Recognizing 50 top tech leaders who are leveraging technology to transform their companies and the role of the CIO.
By Diane Brady and Emmy Lucas, Forbes Staff
The chief information officer has become the shapeshifter of the C-suite in the digital era. They are the enablers who put technology at the heart of everything that the business aims to do. Increasingly, that means being the collector of data, the protector of privacy, the builder of systems and slayer of threats, in addition to being the innovator, transformer, talent energizer and strategic partner to leaders across the company.
That may explain why many of the technology leaders highlighted on the third annual Forbes CIO Next list bear titles other than CIO. Some have responsibility for strategy, data, innovation, transformation, security, delivery and – of course – all things digital. Others might not be called a CIO at all. In a world where everything is connected and the platform is the product, the lines between CTO and CIO have blurred.
Titles aside, there’s no question that the 50 honorees on this year’s list have embraced a broad leadership role that’s made them pivotal to their company’s success. Some are managing IT for the largest companies on the planet; others are founders or tech leaders who are role models and pioneers in capturing the next wave of innovation. They might be driving a wholesale transformation of the business or innovating in ways that create a template for others to follow.
By design, this list is not a ranking but rather a spotlight on the technology leaders who are shaping the next wave of business. We reviewed hundreds of nominations and applications for this year’s list, getting suggestions from colleagues, recruiters, industry experts and peers on who is making a difference in the areas that matter most. With so many outstanding contenders from which to choose, we excluded those who were featured on our 2021 and 2022 lists.
To be sure, the tech sector itself is experiencing a painful transition right now. The biggest players have collectively laid off hundreds of thousands of workers in recent months. One reason is the need to trim costs and look for efficiencies in a tougher economy. But an even bigger catalyst may be paranoia and the urge to restructure to lean into transformative technologies like generative AI.
When the disrupt-or-be-disrupted ethos takes hold during such seismic shifts, talent can seem disposable. What’s striking about many of the tech leaders on this year’s list is their instinct to put people first. They understand that most transformations fail because those who are driving them fail to get buy-in from the people who have to live with the results. In our interviews and application forms, nominators often referred to the ability of these leaders to make trust, transparency and communication the bedrock of whatever infrastructure they set out to create. They seek talent in unusual places and understand the importance of setting high-impact goals.
Their teams tend to be less smitten with the latest thing in technology than determined to leverage it to help change the world. They want to make an impact. In our view, that mindset and commitment to creating inclusive transformation is what distinguishes a highly competent tech leader from a truly great CIO.
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At Home
Sumit Anand
Position: Chief Information and Strategy Officer
Company: At Home
As chief information officer and head of strategy for Plano, Texas-based At Home Group, Anand is charged with making sure the 260-store chain has the tools to grow. With a business model that essentially brings fast fashion to the world of home decor, Anand’s team has to maintain a seamless supply chain for an ever-changing mix of up to 45,000 products that range from furniture and art to housewares and seasonal decor. To help do that, he centralized the business analytics function at the enterprise level and worked with partners to create data-driven tools for planning product mix, real estate, marketing strategies and more. He also rebranded the IT department as a “value first” team to emphasize its primary mission of collaboration–for example, in creating a new point-of-sale system that expands the options for how customers buy.
Goldman Sachs
Marco Argenti
Position: CIO
Company: Goldman Sachs
Argenti joined Goldman Sachs in 2019 after a six-year stint as VP of technology at Amazon Web Services. That experience helped the Italian-born engineer transform IT from being a support function to an external service: offering a cloud of financial services powered by Goldman Sachs that lets clients access tools to manage treasury operations and optimize working capital, for example, much like AWS offers access to a cloud of IT services. Another milestone: the launch of a proprietary tokenization platform that paves the way for market players to adopt blockchain technology for the future issuance of financial instruments. Along with fostering a new developer-centric approach, Argenti has brought a more commercial mindset to his team of 12,000+ engineers and a sense of urgency to the digital transformation of the firm.
McKesson Corporation
Nancy Avila
Position: Chief Information and Technology Officer
Company: McKesson Corporation
As CIO and CTO of medical distribution giant McKesson, Avila has to balance the core job of operating a critical supply network with innovating through data and technology. The robustness and reliability of McKesson’s e-commerce platform was tested when regulators chose it to distribute COVID vaccines to pharmacies, hospital systems and other players. But Avila’s team helped scale distribution capacity to 15 X the normal volume in less than 90 days, earning accolades for the results. She’s now mining data insights to transform go-to-market cancer therapies, along with investing in AI and other technologies to streamline service and security.
