Center for CIO Leadership Member Success Case   Olayinka Oni, Wema Bank Plc.     “The Center for CIO Leadership site is a great resource when I am seeking knowledge on a particular topic and I also receive tremendous value from the virtual events.  It is beneficial to hear what others are working on and learn that they are facing the same challenges as me.  The Center has always been a great sounding board for me.” – Olayinka Oni, Wema Bank Plc		Member Profile:   Olayinka Oni is Divisional Head IT & Operations at Wema Bank Plc, Nigeria, where he is responsible for the strategic direction of the bank’s IT and Operations.  Olayinka joined Wema Bank Plc, Nigeria in November 2009.  Before Wema Bank Plc, Olayinka was Group Head Information Technology at FCMB where he provided executive leadership.  He was responsible for all aspects of strategic IT planning, implementation and support as an integral component of the business plan.    Connect directly with Olayinka Oni by visiting his member profile.

Olayinka Oni is Divisional Head IT & Operations at Wema Bank Plc, which is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, and operates a network of 110 branches throughout the country.  Olayinka joined the Center for CIO Leadership in 2009 to access the peer community and content, and gain insights and advice from peers and experts that he can leverage in his role as an IT leader.  Olayinka has attended a number of Center virtual events, participated in a mentoring relationship through the Center and is also an active member on the Center’s Member Steering Committee. 

Leveraging Technology to Enable Transformation

In a competitive market that is changing rapidly, Olayinka recognized that services and technology would be the key differentiators for his organization to stand out from other niche players in the banking industry.  Olayinka is leading a major IT-enabled transformation at his organization and through his involvement in the Center for CIO Leadership, he is able to tap into resources and peer insights that help him manage through the challenges he faces on the journey.  Additionally, as a result of his active involvement in the Center community and the Center’s Member Steering Committee, he has gained industry credibility in Nigeria.

Read the full member case to learn more about Olayinka’s transformation journey and how he is applying his learnings from Center events and activities within his own organization. 

If you do not see the file below, click here.

	Center for CIO Leadership Member Success Case   Yuvinder Kochar, The Washington Post Company     "We as technologists need to be partners to the business and be thinking about things that are happening in the marketplace and how they would translate into business value or new products.  Innovation is the name of the game." – Yuvinder Kochar, The Washington Post Company		Member Profile:   Yuvi Kochar, corporate CTO, collaborates with the major divisions of The Washington Post Company in the areas of technology strategy, architecture and Shared Information Technology Services.  Under his leadership, Shared IT Services has rapidly expanded to support key Compliance, Identity Management, Security and Privacy, HR, Benefits, Finance, Payroll and Procurement processes across all divisions.  The team also supports the Enterprise 2.0 corporate Intranet and is innovating in the areas of enterprise collaboration, flexible architectures, and analytics – enabling rapid deployment of new solutions to respond to the fast-evolving requirements of the Company’s business units.  Yuvi is also the President of the Washington Area CTO Roundtable, a group of 250 CTOs that is built around discussions of events and trends poised to have an impact on the technology industry.   Connect directly with Yuvinder Kochar by visiting his member profile.

Yuvinder “Yuvi” Kochar is Chief Technology Officer for The Washington Post Company, a diversified education and media company whose principal operations include educational services, newspaper print and online publishing, television broadcasting and cable television systems.  Yuvi has been a member of the community since the Center for CIO Leadership’s inception in 2007.

Diverse Career Experience Enabling Business Leadership

Ranging from experience with an international outsourcing organization, to an innovative start-up company, a large insurance and financial services organization to his current role as CTO at a large diversified enterprise, Yuvi’s career journey has provided him with a diverse set of technology and business management experiences that have positioned him to be a forward-thinking business leader.  In this case Yuvi describes how this evolving career path has enabled him to be a true business partner in his current role and innovative technologist who is creating value through technology.

How the Center Helped

Over the course of his membership, Yuvi has attended numerous Center virtual events and taken advantage of Center content, through which he has gained benefit from peer sharing and integrated insights on specific topics, and new ideas to evolve his thinking.  Yuvi shared that in particular he has found value in attending and actively participating in the virtual events.  “I, like many technology leaders, am pulled in so many different directions that frequently the desire to remain current with industry trends falls behind due to the day-to-day pressures of the CTO’s office.  Through the virtual events, the Center provides a deep dive into a topic of interest, best practices, real experiences and an opportunity to interact with other IT professionals and thought leaders from around the world.  Through a global reach, the virtual events attract a diverse set of people to discuss topics – it is hard to get that elsewhere.”

Read the full member case in the attached file, below to learn more about how Yuvi has leveraged his diverse career experiences to transform from a traditional IT manager to a true business leader, his lessons learned along the way, and how he is applying learnings from Center events and activities to advance his thinking.

