IT Visionaries

For much of his life, Allen Shaheen had no desire for a career in the technology industry. But as time passed — and thanks to some helpful nudges from his parents — much like peanut butter and jelly, Allen and technology naturally gravitated toward one another. Today Allen serves as the Executive Vice President of Digital Engineering at Cognizant, a company he has been with for almost 15 years. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Allen talks about his evolving relationship with technology, how companies are adapting to and embracing technology more than ever, and why reinvesting in STEM programs is the only way to ensure a prosperous future. 3 Key Takeaways Companies that don’t have a digital footprint, need to change their business model STEM programs are a necessity to continue to fuel technology advancements Products do not need to be perfect before it gets to the user. Speed and dynamic feedback are what matters --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

For Yugabyte CEO and Co-founder, Karthik Ranganathan, his love for technology started like most: with a video game. Those days of sitting in front of a device button-mashing ignited a fire within him that only grew until he asked himself an obvious question: How do these things work? That question and an innate curiosity around technology carried him to stops at Microsoft and Facebook, ultimately leading him to Yugabyte Db. On today’s episode of IT Visionaries, Karthik speaks about the evolution of the cloud, our growing need for our data to be closer to us, and how open-source databases are becoming industry standard, meaning those that refuse to adapt are being left behind. 3 Key Takeaways The biggest shift in the industry has been to cloud Data needs to be as close to the user as possible Open-source databases are now industry standard and companies that refuse to adapt are falling behind --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

The intersection of technology and consumers is more prevalent today than it has ever been before. And while many of us continue to utilize the benefits of predictive technology, we’re still slightly uncomfortable with how seeps into our lives. This growing dichotomy often leaves us asking one important question: Can I trust this technology? Luckily, Michael Biltz, the Managing Director at Accenture Labs, is here to answer that question and ease some of our concerns. On this episode of IT Visionaries, he discusses Accenture’s Technology Vision 2020 report, the brewing technology clash between consumer and trust, and how the robot renaissance is upon us. 3 Key Takeaways It’s important to strike a balance between value and values The relationship between the consumer and technology is strained and trust needs to be reestablished We are just at the starting line of everyday use of robots in the workplace --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

In an industry filled with computer science and engineering degrees, Eric Berridge is a believer that those with an arts and humanities focus can succeed. He’s an entrepreneur, a techy and literary believer all wrapped in one. In December of 2000, Eric helped start and build a consultancy firm known as Bluewolf. Today, that same company has been acquired by IBM and is a leading consultancy firm, known for producing its yearly report, The State of Salesforce. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Eric tells us why he values those with humanity degrees, the initial pushback he received about the State of Salesforce reports, and why the cloud has created a passion for successful IT all over the world. Key Takeaways Companies were in a denial phase with the cloud, which helped Bluewolf get off the ground and establish themselves as a power in the professional-services space Bluewolf’s process of hiring people with humanities degrees allowed them to grow and interact with people they couldn’t otherwise State of Salesforce is a very honest report Bluewolf publishes every year, which details where customers are having success within Salesforce, and where they are struggling --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

When you spend more than 20 years at a company, you get to see all the ways things change over the years. You may even play a part in revolutionizing a company and sometimes an entire industry. That was the experience Norm Fjeldheim had while he was working at Qualcomm, and today he’s helping to bring about a new kind of revolution. Currently, Norm is the Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer and Head of Global Facilities at Illumina, a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of life science tools and integrated systems for large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function. Companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com rely on Illumina to do DNA sequencing, and scientists and doctors all over are using Illumina technology in game-changing research. Norm explains how all of this is happening and what it means to be working on such important technology on this episode of IT Visionaries.  Key Takeaways: You don’t realize how revolutionary the work you are doing is until you look back on it years later When you diversify the work you do and the people you work with, you build your own knowledge and create a beneficial relationship between your company, your customers, partners and peers In order to enable important, potentially life-changing work in the medical field, building trust in the software and ensuring privacy is a key job --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