JPMorgan Chase
Lori Beer
Position: Global CIO
Company: JPMorgan Chase
With a $14 billion budget and more than 55,000 technologists working on technology at one of the world’s largest banks, Beer’s name shows up on many power lists. What got her on this one is how she’s leveraged her role to be a leader at JPMorgan and in the industry. Her track record and ability to link IT to broader business strategy is one reason that she sits on the bank’s operating committee. Her focus has been on firm-wide platforms such as a cloud-based core system, launched about 18 months ago, that moved the retail bank’s consumer products on to a single platform, allowing for more innovation and real-time transparency for customers. She has also made a significant effort, personally and professionally, to recruit and support women in STEM.
Land O’Lakes
Teddy Bekele
Position: CTO
Company: Land O’Lakes
Bekele has been instrumental in leveraging technology to bring old-school dairy products into the digital age through AI, IoT, predictive analytics and other technologies. With oversight for IT and the company’s Ag Tech organizations, he has focused on implementing data/technology solutions that help retail and farmer customers produce more sustainable outputs. But Bekele has also leveraged his expertise to take on a broader leadership and advocacy role: chairing the FCC’s precision agriculture connectivity and adoption task force, as well as the Minnesota Broadband Task Force, while helping found the American Connection Project to promote rural broadband access and digital inclusion.
Whirlpool
Danielle “Dani” Brown
Position: CIO
Company: Whirlpool
Brown has brought the power of data and technology to old-line manufacturers throughout her career, starting with Dupont and then as CIO of Brunswick Group. Since coming to Whirlpool in late 2020, Brown has helped to bring more visibility across the supply chain, as well as embedding more automation and analytics into the manufacturing operations. A Six Sigma Black Belt, she sees her role at leveraging data and technology to accelerate value creation. That means enabling more predictive analytics and diagnostics through IoT technologies and strategic leadership. Brown also serves on the board of PRA Group, a publicly traded global debt buyer.
SS&C Technologies Holdings
Anthony Caiafa
Position: CTO
Company: SS&C Technologies Holdings
Founded in 1986, this $5.3 billion software company continues to be a leader in helping financial services and healthcare clients automate a complex array of business processes. A key player in that growth is Caiafa, who has helped drive a push into new technologies and products in his five years as CTO. That includes building private-cloud infrastructure for clients and a marketplace for data services, as well as a joint venture in the pharmacy benefit management space. He has deftly integrated numerous acquired companies into SS&C’s technology offerings and culture. To recruit and engage top talent to a company that tends to operate in the background, much like its technology, Caiafa has helped foster an entrepreneurial atmosphere that lets everyone compete for funding on new ideas.
Schneider Electric (North America)
Robert “Bobby” Cain
Position: CIO
Company: Schneider Electric (North America)
Cain took an unusual path to the CIO role, starting in sales before leading the team charged with business transformation of the French electrical equipment giant’s North American operations. Add in 20 years of combined active and reserve service in the U.S. army and GE Black Belt training and you sense the prism through which Cain views his mission: with urgency, commitment and a focus on the customer. He has taken a leadership role in enabling Schneider to be a digital partner in meeting customers’ sustainability and efficiency needs while driving broader innovation goals. He also adopted the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) for his team, resulting in significant productivity gains.
FedEx
Robert “Rob” Carter
Position: CIO and EVP, FedEx Information Services
Company: FedEx
When technology is the central nervous system of your business and you’ve been leading and shaping it for more than two decades, you have to be good. FedEx founder Fred Smith called him the best in the world, making him part of the logistic giant’s five-person executive committee. “Legend” is the term that one recruiter uses for Carter, calling him “a long-term thinker who focuses on what drives the business and the end-to-end customer experience.” Not that Carter is taking recruiter calls, mind you, having joined FedEx in 1993. As co-President and co-CEO of FedEx Services, Carter is both a technological partner and a strategic advisor to the leaders of FedEx operating companies.
AB InBev
Nick Caton
Position: Chief B2B Officer
Company: AB InBev
Years before AB InBev’s global B2B digital commerce platform “BEES” came to market, Caton laid its digital foundation. Leveraging his background in mathematics, data science and revenue management, he’s also been instrumental in its success. He integrated fintech capabilities and machine learning, for example, enabling faster access to credit, reducing the approval time for loans from two weeks to roughly five hours. The platform, which also lets retailers and partners browse products, place orders, manage invoices and access insights, now boasts more than 3.1 million monthly active users in 20 countries. That may be why the wholesaling app recently signed on one of its biggest partners yet: Kraft Heinz Co.
