娇色导航

Hello, good afternoon and welcome to 娇色导航Leadership Live. I'm your host Maryfran Johnson, CEO of Maryfran Johnson media. This video show and podcast is produced by cio.com and the digital media division of Foundry, which is an IDG company.

Our sponsor for today's episode is Saviynt, which is a leading provider of identity security for organizations that are responding to increasing cyber risk.

Saviynt Enterprise Identity Cloud offers customers greater visibility, control and intelligence to defend against threats, while also remembering to empower users with the access that they need to use digital technologies and tools. If you'd like to learn more, visit Saviynt.com.

We're streaming live to you right now on LinkedIn and our 娇色导航channel on YouTube. And I cordially invite our viewers to join in today's conversation by submitting questions of your own. We have editors that are watching the chat streams on both LinkedIn and YouTube.

And we'll be happy to pass your questions along to me and my guest, which I'm very pleased to welcome to our studio today is Karen Higgins-Carter. She is the Chief Information and Digital Officer at Gilbane Building Company.

Gilbane is based in Providence, Rhode Island, and it's a national construction and real estate development company and one of the largest family owned privately held firms in the US.

The company is also a global leader in facility management and integrated construction services, with about 3000 employees and an estimated revenue of six and a half billion dollars last year.

Karen joined Gilbane in October of 2022, bringing with her more than 25 years of experience in technology leadership and innovation, mainly in banking and financial services.

Her expanded role at Gilbane includes optimizing the value of innovation across the company, and also encompasses all of the digital advanced analytics, AI technology and cybersecurity strategies.

Before she got to Gilbane Karen was the 娇色导航and executive vice president at Webster Bank in New York City, where she steered the commercial bank through four years of transformation, including its merger with Sterling Bank Corp.

Before that, she held a number of IT and business leadership roles at a several financial industry leaders, including MUFG, which is the US division of Mitsubishi's UFJ Financial Group, and also JP Morgan Chase, and General Electric.

Karen also currently serves as an independent director on the public board of the International Money Express Incorporated. And she's on a private board for the US subsidiary of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Americas. She is a very accomplished CIO. And we're very happy to have you here. Thanks for joining.

Thanks for having me, Maryfran, I am always intrigued by the stories of CIOs who switch industries, as you did moving from big financial enterprises to a field like building and construction.

What inspired you to change your career direction toward an industry that we have to admit has never been a leader in the use of technology for business benefit? And obviously, those things are changing.

So tell us about what drew you to Gilbane and what the inspiration to change careers was. Yeah, well, thank you so much.

I think I had spent as you had covered a long, long time in all aspects of financial services, banking, hedge funds, investing, commercial, non bank financial services, and I felt as though I really was looking for a new challenge on how do I take what I had learned about digital transformation in an industry that is far ahead of others.

Yeah. And apply that to apply those lessons and that experience and that skill set to an industry that was earlier on the transformation curve. And so you really can't find an industry that's earlier on the transformation codes, just wondering the bank instruction.

And for many reasons, it's there's a physical nature to the work. Transformation, digital transformation has, by and large, bypassed those types of companies and those types of roles. Things that have a lot of hands in them are not necessarily disrupted as easily.

But there's tremendous opportunity given that construction has remained about stable in productivity for I'd rather the last 100 years. So there's a tremendous opportunity and I was looking to really recharge and accelerate my development by putting my skillset into a different context.

Well, it's easy to look at construction and building trades and think that it would be just like the manufacturing sector. Do people often make that erroneous assumption? Or are there elements of that that are quite true? It is definitely an erroneous assumption.

I think it's one thing that I've learned. And it's also a challenge as well as a strength of Gilbane is it's there's a very local-ness to the business.

So for example, your local conditions, local soil conditions, they differ across the globe, and across the US different trade contractor pools of resources that we can use, as part of our projects, local building codes are different.

And so there is an element of local illness such that each project that we do, is almost custom in and of itself. And I'll try to apply a manufacturing analogy to that I think can can be somewhat misleading.

Yes, because manufacturers Yes, manufacturers are, but then again, Gilbane has a global presence. You're not just working in the US. I know you have well, more than 400 construction and building projects underway. What is it that Gil bein does overseas?

What is the primarily our federal division where we serve the Department of Defense and locations of Palau, Japan, Germany, and select locations. So we go where the Department of Defense is building facilities.