There are countless ways that we can make an impact when it comes to addressing the climate crisis. Some of the steps we can take are small, but others have the potential to really make a dent in the goals set by climate leaders. On this episode of IT Visionaries, we wanted to dive into some of those large-scale, hugely impactful projects, so we brought back Patrick Flynn, the Vice President of Sustainability at Salesforce, and welcomed Scott Tew, the Executive Director at the Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability at Trane Technologies. One of the major areas both men are looking at to make a difference is in data centers, which, if retrofitted to become more efficient, would eliminate massive amounts of emissions from being pumped into the atmosphere. They explain more about that topic, as well as other ways individuals and businesses can get involved in the fight against climate change, in this discussion. Key Takeaways It’s easy to get distracted by the “big shiny objects” when it comes to climate action, but the first and most important step to take is to ensure that you are operating as efficiently as possible Technology has a huge role to play in creating more efficient systems, processes and buildings There are countless ways to get involved, but companies that truly want to make an impact need to put forth real plans and take action right now --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Take climate action with a pre-built carbon accounting solution and gain insights into your greenhouse gas emissions.  Learn more at Salesforce.com/solutions/sustainability. -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

There are countless ways that humans and technology interact. And those interactions are becoming more and more prevalent in every aspect of daily life. But not everyone likes to use technology in the same way. So when you’re dealing with every single type of person imaginable, like Scott Strickland does as the EVP & Chief Information Officer at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, you have to really understand and offer every kind of digital experience. It’s a massive job, which takes creativity, coordination, and skill. On this episode of IT visionaries, Scott explains how he manages the job, the role new technologies like A.I. and RPA play in the process, and the other challenges he faces as a CIO.  Key Takeaways The IT experience is much more front-and-center than ever before in all parts of the business operations and customer journey The hospitality industry has been disrupted in good ways, but there are still areas where technology is lacking or not up to par After you digitally transform, you evolve and must keep evolving --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Throughout the years, the idea of sustainability has changed and the metrics by which we measure how sustainable we are have shifted. So where are we on the sustainability timeline? And what should we be focusing on to become more sustainable in business and in life? To answer those questions is Science journalist Wade Roush, and Patrick Flynn, the Vice President of Sustainability at Salesforce. On this episode of IT Visionaries, they discuss the current state of the sustainability efforts, as well as the lessons they’ve learned from the past and how to prepare for and evolve in the future.   Key Takeaways: Corporate sustainability programs need to start in the places that are most relevant to the company as a whole Prioritizing your efforts is important so that you do not get overwhelmed by the scope of the problem Creating simple, repeatable frameworks that other companies can implement will be a difference-maker in the fight against climate change --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Take climate action with a pre-built carbon accounting solution and gain insights into your greenhouse gas emissions.  Learn more at Salesforce.com/solutions/sustainability. -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

As artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in businesses, leaders in the C-suite are trying to figure out when and how to deploy the technology. Many questions will come up within organizations when they are focusing on A.I. deployment, and, luckily, Daniel Faggella is here to help answer them. Daniel is the CEO and Head of Research at Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research, where he and his team map the capabilities of A.I. and hone in on where to deploy A.I.to get the greatest ROI. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Daniel explains the work that goes into making those kinds of projections and he discusses how the A.I field is still growing and changing.  Key Takeaways: Understanding where and how to deploy A.I. is critical, and will be even more important in the next year or two Emerj thinks about  AI advantage across two spectrums; Critical capabilities and data dominance One of the big hurdles in A.I. is educating people on the difference between A.I. and It. To combat this Emerj has identified three main points they use to help them educate clients they work with on the differences --- 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 -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

When you were in fourth grade, how'd you pass the time? Maybe playing with Legos, building forts, or playing tag. What you probably weren't doing is developing the foundation of an organization that would make a global impact. And that brings us to Felix Finkbeiner, the thoughtful kid who was doing just that. Today, Felix is the founder of Plant for the Planet, and on this episode of IT Visionaries, he explains his mission, how technology is helping to connect organizations all over the world, and why the One Trillion Trees project is something he is hoping can positively impact the planet in huge ways.  Key Takeaways: We might not be able to replace all of the trees that have been cut down, but we can plant enough to make a significant positive impact Technology like the Plant For The Planet app is helping connect and build transparency amongst the many partners and organizations working on the One Million Trees Initiative The initial challenge of the organization was getting people to care, but now that people do care, the challenge is scaling and building an infrastructure capable of doing the things you want to do --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Take climate action with a pre-built carbon accounting solution and gain insights into your greenhouse gas emissions.  Learn more at Salesforce.com/solutions/sustainability. -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.