Zurich Insurance
Ericson Chan
Position: Group Chief Information and Digital Officer
Company: Zurich Insurance
Zurich hired Chan in late 2020 to accelerate its digital transformation. The former CEO of China’s Ping An Technology has delivered, scaling technologies across the insurer’s value chain and, most recently, testing generative AI in analyzing claims data, patent investigations and risk modeling. He’s also created an integrated data platform to drive better decision making, and One Zurich, an app to help employees, visitors and contractors navigate the insurer’s operations, as well as a global API marketplace, making it easier to integrate with Zurich’s products and services. That’s in addition to acquisitions like Alpha Chat, an AI platform for messaging and chat automation, and Office Samurai, which specializes in process improvement and automation. What he’s brought to Zurich, one recruiter says, is “the future.”
Shell
Alisa Choong
Position: CIO
Company: Shell
As CIO of a global oil and gas giant, Choong’s priorities include addressing climate change through technology. She created the Sustainability IT Group to work with partners and suppliers to reach the goal of a net-zero-emission supply chain by 2030. As part of the push, she moved high-performance computing to a data center fully powered by green energy. Her team handles over 4 trillion events and alerts annually, making cybersecurity and risk mitigation top priorities that they’re addressing through, among other things, pioneering work in digital twin technologies that deploy AI, IoT and machine learning to feed data from sensors into a virtual twin that analyzes problems and ways to boost performance. Choong believes one way to boost performance is through diversity, equity and inclusion: she has gender balance on her own leadership team and more than 35% at the next level down. She has also prioritized technologies and strategies to make the workplace more accessible and engaging for employees with disabilities.
Verizon
Jane Connell
Position: CIO of Corporate Systems, Verizon Global Technology Solutions
Company: Verizon
Connell is leading an end-to-end transformation of global technology services for $136.8 billion-a-year telecom giant. Among other things, she is tasked with boosting efficiencies, visibility and compliance for Verizon Wireless supply chain planning, purchasing, accounting, inventory management, installation and external reporting—what a colleague describes as “one of the largest internal endeavors in years.” Having previously served in CIO roles at State Street Bank and Johnson & Johnson, Connell knows all about the challenge of navigating complex organizations and people who work in them. One reason she succeeds is her commitment to fostering diversity and employee engagement.
Tanium
Chris Cruz
Position: CIO, Public Sector
Company: Tanium
Cruz spent much of the past three decades focused on making California’s IT infrastructure innovative, efficient, accessible and safe–whether as CIO of the agencies handling healthcare and agriculture or Deputy State CIO. Two years ago, he left the government to join Tanium as the cybersecurity management firm’s public-sector CIO. Along with helping the company and its clients transform their cybersecurity strategy, Cruz has used his perch to advise governments worldwide on procedures and policies. One example where his experience in the world’s largest sub-national economy proved valuable: California’s Cal-Secure, a cybersecurity roadmap aimed at helping agencies big and small better manage existing and future threats. Cruz has used it as a template in working with NATO and other global entities to improve their own security operations.
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Texas Children’s Hospital
Myra Davis
Position: Chief Information Innovation Officer
Company: Texas Children’s Hospital
At the Houston-based nonprofit Texas Children’s Hospital, Davis added chief innovation officer to her CIO title in 2019, combining the two roles to smooth transitions between innovative projects and IT operations. “The CIO is a conventional run-and-maintain role and the innovation officer gets to do all the sexy [projects] and then they toss [these] over to the CIO…with no budget and typically no resources to support them,” Davis told Forbes in 2020. Now with 20 years at the healthcare organization so far, Davis is keeping its IT operations and innovations fit as a fiddle, leading over 500 biomedical engineers and IT workers. Davis’ innovations include creating an online scheduling system, advancing their cybersecurity program and establishing the Innovation Hub, a team dedicated to developing new technologies and projects, to name a few.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Vid Desai
Position: CIO
Company: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
As CIO of the Food and Drug Administration, Desai is modernizing the agency that regulates 78% of the U.S. food supply. To do that, he created an office of digital transformation (ODT) in 2021 to better align technology, data, and cybersecurity to drive business change. A longtime tech leader in private-sector medical companies, he also developed three widely praised “modernization action plans” that create a strategic framework for transforming the enterprise, cybersecurity and leadership, building on his earlier modernization action plans for technology and data. Together, they represent a bold and holistic vision for public-sector transformation that’s made Desai one of the most innovative tech leaders working in government.
PayPal
Archana “Archie” Deskus
Position: CIO
Company: PayPal
Deskus has an extensive track record in leading large-scale transformations in industries ranging from aerospace and consumer products to oil-field services and enterprise technology. One recruiter describes her as a strategic leader who thinks beyond her function to understand the transformative power of technology across a business. That’s made her a valuable player at PayPal, where she came from Intel last year to work with colleagues like CTO Sri Shivananda on accelerating the push to optimize internal processes at a time when competition has increased, along with economic uncertainty and cyber attacks. Despite the tough brief, outgoing CEO Dan Schulman’s recent purchase of $2 million of stock is a positive sign that the digital payments giant is on the right track.