All right, well, and I am checking out a little bit about gobiins history, you know, being the largest privately held company in your industry. It's also shows up on a list when you look up the top 10 or 20 contractors in the US. Yeah, it's number 10. Yeah.

Thanks. That's a list led by Bechtel Turner Construction at calm. What are a couple of examples of what Gilbane has built? Oh, the Air and Space Museum in DC.

One of my favorites, the Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, it was the site of the 1980 miracle and ice. Yeah, game. So that's a sentimental favorite. Currently, we're building the Buffalo Bill stadium, in Buffalo as well as large hospitals.

Yeah, Indiana University Health being one of those as well. So we build very large complex projects. Well, and you mentioned the local nature of construction and building. And when you look at the entire, it's still very big in the the GDP. That's like construction itself is almost 4%.

Yeah, the sector is very large, somewhat fragmented. Yeah, I would even argue, yeah, very large general contractors, as well as all the way down to smaller organizations and employs 7 million people across the US. Yes, not all working for Gilbane, but several 1000s.

Yeah, given all that, I mean, I had to look up to find a list of the big contractors, I Bechtel probably occurred to me, but the average citizen isn't really all that aware. How did you end up being? How to Gilbane and become your target?

No, you when you decided that, you know, I've done banking, I've done finance, I've got years under my belt, it's, it does get to be the same kind of work after a while I can understand Yeah, wanting to go after that. So why was it why Gilbane?

Yeah, that's such a great question. I, I'm an engineer by training. And so that it did work definitely appeals to me, Gil Bane recruits a lot of project engineers out of the types of curriculums that I took as an undergraduate. So there was some sense of familiarity there.

And so I'm thinking, Okay, I'm moving from banking, and I'm gonna go into construction. Where do I start? So first, I talked to my dad about it, and he works in the industry.

And at first he thought I was crazy, probably, you know, a similar reaction to when I told him I was going to be a mechanical engineer, undergrad, he was like, Are you crazy, always very supportive. But yeah, the initial reaction is she's going into construction.

So So then he thought about it. And he said, Well, you know, have you considered Gilbane because he knew, mill bein by reputation as being a large contract or strong values, strong safety, culture.

And I think he was a little concerned about you know, his daughter going into this industry that is not known or not known for one that has a lot of women.

Particularly in leadership, Gilbane is differentiated From that perspective, and so I searched my LinkedIn network like any good job searcher. Sure. And I came up with exactly zero contacts in terms of really like my network is heavily developed in financial services. Sure, yes. Yeah.

But yeah, but not necessarily in a different industry. Yeah. And so and that just spurred you on. That was not that was not a sign from the universe like Karen, pick another field? No, I know, you have to you have to try. Right.

So I like to say I somewhat barged my, my way.

And so I was able to derive the email of both the chairman and the CEO of the building company, and I just sent them a notice of you know, here goes nothing I, you know, I've got nothing to lose other than where I am already.

And so I drafted them a note saying, This is my background, this is why I'm looking to move into your industry.

And if you have any roles, open with these types of titles, I would be interested in talking and and Tom Gilbane our fourth generation chairman, got back to me within you know, a couple of hours and said, Indeed, we do have a role.

And we'd be interested in chatting, so and what a wonderful the, well, you'd mentioned to me, too, as we were getting ready for this, that you really believe that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, your rate of learning starts to level off.

And yes, and it's, you know, it's really easy to do that.

And financial services and banking, a lot of a lot of the work that does start to feel very similar in terms of for banking transformations, cloud migrations, regulatory work, opening up digital channels for consumers applying that to commercial, it's, it's somewhat of the same playbook.

And so I personally felt that I wanted to challenge and your comfort zone will kill you if you stay in there for too long. And so I think I've achieved it. Well, well, good. And you've been there almost a year and a half now. Yeah. Okay, so good.

We've got lots of good stories to talk about here. But I wanted to dive into the innovation and creative problem solving aspects of it, which was because I often asked CIOs, you know, well, what does digital transformation mean, in your industry?

And I rather suspect that in building and construction, I would get kind of a blank look? Well, not at all really? Not. Okay. I think in terms of that, yeah, I think the types of people in construction are incredibly smart, incredibly skilled, problem solvers.

So I am constantly amazed at what it takes to actually deliver one of our projects.

So the complexity, with meeting a schedule, meeting a budget, managing safety on a site, it's it's stunning to me to see the level of effort and the level of care that is taken and needs to be taken to keep people safe.