If you do not see the file below, click here.

In an effort to share insights and advice coming out of the great conversations CIOs are having as a community, the Center has launched a new and exciting six-part video series, CIO Perspectives. This series brings together leading CIOs as they discuss topics, exchange ideas and compare experiences on important topics for CIOs to enhance their impact as business leaders.

Listen to Harvey Koeppel, Executive Director of the Center for CIO Leadership as he leads a discussion focusing CIO and CEO alignment with Center CIO Members, Jeanette Horan, CIO, IBM, Peter Whatnell, CIO, Sunoco, Inc., and Ron Bergmann, Vice President and CIO, Lehman College/CUNY.

Episode 2: CIO Perspectives | CIO and CEO Alignment

In the video, Harvey Koeppel mentions the blog post he wrote, Essential Reading:  "The Essential CIO", about the 2011 CIO Study by IBM, the Essential CIO.

In an effort to share insights and advice coming out of the great conversations CIOs are having as a community, the Center launched a new and exciting six-part video series, CIO Perspectives. This series brings together leading CIOs as they discuss topics, exchange ideas and compare experiences on important topics for CIOs to enhance their impact as business leaders.

Listen to Harvey Koeppel, Executive Director of the Center for CIO Leadership as he leads a discussion focusing on the function of risk management with Center CIO Members, Jeanette Horan, CIO, IBM, Peter Whatnell, CIO, Sunoco, Inc., and Ron Bergmann, Vice President and CIO, Lehman College/CUNY.

Episode 1: CIO Perspectives | Risk Management

Joe Peppard

Join the Center for CIO Leadership and our partner, Cranfield School of Management, for this exclusive and highly topical session for CIOs and other C-suite executives. The roundtable, featuring Dr. Joe Peppard, Director, IT Leadership Program, Cranfield School of Management, and Len Peters, Associate Vice President and CIO, Yale University, focuses on Next Generation IT Governance.  This Virtual Roundtable will take place Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 9:00 am EDT (New York, USA).   IT Governance is today’s challenge and tomorrow’s leadership opportunity for CIOs as they expand their influence as business leaders.  This session will help CIOs explore opportunities and new ways to think about the next generation of IT governance, including evolving IT governance to enhance and enable integration, alignment and co-evolution with the business in the rapidly moving world of technology innovation.   Professor Peppard will open the session with findings from his research with CIOs around the challenges of governance in an increasingly devolved and localized IT environment.  He will be joined by Len Peters who will share his insights and experiences, successes and lessons learned on this key area that is required to lead the organization effectively.

Len Peters

To register for the October 19th Virtual Roundtable or if you would like further information, please contact event@cioleadershipcenter.com.

	Center for CIO Leadership Member Success Case   Dileep Somani, OTE Group     “The ‘Communicating Business Value’ program is an excellent program and really adds value to the CIO as an individual, and helps in bridging the gap between IT & business.”		Member Profile:   Dileep Somani, Chief Information Officer at OTE Group, has 25 years of experience working in various types of industries in IT & Business i.e. Steel, Chemical, Textile and Trading, with the aim of helping organizations in achieving market leadership by aligning Business and IT (integrating technology with business objectives).   Dileep is an engineering graduate with CISA & PMP Certification.  He also has 13 years of experience in SAP–ERP, CRM, BI & related solutions.   Connect directly with Dileep Somani by visiting his member profile.

Dileep Somani is Chief Information Officer at OTE Group, an automobile and auto parts conglomerate based in the Sultanate of Oman.  He joined the Center for CIO Leadership to access the peer community and content, and gain insights and advice from peers and experts that he can leverage in his role as CIO.  Dileep has attended a number of Center for CIO Leadership education programs and virtual events, with the aspiration to build his competency in a particular area of business leadership:  to more effectively communicate the value that technology can enable throughout the enterprise – and to be able to communicate the value in terms that the business understands.

CIO challenge: communicating effectively with the business – in business terms

Dileep, an experienced CIO, participated in the online education program, “Communicating Business Value,” a custom online program by the Center for CIO Leadership as well as a number of Center virtual events.  Since completing the Communicating Business Value program, Dileep is using all 3 program components – defining, measuring and communicating business value – in his role as CIO at OTE.  Read the full member case to learn more about how Dileep is applying the value he has gained from this and other Center events and activities within his own organization.

Read more detail in the full member case attached below.  If you do not see the file below, click here.