Advance Auto Parts
Sri Donthi
Position: CTO
Company: Advance Auto Parts
To understand Donthi’s accomplishments, it helps to understand the IT organization that the former PepsiCo executive took over in 2018. The aftermarket parts provider had a mishmash of disparate legacy systems, each operating in isolation to handle functions like HR, finance and supply chain. Along with integrating multiple systems and processes while streamlining the supply chain, Donthi created a dynamic real-time pricing capability that boosted margins by giving colleagues more tools to assess and respond to market conditions. He also modernized the selling system, which enabled the company to offer new benefits to loyalty members, and moved data to the cloud. The payoff did not come from one breakthrough technology but rather the sum of many technologies and actions, relentlessly executed to drive change.
The Cigna Group
Noelle Eder
Position: Global CIO
Company: The Cigna Group
Eder is charged with making Cigna’s commitment to a customer-centric future of healthcare a reality. That includes creating the infrastructure to offer enhanced, real-time access to comprehensive health information, personalized health recommendations, and a more integrated care experience. Over the past year, her team has been building the foundation for this future with architecture that’s designed for adaptability and scale, both of which are critical in the heavily-regulated sector. One example is a behavioral healthcare pilot, launched in August 2022, that delivers personalized care for those diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Among other things, it enabled Cigna to complete 85% of appointments within 10 days of the initial request, vs. an industry average of up to 90 days. Another bonus: The Cigna Group was recently ranked #1 health care by JUST Capital for Protecting Customer Privacy.
Abbott
Sabina Ewing
Position: CIO and VP of Business and Technology Services
Company: Abbott
Since coming to the Chicago-based healthcare giant in 2020, Ewing has played a pivotal role in helping Abbott decentralize, democratize, and digitize healthcare. Among the initiatives she’s championed: a mobile app that links Covid-19 test results to users’ phones, providing validated proof of negative results. Praised by one consultant as a “visionary change leader and master storyteller,” Ewing frequently talks about the importance of intentional leadership and investing in people to win. With her ambitious digital transformation roadmap for Abbott, those traits could prove critical.
NJ Transit
Lookman Fazal
Position: Chief Information and Digital Officer
Company: NJ Transit
Overseeing a fleet of 2,221 buses, 1,231 trains and 93 light rail vehicles operating across a service area of 5,325 square miles on infrastructure that was largely built in the 1800s is not the usual perch from which to innovate. But Fazal has made NJ Transit a model for how cities can adapt aging infrastructure for the digital age. Along with the usual mobile apps and digital signage, Fazal launched an unmanned aerial system of drones in May to monitor for track obstructions and assist with maintenance. After staff were certified to operate drones, the transit authority gained approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to become a Public Aircraft Operator, and secured waivers for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations in tactical and emergency situations. Drones have cut more than $200,000 in costs so far. Inspecting the Newark Drawbridge, for example, no longer requires a crane, crew, bridge climbers and emergency boat rescue personnel, not to mention the service disruption of power cuts.
Cardinal Health
Michelle Greene
Position: CIO
Company: Cardinal Health
The pandemic-induced pivot to increased telemedicine appointments has many healthcare companies rethinking their digital transformations. At Cardinal Health, a healthcare company with about $180 billion in revenue for fiscal 2022, Greene is focused on both internal and external transformation. She and her team identify solutions for suppliers, employees and patients’ needs, such as Decision Path, an electronic health records system and cost-tracking tool that provides out-of-pocket service expenses to patients at appointments in real time, as well as solutions to streamline company processes and recruit talent. Involved in the Women’s Impact Network leadership team and BOLD, Cardinal Health’s Black and African American employee resource group, Greene has also been vocal about her focus on engaging and retaining top talent.
Lowe’s
Seemantini Godbole
Position: Chief Digital and Information Officer
Company: Lowe’s
While customers look for their next home improvement project or to redesign their kitchen, Lowe’s Chief Digital and Information Officer Godbole and her team are developing the virtual and augmented technologies to bring those visions and projects to life. Last year, for example, in partnership with Google Cloud using its new Immersive Stream for XR platform and under Godbole’s leadership, Lowe’s introduced Infinite Kitchen, a 3D-rendering tool that allows users to create, personalize and visualize kitchen designs from a mobile device. To further expand its tool offerings, the home improvement retailer also opened its products to metaverse builders, making 3D products available to download and introducing wearable NFTs. Godbole is also focused on innovating internal processes for the company and its employees. One latest project includes Project Unlock, an initiative using RFID chips and blockchain to discreetly address organized retail crime. And with a focus on tech talent, a helper in these innovations is Lowe’s’ recently opened Tech Hub, a 357,000-square-foot space in Charlotte, North Carolina, that will employ up to 2,000, the company said.