On one of our jobs cites enormous complexity every single day. And so people who do that for a living tend to be incredibly creative problem solvers. So sometimes, you know, what I what I hear at Gilbane sometimes as well. I'm just a dumb builder.

You know, you're the you're the technologist. And I and I have to say all the time, that if you can build a building, yeah, you can understand what I do. We're just working in a different vocabulary. That's kind of a don't feed me that line. It's very humble.

It's, it's, I think it's it attracts, a, a humble persona, to do this type of work. And so in bad to the point on on innovation, your ability to connect a problem with a solution. So I think we know the problem setting construction extraordinarily well.

I think the art is prioritizing what is the most important problem problem to solve, okay, now, given the opportunity that that opens up, when we solve that problem, and then connecting with various solution providers, be it through venture capital, startups, educational institutions, the world of wonderfully creative people, in terms of opportunities to connect those two problems.

So we have a lot of data, we have deep knowledge of the problem set, startups, VCs, etc, have a high level understanding of that, but a lot of creative thought in terms of emerging technologies and how to apply them to ourselves.

So it's really it's a bit of an iterative process and a dance to be able to match that problem with solution and then be able to scale that and that sounds that something very familiar to you in your background as a mechanical engineer and then shorter as a 娇色导航and financial services.

How Did you get well? Did you have marching orders coming in? You got the CEO and you got along? He's fourth generation running the company. Did he know what he wanted in a 娇色导航coming in from the big financial and banking sector?

Tell us what the marching orders were like at the beginning. Yeah, I wouldn't so much call it marching order. So I think there was a, I stepped into an environment that was incredibly open minded about defining where value is added. And I think that's the common theme.

Anytime type of 娇色导航role is that's a great point. It's how do I how do I bring value?

I think understanding the financials of the company, the needs of the customer are the short term and the long term strategic opportunities, the risks that need to be managed, and then comparing that to what's the current state?

And then what are the capabilities across that domain of technology data, digital innovation, to be able to prioritize exactly what adds value both in the short term? And in the long term? I think that's the art really, of any technology leadership. That's, that's a very good point. Yeah.

Is you got and sometimes you have to ask numerous questions to get at what adds value because what initially is presented of hey, we need to fix XYZ, yes, there's a thought process behind that short inter, we need to be able to aggregate this data.

There's a thought process underneath that as well. Why? Well, our clients are asking for this. Okay. And it takes us a while to respond to that ask, okay. So we want to be faster. That's a cycle time thing. Who else has this capability is a differentiating for Gobain?

How much do we have to invest in it? So I think asking the second and third question and really understanding where the value is, and what is the force behind the thing that you're being asked to do?

Is, it's a skill, okay, that you need to bring, talk about some of your initial successes, that things that happen in the first year, as you got to gilding, I would say a couple basic things like upgrading our ERP.

It like many places, heavily customized, which is not trivial. It's just a lot of customization. A lot of just putting rigor in in the review of that, establishing my leadership team. Oh, which I'm very excited about the leadership team that we have in place now.

And building trust with our project teams with our business units by creating transparency to what we do, and why and and really establishing the mantra that we're here to help and not judge. Right.

That's like the old joke about, you know, the government inspector, what, you know, I'm here from the government. When they're saying I'm here from it, and I'm here to help, you know, people tend to like be rolling their eyes. Right. Right.

No, you really have to God you have you have to dig in and help. I think we've we've established our cybersecurity risk appetite with our board. So it's one of the things that I took from banking.

And because as you can imagine, cyber is highly regulated, and in that industry, not so much in construction. But I find that to be a very useful starting point for cybersecurity, which is what are the unique risks that can be realized in this industry?

And how would we what are the threats that would act on which vulnerabilities and how we realize those getting some agreement amongst the leadership team as well as the board on what those are and developing our plan? Yeah, can you tell mitigate those specific risks? Yeah.

Can you call out one as an example not Oh, sure. Fix of what you did, but just so yeah, there's a specific risk hanging fruit, something that you're like, oh, we need to fix this. Oh, sure. Multifactor authentication, phishing susceptibility.

One of the biggest risks in construction is business email compromise, and misdirected payments and higher fraud because we have as you can imagine, for one for our large projects, we have a lot of money moving from our owners to Gilbane from Gilbane to our trade contractors, and so frequently we find impersonations of Gil bein personnel requesting changes to payment instructions happens all over the place, but particularly, construction is targeted.

I didn't report that. Yeah, I would be more of a banking financial services company problem, but it's also big in construction. Yes, it is.

