving. Speakers such as Coley Burke, CRO at Zerto, also discussed how business is being transformed by the crisis and that the status quo of how things are executed will be challenged going forward. Burke also shared that organizations that are wrestling with technical debt will find it very difficult to adapt and be agile in the new environment. To that end, organizations that have invested in cloud and digital technologies that can support remote work are finding that the investments are paying dividends in the work-from-home environment, said Marcus Session, VP of IT Services at Tampa International Airport.
The crisis has clearly shined a light on IT and its ability to keep the business operating and moving forward in this highly disruptive environment. Ken Grady, Corporate VP & CIO at IDEXX, shared that the impact that the IT organization is having on the company and to support its customers during this crisis is immeasurable. The event was well-attended and the focus on the top challenges and opportunities facing CIOs and IT leaders in these difficult times reflects the strength of the partnership between SIMCAC and HMG Strategy in delivering compelling content for SIMCAC members and other attendees. |