Code42
Jadee Hanson
Position: CIO and CISO
Company: Code42
How do you manage security and IT in a company that essentially offers it as a product? For Hanson, whose Minneapolis-based firm sells cybersecurity software, the answer lies in also building the right culture. As CIO and CISO at Code42, Hansen has positioned herself and her team as partners in streamlining processes and creating solutions as problems come up. Hanson encouraged her team to learn to code, for example, so that they could understand the challenges developers face and work with them in addressing security gaps. While her CIO role involves bringing in strategic tools to drive growth and her CISO side centers on protecting the organization, both roles are really woven together. In the fast-changing realm of cybersecurity, she believes the most important skills are to stay curious and keep learning as the problems and tools to solve them evolve. She also stays engaged on the front lines, reworking the company’s corporate technology infrastructure after the company spun out from its legacy backup business. Although her company may only have 320 people, Hanson punches above her weight in terms of influence, from educating peers on topics like insider risk and board presentations to hosting events where more than 150 Girl Scouts have earned cybersecurity badges.
Cargill
Jennifer “Jen” Hartsock
Position: Chief Information and Digital Officer
Company: Cargill
As a CIO, Hartsock has long embraced the power of data and digital transformation in driving business growth. From her early days at Caterpillar to GE Oil and Gas, where she led the merger with Baker Hughes and then became CIO there, she’s developed a track record of successfully managing complex global technology organizations. As CIDO of Cargill, she’s now also charged with helping the privately held global food giant unlock the power of data and digital technology to drive top-line growth. A self-described problem solver, Hartsock also earns praise as an inclusive leader who builds diverse leadership teams.
Canva
Dave Hearnden
Position: CTO
Company: Canva
As one of Canva’s first hires a decade ago, Hearnden has been instrumental in shaping the design software company’s engineering culture and the innovations that have fueled its success. What convinced him to abandon his job as a senior engineer at Google for the-then nascent startup was a pitch deck from CEO Melanie Perkins in which a man named Dave longed for adventure. Hearnden became instrumental in making Canva a leader in collaborative editing technology. For Canva’s Design Editor, he drove a modular architecture that has scaled to hundreds of engineers contributing features in parallel–enabling Canva to rapidly evolve to meet demand and integrate AI-powered features such as Magic Write, an intelligent copywriting assistant. He also played a key role in the development and global rollout of Canva Docs, enabling the company’s 115 million+ monthly users to create visual documents on the site.
Lenovo
Arthur “Art” Hu
Position: Global CIO and Chief Technology and Delivery Officer, Services & Solutions Group
Company: Lenovo
Hu has turned the global CIO job into a multidisciplinary leadership role that has impact across Lenovo. That may be why he was also tapped to be CTDO of its Solutions and Services Group. The “D” stands for delivery, as Hu’s mission is to build, test and internally deploy solutions in areas such as workforce productivity, infrastructure flexibility, and sustainability before the company commercializes them externally. One recruiter describes him as “an innovator who knows the job of transformation and building resilience is never done.” His IT team also worked closely with the ESG team to develop a Smart Carbon Neutral Building Solution for Lenovo’s Beijing campus and launched its own EnVision metaverse, a platform that focuses on enterprise applications.
Honeywell
Sheila Jordan
Position: Chief Digital Technology Officer
Company: Honeywell
Following years of acquisitions, data and technologies became siloed and fragmented for multinational conglomerate Honeywell, which provides products and solutions to aerospace and manufacturing companies. Chief Digital Technology Officer Jordan spent the last year leading Honeywell’s digital transformation, producing more than $700 million in returns on IT investments. The company launched its Enterprise Data Warehouse, a data tool that tracks customers’ habits and provides insights on changes in the market such as predicting trends and identifying opportunities. In action, the platform matched increased inflation rates with the company’s pricing strategies in order to fight inflation and ensure its supply chain operates as usual. Since 2018, from process automation to new technologies, Jordan has helped generate $1 billion for Honeywell across gross margin, productivity and working capital, the company said.
The Walt Disney Company
Diane Jurgens
Position: CIO and EVP, Enterprise Technology
Company: The Walt Disney Company
From her first job as an engineer at Boeing to a CIO at General Motors and now Disney, Jurgens has led technology teams in 25 countries throughout her career. Since joining Disney in 2020, she has leveraged technology and innovation to streamline company operations and oversees the media and entertainment company’s enterprise technology organization, which focuses on digital transformation, cybersecurity, architecture and standards, and cloud and data engineering. Jurgens’ global background is also coming in handy as she represents Disney as a board member for the nonprofit U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum.