And So raising the awareness of our people, because people are the first line of defense for cybersecurity, and often the last line of defense, but certainly the first line of defense and raising awareness that we're not the team of, no, we're here to enable you.

And we're here to help you join the mission of protecting the company. And then guess what, you'll learn some things to protect yourself? Yes, that's always a great upside benefit, right employees where they realize, oh, I should take a look at how we're doing this at home, correct?

Yes. Well, that's great. Well, you had mentioned as well, you'd mentioned the success of building up your leadership team.

But I think you also told me that you didn't come in with a phalanx of people that you were bringing from past lives and others, you were essentially that was something you were rather proud of that yeah, came in and you didn't say, and here's a whole bunch of what did you talk about everybody having a special mug and being in a special club that you didn't get that feeling of like?

Inclusivity is, there's a certain ick factor, I think, to to bringing your own team in, right? Because you're trying to build relationships in the company that you've landed, and you don't need people beg, oh, there she goes higher and around folks, what's wrong with us?

Right, and it creates, intended or unintended, it can create an awesome them environment of like, here are the new people to fix all the problems that the old people were not capable anyway, between it and other units of the business well, right. Typically, they're deeply rooted.

It's, it's, there's many reasons why a technology organization can be underperforming. And it's really, really important to understand what those root causes are, it's a little bit like weeding your garden.

And so I think it's, it's a little bit of an illusion of improvement to bring in your whole team of sound and thunder, but it's Yeah.

So you feel like yeah, we're gonna empower them and you give them a certain status, be it with a different mug, or, you know, a larger monitor I kid you not, I mean, I've seen this in my career, I bet you have chosen teen gets their special monitor, or they get to use a Mac and other people don't and, and I just don't find that real productive.

Over long term, you must remember the era of like the special innovation units or the teams. Most of them didn't really work out, or the e-business team do remember that? Teams from the early, early 2000s? And we're like, Yes, isn't this?

Well, I'll just do the E for electronic aren't we already doing? Yeah, no, I would say it is important to have a protected Innovation Fund.

And it is important to bring people into that group and cycle them back out because people come into the group come with knowledge, particularly in our business of what's in the field.

And then people that get cycled out, see a whole new Well, world of opportunity of where to apply their goals. But in general, I am not a fan of of creating the separate transformation team. You know, unless your goal is to cannibalize your primary line of business.

I just, I think, again, it's an illusion of progress. Because you need to invite people with you on the journey, because you need the whole company to come. Yeah. On that journey with you.

So how did you you'd mentioned that you're very proud of the work you've done in building up the leadership team. Tell us a little bit about that. What did you do? What are you?

What does that team doing differently now than maybe was happening two years ago before you got there? Sure. Well, I think first of all, I've retained our cybersecurity leader who works primarily. Yes.

Now, I was really excited to have a very strong cybersecurity leader when I landed into the role, so that was very helpful. My head of data, AI and analytics actually joined the company, previously from Cisco, and joined in HR analytics, because construction is sustainable business.

And so hoarse it is yeah, yep. So HR analytics, people first is is the first pillar of our strategic plan. It is a people business. So it made sense that we had strong talent in that area.

I took the leader of our New York City virtual design and construction team to lead operations tech, he had spent many years in that role, by default was becoming a leader of technology that is specifically used in our building operations. And so brought him onto the team.

I had one external hire who I knew from GE from the the GE Leadership Program, yeah, who had come from another construction company. So we had you know, separated from GE we found our way around and And He came back.

I've heard other CIOs refer to that as the diaspora. All of the CIOs that got their start at GE. Oh, there's a lot of us.

A lot of you I think at one point, I think I had six or seven different GE CIOs that we were inviting to speak at our events and that sort of thing. So you people are everywhere. They do. We are. We did.

It was such a great time to be there. I think, you know, we, I brought in just finishing our last question. I brought our head of innovation. She was formerly in BD in our New York City office.

And so bringing that client perspective, yeah, business development is what you mean. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Business Development. So bringing that client perspective into the team has been, oh, that's invaluable. So it's been a it's been a great group.

Now, is the the tech team, the tech organization itself, has it grown since you've gotten there? Is it about the same size and just a little shuffling in terms of duties? And that sort of thing? Yeah. And is about the same size?

With a partnership with one of my vendors. Oh, okay. To help meant some of the development work that we've prioritized for this year. I've talked with a lot of CIOs, who are multibillion dollar companies. And I'll say, so you must have about what five 600 people in it.

