IT Visionaries

Susan Standiford says she was born to be in technology. And if you look at her resume, the proof that she lived out her life mission is right there in black and white. From a stint as VP of Technology at Disney Interactive to leading the tech team at Travelocity to her current role as CTO of IKEA Group, Susan has been on the front lines of every kind of digital transformation.  On this episode of IT Visionaries, Susan discusses how she’s been able to build an employee experience centered around innovation, and she explains what it means to be an inspirational leader. Key Takeaways:   Defining the role of CTO at IKEA Where will AR and VR fit in? How to build an employee experience around innovation Mentorship in the start-up world   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 -- 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.

Mental health awareness has become more and more important in today’s world. And that’s great. But there isn’t one right method of monitoring mental health. Different approaches work for different people. One exciting new approach is through the use of A.I. and apps to keep an eye on your mental health and moods. The technology is new, and still being iterated on, but it’s exciting nonetheless. On this episode of IT Visionaries, we sit down with Thiago Marafon CTO of Youper, an emotional help assistance app that is aimed at helping you feel like the best version of yourself. Thiago and Ian dig deeper into the importance of mental health, Thiago’s secret to success in the A.I. industry, and how that technology can help people in new ways. Key Takeaways:   How Thiago got into A.I.  The ways Youper is improving lives What does the future of A.I. look like?     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 -- 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.

Blockchain will improve security, increase efficiency, and lead to new business models for enterprises. Nate McKervey believes that deeply. Nate is the head of blockchain and DLT at Splunk, and he spends his time helping enterprises gain insights and success when adopting this new technology. His work helps Splunk customers have even more trust in the data that they’re using. But that’s just the beginning of the blockchain story. On this special episode of IT Visionaries hosted by Mission CEO Chad Grills, Nate explains how our lives will change thanks to blockchain and cryptocurrency. Whether it’s creating a ledger system that transforms a food recall process from one that takes days to one that takes seconds, or moving to the tokenization of objects, which could increase world GDP by huge orders of magnitude, there are exciting innovations happening, and Nate has the details on them all. Key Takeaways: Building trust in data Where you can deploy blockchain The future of blockchain and cryptocurrencies 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 -- 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.

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 -- 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.

It’s a fact of today’s world that everyone is spending more and more time looking at screens. Especially kids. But that doesn’t always have to be a bad thing, especially if looking at that screen is unlocking creativity and new skills. Roblox is making that possible. Adam Miller is the Vice President of Engineering, Technology at Roblox, which is building a streaming platform architecture for the gaming world. Roblox puts the tools of creating games into the hands of its more than two million users, and they have taken that freedom and run with it.  On this episode, Adam and Ian discuss how Roblox has helped bring more creativity into the lives of kids, and the challenges of building a gaming platform that is as easy to use and seamless as any traditional streaming platform.   Key Takeaways: What is Roblox and how are people using it? Technology under the hood The impact Roblox has on the younger generation The future of Roblox and gaming   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 -- 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.

Kasturi Rangan, has been a gamer his entire life. But for him, gaming is more than a passion, it’s a calling. Rangan has devoted his professional career to building up the gaming community and helping gamers around the world connect and advance the movement. Today, he is the president of Pole to Win and manages around 2,500 people throughout the world dedicated to that same mission. And they’re succeeding. Pole to Win has worked on some of the biggest games on the market and the clients they partner with are so happy with the experience, Pole to Win has a 98% client retention rate.  But what does it mean to build a gaming community? How do you actually make sure that the gamer’s experience is not just good, but exceptional? What was the secret sauce that Pole To Win brought to the table to help launch eight of the last 10 games of the year? Rangan answers those questions and more on this episode of IT Visionaries.    Key Takeaways:   The main focus of Pole To Win. A day in the life of a QA Analyst The future of gaming The secret to client retention     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 -- 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.

Often in business, you have to change your ways or risk becoming extinct. At least, that’s what Tony DeLima says. As the Head of Digital Transformation and Global CTO for NEORIS, Tony has had a front-row seat for all of the changes in industries from financial services to healthcare and everything in between. Tony has helped companies of all shapes and sizes take giant leaps forward by transforming the way they operate from top to bottom, and that always includes bringing in new and advanced technology.  On this episode of IT Visionaries, Tony explains how these types of digital transformations happen and why they're important. Plus, he dives deep into the role A.I. will play in the future.     Key Takeaways: What is NEORIS Discussing digital transformations Best practices for driving innovation The future and where A.I. fits in 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 -- 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 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 -- 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.

Paul Ford, CEO of Postlight, talks about the tech industry, building his company, and the exciting projects they've worked on. They discuss the impact of the Commodore computer and diversifying their client base. They also explore the creation of a Lorem Ipsum generator and the challenges of staffing and talent acquisition. The influence of giant platforms and developments in the microprocessor space are also discussed.

We are living in a rapidly changing world, one in which technology is creeping into every area of our lives. When it comes to business, that’s mostly a good thing, especially when we’re talking about voice technology. For instance, imagine you’re a sales rep making a call to a potential client. You’re probably worried about how to pitch, what to say and making sure the notes you’re taking about the call are accurate and helpful after the fact. Now imagine that you didn’t have to do any of that. Instead, you could have a call powered by A.I. that’s able to prep you before the call, give you real-time coaching during the call, and provide a transcript and insights that are automatically logged into your system after the call.  That’s the reality Craig Walker is creating at Dialpad. Craig is the founder and CEO of Dialpad, and he joins IT Visionaries to dive deep into how they are weaponizing voice to create a revolution in the business world.  Key Takeaways: How Craig went from lawyer to tech founder. The ways Dialpad is changing how business is done over the phone. Reasons to sell B2B What is the future of voice technology? 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 -- 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.