IT Visionaries

After more than 20 years with Panasonic, Magnus McDermid (LinkedIn) has learned a lot about what it means to truly partner with a customer, and the types of innovations and advancements that can be born out of those relationships. Magnus holds a number of positions within Panasonic, including SVP of Panasonic North America and Panasonic Canada, President of Heartland Customer Solutions, SVP Mobility Solutions USA and VP Enterprise Solutions Canada. But regardless of what title he holds, Magnus explains that his success, and the success of the company as a whole, all comes down to the relationship with the customer. It is through those relationships that some of Panasonic’s most popular and important products have been created, and the partnership between company and consumer continues to be a well of innovation. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Magnus talks about all of that and more, plus he gives his advice on how to stick with and grow a company for decades. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper Salesforce just introduced Salesforce Blockchain, the industry's first truly declarative blockchain platform, integrated into your CRM. Learn more at https://sforce.co/2wl7IeO.

Welcome to our third CIO Roundtable. Joining us at the table this time are Brian Lillie (LinkedIn), who won CIO of the Year for Silicon Valley in 2014 while he was in the role for Equinix, and Kumud Kalia (LinkedIn), a multiple-time CIO who most recently held the title at Cylance. Together with Ian they discuss having a sounding board of other CIOs to talk to, leveraging your network to get things done internally, work-life balance, and how to be both a good CIO and a good person, and so much more.   If you’d like to check out our previous CIO Roundtables click here and here or any of our other episodes check out Mission.org/ITVisionaries. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper This podcast is sponsored by Salesforce. Did you know Salesforce isn't just for Sales? Using Salesforce as an Employee Experience Platform helps make every employee across your organization more productive thanks to a common, mobile-first platform for getting work done faster. Find out more at salesforce.com/EmployeeExperiencece

Marcus Carey (Twitter, LinkedIn), the founder and CEO of Threatcare, actually grew up in Texas with very little access to technology. But that changed when he joined the Navy and went into cryptology. While serving the country, Marcus worked with the most advanced tech in the world. And, when his service time was finished, he stayed in the field working in various government agencies for a number of years. At Threatcare, Marcus applies the lessons he’s learned along the way to help his customers secure their data and test their cybersecurity. In this interview, he and Ian talk about what it means to be a white-hat hacker versus a black-hat hacker, creating automated technology, and finding your superpower. Topics Discussed: Technology, cryptography, white-hat hacking, black-hat hacking, cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, leadership. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.

We are living in a digital world. But what does the term “digital” actually mean? Paul Roehrig is currently the head of strategy at Cognizant, and he joined IT Visionaries to dive deep into that question. Plus, he discusses what the future of work looks like, and why we should not fear automation and robots.  Key Takeaways: Redefining the word “digital” The day-to-day responsibilities of the head of strategy What does the future of work look like? Why we should fear not the bot IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform

Alvina Antar is the CIO of Zuora and known as ‘The Subscription Economy CIO.’ She previously spent 17 years at Dell focused on Digital Transformation, Global Delivery, and Mergers and Acquisitions. We had Alvina on IT Visionaries to discuss her road to becoming CIO, the challenges that CIOs face as they transition to this subscription economy, the changing role of IT, and how CIOs need to be visionary. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @TheMissionHQ

John Roese is the Global Chief Technology Officer of Products and Operations at Dell Technologies and he’s helping guide the company on its journey as one of the largest and most influential in the tech world. From hyperconnectivity to 5G to computing on the edge, John says that Dell Technologies has a hand in all of it, and each of those innovations will eventually change the internet and the world as a whole. He explains all of that on this episode.  Key Takeaways: Being a CTO is about properly calculating and executing business initiatives The future of the internet will be dictated by hyperconnectivity, 5G and edge computing Digital transformation is a never-ending journey IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform

When you picture a robot, what images come to your mind? Is it R2-D2 or C3PO? Maybe a Roomba or the Terminator? That’s not unusual, but mostly that is not real life. In today’s world, we have robots, automation, and A.I. everywhere, just not in the way people think. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Ian chats with Guy Kirkwood, the chief evangelist at UiPath, and Jordan Collard, the CEO and co-founder of Jolt Advantage Group about the robots they’re working on in the RPA industry. RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation and it is working its way into Fortune 500 companies at a rapid pace as everyone tries to find more ways to work more quickly and efficiently. Together, the trio explores how RPA is implemented and go through use cases that prove you can go from a task taking 16 days, to it being done within four hours. Plus, they discuss the future of the industry and how to get more people interested and invested in the technology.   Key Takeaways: What exactly is RPA? Who will be using RPA in the future and how will it be implemented? How to build an ecosystem of customers who are excited and invested. To learn more about RPA and how to build a robot of your own, look for upcoming events with Jolt here: https://www.joltag.com/webinars-events?utm_source=mission Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper This podcast is sponsored by Salesforce. Did you know Salesforce isn't just for Sales? Using Salesforce as an Employee Experience Platform helps make every employee across your organization more productive thanks to a common, mobile-first platform for getting work done faster. Find out more at salesforce.com/EmployeeExperience

Blak Hall is the CEO and founder of ID.me, which is solving the problem of verifying your identity online. To be sure, as more and more of our commerce and day-to-day- activities move online, it becomes even more important to keep your identity secure and verified. But we all know how annoying it is to fill out all the same information on form after form on website after website. Why can’t we just verify our identity once and take it with us through all our internet activities? That’s what Blake and his team at ID.me are allowing their customers to do, and it is already making an impact. On this episode, Blake explains the origins of ID.me, which trace back to his time as an Army Ranger, and takes us through some use cases that prove the success of ID.me’s technology.    Key Takeaways: Going from Army Ranger to tech founder The value of verified identity Determining your business model Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper This podcast is sponsored by Salesforce. Did you know Salesforce isn't just for Sales? Using Salesforce as an Employee Experience Platform helps make every employee across your organization more productive thanks to a common, mobile-first platform for getting work done faster. Find out more at salesforce.com/EmployeeExperience

In his second appearance on the podcast, Juan Perez, the Chief Information and Engineering Officer for UPS, discusses creating a diverse workforce. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.

Ali Bouhouch (LinkedIn) has more than 20 years of experience in the tech industry and he currently serves as the CTO & VP of Enterprise Architecture at SEPHORA. It may seem odd that a makeup company has such an intense focus on tech, but when you dig a little deeper, it’s clear that technology is a key driver in the retail industry and a large part of how Sephora will grow in the future. In this episode, Ali and Ian discuss applications that allow customers to virtually try on Sephora products, how the company is using AI and big data and so much more. Topics Discussed: Innovation, AI, retail, VR, technology, customer experience, machine learning, applications. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.

Learn what it takes to be a leader in the tech field from IT Visionaries, Paul Chapman, Juan Perez, Mark Settle, Susie Wee, and Mark Rackley. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.

On this episode of IT Visionaries, we’re excited to welcome back Jason Warner, the CTO at GitHub. In his second appearance on the pod, Jason was excited to discuss how there has never been a better time to be a developer or an engineer looking to climb the ranks in the industry. Plus, he took us through some of the trends he’s been seeing in the technology world, including how people are working in the cloud and what ways those in the field are effecting change. Key Takeaways: There has never been a better time to be a developer As a leader, you have to optimize for the entire team, not just individuals Creating more developers and improving their skills is a top priority --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform

Michael Machado (LinkedIn), senior director of product for Einstein deep learning solutions, Ceverly Strand (LinkedIn), product marketer for Einstein, and Julien Sauvage (LinkedIn), head of tech and product marketing for Einstein all stopped by Mission HQ for this special episode of IT Visionaries. This Salesforce crew is part of the team that is bringing Einstein and voice technology to customers everywhere, and they took some time away from the labs to discuss with Ian all the ways Salesforce is doing innovative work in this exciting field, what is going on in the AI marketplace, explain what deep learning technology actually is, and look into the future and talk about what technology of the future has them most excited. Topics Discussed: Voice technology, deep learning, AI, IT, unstructured data. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.