Dow
Melanie Kalmar
Position: CIO and Chief Digital Officer
Company: Dow
Transforming a 125-year-old chemical company into a materials science leader in “innovative and sustainable” solutions is no easy task. Part of Kalmar’s success lies in translating technology into the language of business. Whether she’s merging IT systems or launching a predictive analytics product, Kalmar looks at digital transformation as an enabler, not an end in itself.” By accelerating digital investments and embedding IT leaders in business and functional teams, she’s on her way to creating a digital Dow – with digital sales expected to account for half of all sales by 2025. The Dow veteran, who joined out of school in 1987, is also a past president of Michigan Council of Women in Technology and leader in sponsoring DEI efforts at the company.
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CVS Health
Tilak Mandadi
Position: Chief Data, Digital and Technology Officer
Company: CVS Health
When your job is to lead the transformation strategy of a massive healthcare company that operates a retail chain, a pharmacy benefits manager and a health insurance provider, among others, it never hurts to have experience in handling millions of customers. Mandadi joined CVS Health last year in the newly created Chief Data, Digital and Technology Officer role after stints in senior roles at MGM International, Disney and American Express. Along with streamlining processes and enhancing the digital customer experience, Mandadi’s team is creating an integrated healthcare platform that’s compliant and competitive against the many players who want into this space.
Sodexo
Agnès Mauffrey
Position: Global CIO
Company: Sodexo
With 422,000 employees serving 100 million consumers in 53 countries, Sodexo has long leveraged the power of technology. Under Mauffrey, the French food services and facilities management giant has sharpened its focus on technology as an enabler of better service–from cleaning robots to smart vending machines–and better employee experiences. Through the Sodexo Data & AI Factory, the team is harnessing data to better understand customers, using AI to optimize operations and elevate the customer experience and deploying predictive modeling to forecast demand and priorities. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver more sustainable food and a better experience for customers and employees.
Mastercard Technology
Ed McLaughlin
Position: President and CTO
Company: Mastercard Technology
McLaughlin oversees the company’s technology functions, including the global payments network, enterprise platforms, technology infrastructure and operations, information security and global technology hubs. With billions of digital transactions running daily across its network, his team is of course working on the cutting edge of advanced AI, quantum computing and other technologies to get ahead of the threats and opportunities. Having been a CIO clearly helps. But what’s getting noticed by peers is his innovative use of technology to create a more effective hiring process that’s resulted in 4x engagement with highly qualified engineers.
Bristol Myers Squibb
Greg Meyers
Position: Chief Digital and Technology Officer
Company: Bristol Myers Squibb
Although he has been in the role for a little more than a year, Meyers has already made an impact. One reason may be that he came to the pharmaceutical giant with a strong track record of managing digital transformation and disruption in industries from agriculture to technology hardware, as well as other life science companies. Along with leading the IT organization, where he’s using technology to accelerate the discovery, development and delivery of drugs, Meyers runs the company’s new digital health group. The goal there is to develop new tools to diagnose, treat and monitor patients, such as a partnership with Fitbit to detect atrial fibrillation, which can lead to strokes if untreated and a Bluetooth-enabled patch called TempTraq that monitors serious side effects from a type of cancer therapy. To drive change in the highly regulated and fragmented realm of healthcare, Meyers believes BMS has to partner with innovators and other stakeholders to realize the promise of tech-driven healthcare.
Indeed
Anthony Moisant
Position: CIO and Chief Security Officer
Company: Indeed
Moisant has the double-barreled task of keeping Indeed ahead of the curve in technology while combating ever-changing risks. That means reducing friction while building new capabilities, giving Indeed employees the tools they need to help job seekers and employers match while being vigilant in safeguarding them. What has made Moisant especially potent in the role is the personal experience that he brings to the job. A former nuclear submarine sailor in the US Navy, Moisant frequently shares his own story of being homeless and dealing with trauma. He credits his military experience with teaching him how to redeploy skills in new ways and being resilient in tough times, and treat security less as a hunt for the weakest link than a shared mission requiring diverse strengths. Those skills should come in handy as he helps create the infrastructure for Indeed to transition from a job search site to a matching-and-hiring platform.
OpenAI
Mira Murati
Position: CTO
Company: OpenAI
It’s been a good year for the chief technology officer at OpenAI. Her company stunned the world in November when it released ChapGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that can generate poetry, code and even solid answers on college-level tests. Within two months, it had 100 million users, becoming the fast-growing consumer app in history. [Dall-E does the same for images.] The Albanian-born Murati, who worked on AI-enable software for Tesla and augmented reality programs for Leap Motion, is acutely aware of dangers of what she’s creating. Along with using her high-profile perch to call for regulation and accountability around AI, she recently joined the board of Unlearn, which is trying to use AI to eliminate trial and error in medicine. As Unlearn’s CEO tweeted: “ Mira has shown that she knows more about building and shipping AI-based products than just about anyone else.”