CIO Virtual Roundtable – Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Professor Ari Lightman Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III College	Marc Brown Senior Vice President, Corporate Service Center and Chief Information Officer Del Monte Foods Company	Ken Spangler Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer FedEx Ground

Please join the Center for CIO Leadership and our partner, Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III College, for this exclusive and highly topical session for CIOs and other c-suite executives.  The roundtable, led by Professor Ari Lightman and two leading CIOs, Marc Brown, Senior Vice President, Corporate Service Center and Chief Information Officer, Del Monte Foods Company and Ken Spangler, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, FedEx Ground, focuses on Getting Value from Social Media and Unstructured Data: The New Unified View.  This Virtual Roundtable for CIOs will take place Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 9:00 am EDT (New York, USA).

Social media is now pervasive across companies and industries, representing an exploding opportunity to connect with customers and prospects, and internally to collaborate and innovate.  The customer interactions and engagement that proliferate across social networks represent a powerful, but unstructured data source to incorporate into a unified view of the customer.  CIOs are wrestling with how to access and integrate the results of social strategies and campaigns into their broader analytics efforts while providing support for various departments and acceptable levels of security.

Professor Ari Lightman, from CMU’s Heinz College, researches social technologies and trends in social media data analysis, and works with companies like EBay, Bayer, Comcast and the Pittsburgh Steelers looking to understand and measure benefit associated with social content.  In this exclusive roundtable, he will provide CIOs with key insights to get value from integrating online social strategies into analytics and go to market strategy.

Professor Lightman, with insights from Mr. Brown & Mr. Spangler, will discuss what makes online social initiatives successful, how CIOs are managing and measuring the impact of these efforts, and how the rapidly expanding body of unstructured data provides a critical data source for the customer-centric enterprise.

To register please contact event@cioleadershipcenter.com

Click here to read more about the Panelists.  NOTE: You must be a CIO member of the Center to access the panelist bios.  Join now.

Each year, the Center team conducts interviews with  CIO members to collect, analyze and synthesize insights, advice, best practices and input on key business competency areas for CIOs to excel as business leaders.   In 2011, we are focusing on three key themes that CIOs have told us represent areas of challenge, opportunity and leverage for making an impact on the enterprise:

• Analytics: a Tool for Customer Centricity
• Security and Risk Management
• Next Generation IT Governance

We spend a few months on each topic, creating a CIO Insights research paper, working with members to write blog posts about the topic, gathering pertinent partner research and hosting virtual events on related subjects.

This is an important element of the Center’s role in collecting advice and insights from peers.  Send us an email if you are a CIO interested in being interviewed as part of the Center’s research on any of the 2011 topics. 

Here’s a bit more detail about the Center’s Three Key Topics of Focus for 2011:

TOPIC 1: Analytics: a Tool for Customer Centricity

Customer centricity is increasingly critical to companies’ strategies for growth, and presents an opportunity for CIOs to take the lead.  Technology is at the core of today’s customer engagement strategy, and now plays a key role in the customer experience.  There is a strong need for improved customer data aggregation, segmentation and analytics to support the execution of customer-centric activities across the enterprise, from customer service, to delivery, to marketing and relationship building.  The customer centric enterprise requires a single view of the customer across the enterprise, which in turn reinforces the need for collaboration among those driving the relationship and connections to the customer (marketing) with those providing the conduit, the support and the information (technology).  Today’s CIO has the opportunity to lead the strategy and enablement for customer engagement – but this comes with a new imperative to partner with the CMO – and other customer facing executives - to deliver on the revenue promise of customer centricity.

Please note that our next CIO virtual roundtable, Getting Value from Social Media and Unstructured Data: The New Unified View, will cover a key aspect of this important topic.  Check the event page for more details on this event on June 22^nd.

For those of you interested in past events on the topic of analytics, see the Center Virtual Roundtable, Partnering to Drive Change through Analytics that took place in March.  Click here* to listen to the recording. 

TOPIC 2: Security and Risk Management

With the advent of the financial crisis, and rapidly evolving influences of information access and transparency, CIOs more than ever have the opportunity and imperative to take the lead in managing risk and thinking about security in a strategic context for the business.  This topic will explore key elements of the challenges and the potential for CIOs to lead their enterprise, including:

• Beyond IT risk management to understand operations, security and enterprise risk
• Creating  a culture that is risk aware, not risk averse
• Playing a proactive role in leading the enterprise to manage risk as a business opportunity

TOPIC 3: Next Generation IT Governance

IT Governance continues to be of interest and challenge to CIOs has they expand their influence as business leaders. This topic will help CIOs explore opportunities and new ways to think about the next generation of IT governance, including:

• Governance to enhance and enable integration and alignment with the business
• Role of governance in  driving impact with analytics and risk management

Which of these topics resonate with you and why?  What other topics are you interested in discussing in 2011?

* Only CIO members have access to the roundtable event recording.  Join Now.