And they're always like, no, no, no, no, very small team. We're small but mighty is correct. Which I think it's actually pretty great. You had mentioned one of the problems that has to get tackled a lot in building construction is labor productivity. Yeah.

And that that was something that's something that's very high on your list of things you have underway. What can you tell us about how you've been able to apply more technology solutions to that? Yeah, I think well, it's a multifaceted challenge.

In the end, it is simply we, there aren't enough skilled craft workers to build all the buildings that yes, steel bein and our peers have under development.

So it's a challenge to expand that opportunity from an economic inclusion perspective, an enormous priority and end goal for Gilbane, as well as apply technologies that do help us perform the building of the building.

So tools that help our superintendents manage the actual construction of the building is a really promising area for us, particularly in applying some Gen AI to that to that air. Okay, good. You're launching into an area I was going to bring up next about Gen AI.

Well, it's illegal not to talk about Gen AI, it seems like on chatlines, it's almost a federal law to talk about what you're doing with Gen AI, or just AI in general. Right.

And so tell tell us more about AI in building and construction and where it's being, because there are some sketchy areas where Yeah, to be careful not to use artificial intelligence. So talk a little bit about the balance there and what you've been doing in that area?

Yeah, so a couple of things, we see two primary use cases. The first is synthesizing large amounts of information, and making the first draft of say, a proposal deal summary in our development company, we see a significant number of applications for that type of use case.

So we have a proof of concept related to how we develop proposals. So how do I sure draw upon all of Gilbane's experience and draft proposals in a consistent manner that really highlights the experience that we have?

And so that's, that's one really set of use cases kind of a curation of X summarization and that I think the the bet we're making is that the Gen AI capability plus the human in the loop is more effective than just a human performing all of that work independently.

Okay, the second use case that we see is in the whole co pilot scenario, not necessarily like the generic office, you know, Microsoft Office, Office worker, co pilot, but targeted toward our building superintendent. So you were telling me about that. I think that's pretty fascinating. Yes.

Again, going back to they have an incredibly complex job 1000s of details, lots of questions coming to them throughout the day.

Yeah, and it's a significant overhead to hold have to go walk back to the trailer look up looking your spec binder project documentation drawings to come up with an answer, and then walk back to the site. eaten and provide information to the person who has asked the question.

And so this particular proof of concept is about synthesizing all of those documents across various sources to answer a particular question that may come to the superintendent.

And again, it's a combination of the tool that can synthesize that information and the human who can look at how the answer was generated. And say, interesting, this is accurate, or maybe there's a conflict between documents that we then need to resolve.

Okay, what's an example of an area where something like chatGPT, or any sort of AI enabled technology is not such a great idea, things that maybe you've looked a little into and said, Yeah, I think I get a little bit concerned about some of any technology that is monitoring employee behavior.

Okay. That, you know, one example can be in unsupervised learning. If we have, say, a safety application that identifies a particular risky behavior by a worker with dark skin. How do I know which I do need to know in the role I'm in? How is that model trained?

Yes. How do how do we ensure assumptions are being made? You know, particularly if it's an unsupervised model? Are you training it to only then look at workers with with dark skin as potential folks who are performing unsafe acts?

So I think employee behavior has tremendous opportunity for bias. And we need to be extremely careful about deploying those solutions. And I think all CIOs need to be extremely careful about deploying those solutions.

So really, this is a whole area that is still evolving, particularly the third party risk management aspects of this. Oh, interesting. Yes, because I was gonna I wanted to talk more, a little bit more about how you saw AI affecting cyber risk risk programs. Yeah.

And the you had mentioned the opportunity for perspective is there but for every innovation, you do have to take a risk? Yes, it's Yeah, well, I think, you know, you have to remember why you're there. Right? You're there to grow the company, right.

And you have to be able to take risks, in order to execute strategic plans. The most important thing is that you know, what risks you are taking? Yeah. And what is your risk tolerance, that is acceptable in light of what the strategic goal is.

So risk is simply just the flip side of what your strategic plan is. Okay. So, you know, one of my pet peeves is innovation that is done, absent of understanding, what risk are we taking?

So I think, right there, I mean, there's a difference between being an innovator and just being dumb, and taking risks, you know, for no reason. And so really understanding what is the strategic goal? And how does this innovation help us achieve that goal?

What are the risks that are inherent in this innovation?