MetLife
Bill Pappas
Position: Head of Global Technology and Operations
Company: MetLife
Pappas brings broad leadership experience to the role, having held senior operating roles at Bank of America and GE. Since joining MetLife in 2019, he has revamped the insurer’s operating model and leveraged data and technology to improve the customer experience. That includes developing 360 Health, which enables a growing number of customers to access 40 health services from their mobile device and pivoting off data insights to overhaul the self-service experience. With the gains have come new challenges: Like many companies, MetLife saw women in STEM roles leave the company at a higher rate than their male peers during the pandemic. Pappas has made diversity a top priority, with gender parity on his leadership team and initiatives across the company. Raised by a single mother in Greece, he saw the importance of support in her success and he says a diverse employee base is critical to achieve their health equity targets for customers.
Cisco
Fletcher Previn
Position: CIO
Company: Cisco
A systems engineer by training, Previn has earned a reputation for guiding large organizations through significant shifts. He rose through the ranks at IBM to become Global CIO of a 12,000-strong team as before moving to Cisco in 2021. Previn has since organized Cisco IT around improving the employee experience by embedding a design and research team within the IT department, resulting in higher satisfaction scores for IT. He’s also helped reimagine Cisco’s hybrid-work model by creating a mobile app directory that saw more than 10,000 downloads in the first 24 hours of its launch, and 1 Password, which generates and stores unique passwords for users across multiple devices. And happier employees make it easier to implement the systems, infrastructure, and technical capabilities to create secure global IT at scale.
Eli Lilly and Company
Diogo Rau
Position: Chief Information and Digital Officer
Company: Eli Lilly and Company
It’s no accident that Rau came to Eli Lilly from a role as head of engineering for Apple’s online store and retail operations. His mission at the $28.5 billion pharmaceutical giant: to redefine what’s possible through technology. That means leveraging AI and machine learning to identify potential new medicines, developing digital and big data solutions to improve how they work, and finding new ways to engage people as patients, employees and partners. Under his leadership, Lilly has replaced 1.2 million hours of human activity with digital solutions–what Lilly calls a ‘digital workforce,’ allowing people to focus on more complex work.
Ceridian
Carrie Rasmussen
Position: CIO
Company: Ceridian
At HR software company Ceridian, Rasmussen leads IT with an automation-first approach to improve workplace efficiencies and performance—from creating an enterprise architecture team focused on IT agility to establishing a cloud-based company strategy. When Rasmussen introduced new IT standards, it saved the company $6.5 million in technology costs, which was then put back into the IT budget. The Bay Area-based CIO also helped launch Ceridian’s first robotic process automation tool, which rolled out at Ford Motor Company’s Canadian operations last year. Outside of work, Rasmussen is involved in T200, a peer group focused on uplifting women in technology.
Global Payments
Guido Sacchi
Position: CIO
Company: Global Payments
Sacchi’s main job: making sure the technology that processed more than 64 billion transactions last year is fast, reliable and secure worldwide. While doing that, he launched a new analytics platform for merchants last year that boasts 60,000 active users and is generating $50 million in annual revenue. Then there is the partnership with Google that enables GP’s small and midsize merchants to create marketing campaigns or launch loyalty programs alongside managing payments. A partnership with AWS that gives financial clients tools to run their businesses worldwide, meanwhile, has boosted client retention and the win rate on new opportunities. Among those wins: two recently-announced partnerships with the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Braves to be the official commerce technology provider for State Farm Arena and Truist Park.
Delta Airlines
Rahul Samant
Position: CIO
Company: Delta Airlines
Samant often talks about how IT is a critical part of the customer experience at Delta. Navigating weather shifts, flight restrictions, crew schedules, lost bags and 4,000 flights a day can go from being tough to being a disaster without a robust IT infrastructure. But Samant has earned a reputation as a leader who thinks much more broadly about leveraging technology to engage with customers, build the brand and empower front-line employees with better tools. “He views the business with a CEO’s mindset,” says one recruiter. That may be why Delta has consistently come out on top in rankings about airline quality, on-time departures and customer service.
Roblox
Daniel Sturman
Position: CTO
Company: Roblox
As chief technology officer of online game creation platform Roblox, Sturman oversees a team of more than 1,400 engineers—the developers who create the company’s immersive metaverse experiences and programming tools for roughly 60 million daily users. Under Sturman’s leadership, recent innovations include Chat with Voice, a feature that allows players to talk directly within a game experience—whether it’s a whisper or scream. As a specialized 3D cloud provider, Roblox promises experiences across any supported platform will automatically scale up to several million concurrent players within seconds—thanks to two core data centers, 100,000+ servers, and 20+ global edge data centers. No wonder Sturman also created machine learning models that can instantaneously identify, without a human review, up to 60% of experiences that violate the company’s community standards.