Sri Shivananda is PayPal’s SVP and CTO, which is a long way away from his original dream of being a pilot in the Indian Air Force. But being the SVP and CTO of a payment company that in 2018 did $578B in total payment volume and 9.9B transactions in 200 different markets in about a hundred different currencies is still a pretty big deal. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Sri takes us through his journey and explains all the ways that PayPal has made an impact on the way people make payments in the digital age.  Key Takeaways: Payments are becoming more ambient Cryptocurrencies are more of an asset than a currency PayPal innovates in three main ways IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform

Inspiration comes from all over. For Tim Tully, the CTO of Splunk, much of the inspiration for his work can be found in science fiction, TV shows and even the world of superheroes. Tim sees himself as a sort of Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) because he’s helping build the tech of the future. In fact, he’s been building forward-looking tech since the early days of the Internet. On this episode of IT Visionaries hosted by Mission CEO Chad Grills, Tim discusses how you can be aspirational in your design while still delivering exceptional usability. And he touches on the future of technology, including with mobile and where we’re going with AR and VR. Key Takeaways: How Tim got his start Learning to be a CTO Recruiting talent Why mobile is the future Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper This podcast is sponsored by Salesforce. Did you know Salesforce isn't just for Sales? Using Salesforce as an Employee Experience Platform helps make every employee across your organization more productive thanks to a common, mobile-first platform for getting work done faster. Find out more at salesforce.com/EmployeeExperience

Kumud Kalia (LinkedIn) is the Chief Information & Technology Officer at Cylance, responsible for the strategy, implementation, and management of the infrastructure and applications that support Cylance’s business processes. On this episode, he and Ian talk all things AI, including how Cylance is using AI to protect everything under the sun, and the challenge of finding the right way to use technology to achieve business outcomes. Topics Discussed: Cybersecurity, AI, machine learning, CIOs, relationship building, business outcomes. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper

Cindy Breshears is the Chief Transformational Officer (CTO) at Bluewolf, an IBM Company. In this role, Cindy is responsible for providing digital transformation leadership for Bluewolf and IBM strategic accounts. She has been a CIO for multiple organizations over the last 16 years and recently sat down with us on IT Visionaries to discuss one trend, in particular, that is taking over the IT landscape: customer experience. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @TheMissionHQ

Ian and Chad welcome back author, podcast host, and thought leader Dr. Jonathan Reichental. Dr. Jonathan Reichental shares his thoughts on the 4th Industrial Revolution and what you can expect as it approaches. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildapps.  Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.

Nitin Gaur (LinkedIn, Twitter) has been with IBM for more than 20 years and currently serves as the director of IBM’s Digital Asset Labs. But, prior to that role, Nitin was instrumental in developing and running IBM’s Blockchain Labs. In this episode, he and Ian discuss all things blockchain, the challenges, and opportunities of the technology, and what blockchain means to enterprises everywhere. Best Advice for a first-time C-level exec: “Build a good team first. Have a human connection for the people and have empathy, and I think everything will fall into place.” IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildmobileapps. Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper Salesforce just introduced Salesforce Blockchain, the industry's first truly declarative blockchain platform, integrated into your CRM. Learn more at https://sforce.co/2wl7IeO.

Lisa Davis is a top 100 CIO award winner and currently works at Intel as the VP & GM, Digital Transformation & Scale Solutions, Enterprise & Government, Data Center Group. In this episode, Ian and Lisa discuss the future of IT, data centers and what’s coming for 5G networks. IT Visionaries is brought to you by The Lightning Platform by Salesforce. The Lightning Platform is a leading cloud platform that makes building AI-powered apps faster and easier. With Salesforce, now everyone is empowered to build apps for their organization! Learn more at salesforce.com/buildapps.  Salesforce and MIT recently teamed up to create a whitepaper exploring what happens when AI meets CRM. Read: AI Meets CRM: An MIT Tech Review Whitepaper The Mission publishes the #1 newsletter for accelerated learning. Join our community of hundreds of thousands at themission.co/subscribe.