And how am I controlling for them to an acceptable level of risk, such that we can proceed and so making sure that you go through the rigor of that thought process versus just you know, hire a team, give them different mugs, and hire, you know, bigger monitors and say, you know, hey, go take the sensitive data, share it with random third parties and stamp?

Yeah, you know, stamp the card that you're innovating.

Well, the everything from and you've you mentioned this, and a lot of other CIOs, I've talked with about this have that everything from Gen AI on down, essentially comes down, do some regression analysis, you know, data analytics, that skills for that have been building up over decades. Yeah.

In in technology leaders. And, you know, I know that it's been fascinating to watch Gen AI, especially catch the interest of business executives everywhere.

I mean, why do you why do you think it is, when you look at all the enthusiasm around it right now, which can be a great thing for fueling innovation and all that.

But there's also parts of it, where I remember we used to talk about the airline magazine syndrome, where the CEO would be sitting in first class reading of Businessweek story, and he'd come back and he'd say, Well, how come we don't have a cloud? That kind of stuff.

But talk about the how you kind of balance those expectations from your your business leaders with your because you're coming in as the innovator and the one Who knows technology and engineering? How are you? How are you kind of keeping everybody seen?

Well, I think first of all, it's important to recognize that Chet GPT popularized AI, it did not invent, cheap, it did not invent Gen AI, or many other flavors of artificial intelligence. So I think making sure that that's an important distinction.

They know that Chat GPT, can't build a building. Now. That is yes. That was not hard to know, chat. GPT cannot build a building. And again, it goes back to digital transformation has largely bypassed very physical work. Yes.

So again, I think it goes back to what are your business goals? How does what role does innovation play in those goals or not? Yeah. And then what are the possibilities for applying all kinds of solutions to those opportunities? And Gen AI is certainly more accessible now.

And there's a flood of investment, as you can imagine, into Yes, different types of use cases. But again, it always goes back to what is the value that you're delivering?

Because AI is expensive, you know, like, the good old workhorse of predictive analytics may be fine in certain use cases. So we can, I would probably say, many, we used to enthuse about that so much.

I mean, all the years that I was the editor in chief at 娇色导航magazine, we had so much I mean, that was the that was the the oasis in the desert was getting everybody to predictive analytics. And it never got business people as excited.

Yeah, as Gen AI and all that stuff is getting them now. So I'm not, I'm not totally sure where that takeover point was, right. Do you find do you find you're having to like, calm people down about some of the capabilities of AI? No, I'm pretty pragmatic.

Yeah, I think it's a it's a pragmatic crew that that, I think has a healthy skepticism around inflated expectations, because their builders are so different than bankers in that regard. And also many ways, right? Yes. And almost.

I don't want to say easier to work with, but have an appreciation of a craft of what it takes to build something and technology, information technology and data in digital is simply my version of a craft, like carpentry, you know, like the structural engineers, the other types of crafts that we bring to actually do our work.

Yeah. Now, I've been asking you a lot of questions about cybersecurity and that sort of thing. And part of that is because you are also something of an expert a few years ago, during the pandemic, you went and got your CISSP. I'm trying to remember what that means.

I don't know Certified Information Systems Security Professional. I'm so glad I didn't dig all that out. I do got my you got your system. I did get my CISSP Yeah, I would not say it makes me an expert.

I think it kind of goes very few experts in cybersecurity. It's such a broad in that field. And I would never want to represent myself as such.

But it's a little unusual for a 娇色导航to go and get that credential unless they're gonna go to work for a big security vendor or something like that. But that was not why you did it. So talk talk about that.

Yeah, well, I did have a background in cyber really starting at GE, and in the late 2000s. And as you know, GE was on the leading edge of all things cybersecurity, just given the size and scale and nature of that business.

So I find it really interesting as well as as logical. And so I had the work experience.

And I just think it is very challenging to be a strategic technology leader, and not understand what risks you are taking in pursuing those strategies and not have a first hand understanding of that it's no different than a loan officer, not understanding how they are going to lose money on a particular deal, I think you have to partner with your seaso and have a certain threshold level of understanding of what they do, to be able to achieve that goal.

Okay, there's another reason I got the CISSP, which was, as you'd mentioned, it was the depths of the pandemic. And all about supporting my team with training and development, again, is in I'd only hired one external person, I have to invest in the team.

And I want them more importantly, to invest in themselves with their own time in order to remain relevant and keep up with technology. So if I can take time out to do it certification. Like, if you can go back to school? That's right. Exactly. And my team, yeah.