AT&T
Jon Summers
Position: CIO
Company: AT&T
Summers is leading AT&T’s technology transformation, and 2022 was a year of significant accomplishments and modernization for his team. The company has a goal of retiring legacy systems and applications, modernizing critical applications and moving them to the public cloud wherever possible. In recent years, the telecom giant has decommissioned 125,000 servers and shut down about 2,000 applications while moving 2,250 others to the public cloud. Summers is also helping lead an effort called Project Raindrops aimed at streamlining internal processes. Simply eliminating a second confirmation page that popped up after employees logged on, for example, saves about 300 million clicks annually. Thus far, the team has created 166 solutions that have saved about $186 million and three million hours of work.
Infosys
Rafee Tarafdar
Position: CTO
Company: Infosys
Tarafdar believes small steps can lead to a big transformation. To transform the legacy systems of Infosys into agile, digital ecosystems, he initiated a series of micro-changes every six weeks. That enabled teams to evolve and learn while maintaining resilience at scale. He also co-authored a book on the process, The Live Enterprise, applied it to accelerate transformation for clients and packaged the 200+ shared digital infrastructure services and microplatforms as SaaS (software as a service) and PaaS (platform as a service) offerings. Tarafdar is now leading a push to make Infosys an AI-first company. One example is a centralized tax platform Infosys created that can process 9,500 tax returns per minute. Tarafdar also founded the Strategic Technology Group, creating a new stream of tech specialists who work on complex cloud and digital transformation initiatives.
Lineage Logistics
Sudarsan Thattai
Position: CIO & Chief Transformation Officer
Company: Lineage Logistics
Thattai is responsible for innovating the world’s largest temperature-controlled and logistics solutions provider, which transports more than 30% of temperature-controlled food in the U.S. and 10% worldwide. The overarching goal: to keep food fresh and eliminate waste while reducing costs. One example is a next-generation distribution center for Smithfield Foods, opened in Olathe, Kansas last year, that automates more than 97% of product movement. Other initiatives aim to greater visibility over the entire supply chain to customers, and even customers’ customers. Along with developing technologies and partnerships, Thattai has played a key role in acquiring technology players like Turvo, a leading provider of supply chain management, collaboration, and visibility software. That’s put Lineage in a key position to help transform the global food supply chain.
Amazon
Werner Vogels
Position: CTO
Company: Amazon
When your product is the platform, being chief technology officer takes on a different meaning. In addition to being one of the forces behind Amazon’s approach to cloud computing, Vogels spearheads the company’s customer-centric technology vision and innovation. He is often the voice of Amazon on the trends and the technologies that are transforming business.. He has also been influential in shaping the discussion, within Amazon and beyond, about leveraging new technologies to solve various business, social and environmental challenges. From his Now Go Build show to his annual tech predictions, Vogels uses his perch to be a champion of the transformative power of IT.
Wells Fargo
Ather Williams III
Position: Head of Strategy, Digital and Innovation
Company: Wells Fargo
Williams knows that failure can come from measuring the wrong numbers. He saw it when working as CFO for a Bay area startup that got plenty of eyeballs and not enough money. He’s seen the price that Wells Fargo paid for prioritizing profits at the expense of its customers prior to his arrival. As he leads the digital transformation of the bank, he prioritizes security over speed when the two come into conflict, arguing that it can take a second to lose trust and years to gain it back. With that trust will come opportunities to play a bigger role in helping people achieve financial health – and his employer achieve sustainable growth.
McKinsey
Jacky Wright
Position: Chief Technology and Platform Officer
Company: McKinsey
In November, Wright left her role as chief digital officer at Microsoft to become McKinsey’s first chief technology officer. Along with overseeing the consulting firm’s internal technology team that serves about 40,000 employees in 66 countries, Wright is charged with streamlining processes while accelerating the implementation of new technologies and platforms. A top priority: leveraging technology to create equitable employment opportunities for underserved groups, while creating new offerings for employees and clients. Her 20-plus-year career includes stints as CIO at BP and General Electric and a chief digital and information officer for the U.K. government.
Databricks
Naveen Zutshi
Position: CIO
Company: Databricks
If there’s one company that didn’t seem in need of a CIO last year, it was Databricks. And yet Zutshi has made an impact since his arrival as the first-ever CIO of the data management software powerhouse. He evolved the technology to keep up with rapid growth of the data “lakehouse” platform—so named as it combines the benefits of a data warehouse and data lake into one platform. At the same time, the former CIO of Palo Alto Networks also consolidated redundant apps and automated processes, reducing internal software spending by 30% in three months, and built out a compliance infrastructure in preparation for a possible IPO. He did this while creating and iterating on a hybrid work structure for an employee base that nearly doubled in size.