Now, did that end up playing a role because you're I mentioned that your role is expanded. It's unique for Gil Bain and may be unique for a number of other companies where you have all the related disciplines combined.

You've got innovation, technology, traditional aspects OT, in the field, data analytics, AI, and of course, cyber. It seems like an almost undoable job. So what is what is the benefit of having everything under that under your umbrella? I think it it clarifies responsibility significantly.

It allows us to develop a unified strategy where there isn't, you know, a dedicated a separate digital team that's separate from Ai that's separate from data, you know, these things have to work together. Yes, the end in order to deliver a product.

You know, if you give the AI team a problem, the solution will be an AI solution. You know, if you give the same problem to a digital team, it's all you have. Exactly, yeah. So I think it's important. It's helpful to have those related disciplines.

I also don't think it's that unusual. I think back in, you know, back in the day, the 娇色导航role had all of those before they started getting differentiated Yeah, into the alphabet soup of titles.

And in fact, I think I saw something this past week, it was published from a consultancy like a little grid of like, well, she tells here and the CIO, the chief innovation officers here and CIOs and CTOs here, and you kind of had to look at this matrix.

And I thought, how funny it would be if you did that to a CFO role, and say, well, they don't really know treasury. And so we'll have to pull Treasury out.

And they'll have to record here because treasuries really important, and well controllership and accounting, that's important, and I'm not so sure they can do that. And so we'll just make the CFO look like this. And I just think we we tie ourselves up into knots.

And I don't know that it is particularly helpful.

With respect to pursuing, I've never had the impression that all of the kind of the, we know, the eight kind of research houses were talking about where they are looking at, they're looking at making a whole lot of money selling research and pronouncements to the business side of the C suite about this relatively new position in their midst the CIO.

Right, so something the other day and you know, there's always like it's the 娇色导航title done, is it time to call it something else. And it just, I think it's a way for people to keep spinning tops around the potentially, I would say different businesses have different needs.

Right, I think it's a different structure at Otsuka than it is a kill vein for very good reasons. Because the pharma industry is a different industry. And it's got data and analytics has a very different role in that environment than in construction.

So I would say, trying to solve the puzzle in abstract, I don't find to be that practical. I think you got to look at your business and what your needs are and who you got, and make a structure that makes sense.

That's often why I ask CIOs when I get talking to them. What does digital transformation or innovation actually mean to your industry right now? What would that be? Because in retail, it's different from rental equipment, from banking, and so forth.

I also think that a lot of the time, the research and the pronouncements coming out from the various pundits at these research firms are coming from people that have MBAs and have interviewed a lot of boards of directors and have actually never done any of the roles themselves.

So coming out of a journalism background, I know that, you know, if a new editor in chief arrived, and he had never been and it usually was a he ain't never been a reporter, and he'd never been an editor, you were sort of like, well, what's he here to?

Do? You know, like, why is he got that job?

So I think I this is the whole skepticism thing that you know, like, always bring in from the journalism side, I want to take advantage of you mentioned Otsuka, which is the pharmacy company that you are one of the board members.

So I want to pivot over to your experience as a full time working 娇色导航plus, who is also involved in two different boards, one of them private and the other one public. Talk about what that has. What has that changed in your own leadership style?

Has the board director work? How has it expanded your view as a business leader? Oh, thanks. I think I think the the most important question that I have to ask myself is, how do I contribute what I bring value that I bring to this board?

To your question on how it's expanded my My perspective, I think you get a firsthand view of the forces and the pressures on CEOs today.

And the more that you can have an appreciation for that in my role, the more that you can connect to what the company's strategy is, and why, and shape your roadmap accordingly.

I would also say it's interesting, the three organizations that I'm involved in, oh, it's because a very long cycle business specialists in drug development, mental health and psychiatry, and that is high risk, and very, very long cycle, development cycles and commercialization and finally realizing a product with the goal of helping people intermixes extremely short cycle business as a money service business.

So how you lead and manage in those businesses is very different. And Gilbane, somewhere in the middle. Yeah. And so how you think about how do I balance long term and short term objectives?

How do I make sure that I'm meeting the short term objectives while I am building capabilities to support us in the long term, bringing together the pressures on the CEO, the nature of the business has been very helpful to me in terms of how do I craft our strategic priorities?

That's great. The I remember some years ago, I was a couple years ago, now I was writing a column for cio.com. And it was all about it was called boardroom bound.

And it was basically, I was kind of haranguing CIOs, even though they're working full time as cIose, to start considering to absolutely get into the idea and start looking for a position on a public board. A lot of them are already involved with nonprofits.

And that's a whole different ballgame as we know. But the idea that so many of them I talked to over the years had said that well, you know, once I'm retired, I'm gonna go for that.

But then I had just as many, especially the ones who were already on board said, by the time you're retired, it may be too late. Because you don't have that operational round of business experience going on. Do you run it?

Yeah, I know, you've been involved in organizations like t-200. Yeah. which encourages a lot of women leaders. Are you running into? So two questions here? Are you running into a lot more of your CIO, comrades who are part of t 200? who are already on boards?

And also tell us more about the organization itself? And why you got involved in it? Yes. So thanks for the question. I'll start with the the second one start with Okay, good.

So, T 200 is an organization 100% volunteer led with an initial goal of finding 200 Women CIOs, or most senior technology leaders in their companies. And we found it was hard to do.

And so to 200, created the lift organization, which is the next generation of women leaders in technology solely for the mission of supporting and elevating their growth, like we think about who's who's going to replace us in our operating roles. And it's been a wonderful, wonderful experience.

And I got involved because Suja. Yeah, so everyone knows Suja. Yeah, yes. Going back to the beginning of our conversation -- Suja Chandrasekaran, yes. I don't think I've interviewed her last name. She's one of our 娇色导航Hall of Fame members. Yep. From back from one of her.

I finally met her after a number of years. And I was amazed that she's a relatively tiny, petite woman. And somehow in my mind, she was like eight feet tall. She's a force of nature.

It really is she is and well, she reached out to me via LinkedIn with a with a random message that said, Hey, we're forming this organization, would you would you like to join you were there from right from the get go? Not definitely not from the get go.

I think I joined somewhere in the 70s. So it had started maybe about 18 to 24 months before I had joined. But she had reached out and said, Would you be interested and and I didn't really know anything about it.

But I'm like, Well, what do I have to lose? So I joined and became actively involved in the organization. When you and I first met you were the co chair of the events committee. Correct. I remember working with you.

I think I was over in Ireland visiting family over there. And I was doing like a little I showed up for one of the events you were doing and have a few minutes and so we were that's how I knew your name. Actually.

The and I think what's interesting about that is the critical growth went to like 60 years. 70 CXO's to more than 800 Women now that the tea I would have to tease Suja that she needs a new name because the T 200.

It's like four times five times bigger than that. No, yeah, no, I think I think we might be close to 1000 if not over t 1000. What's next mention that to her? Right? Yeah, we do have a marketing and communications and branding team well, and they're still volunteers.

There's still such a need, though, to ferment more diversity and equity and inclusion. And you'd mentioned it was just a passing comment earlier in our conversation you said something about what a good job Gilbane already does.

Yeah, it's not so you think of a construction and building company and you imagine it would be just completely kind of white male dominated but that is not your experience. That's a stereotype Yes, not been my experience really at all.

I think you'll Bain has done a wonderful job and it comes back to the culture of caring it you know, Gilbane's culture of caring is all about caring for the people that you work with.

So we start every meeting with a Gilbane Cares moment, where we share, we share, you know, safety related, learning, health learning concerned about other folks. And it really does set the tone for how we work together and our social contract for how we are with each other.

So it's a wonderful culture, it's a wonderful habit that the organization is in. And part of that is valuing everybody in the organization regardless of gender, or background identity, etc. And real credit to the family. The Gilbane family, you know, they lead by example.

And we have very sophisticated analytics on our diversity and inclusion very active ERGs. I just recently took over as the the executive sponsor for our Empower group, our women and construction team. And just a lot of cognizance around the importance of inclusion. Yeah.

Do you think that that is an element of it being a family owned company I versus or privately held? And I think it, I don't know that I really can attribute that in any particular way?

I do think the you know, it does come down to the culture of caring. And it's an it's really an extension of men.

And as you know, I mean, there's no way to plaster on diversity, equity inclusion, you can't just come up with a new mission, Steve know exactly. You really have to you want to do that you really have to live it.

And I think we'll know when that's not happening. And I don't mean to portray it. As you know, Gilbane has solved all challenges, you know, we have our own pockets.

of why are we doing this, as you can imagine, and I would be remiss for not mentioning that there are still challenges, but that's part of my responsibility as the executive chair, beginning to clear those roadblocks. And I think that's what t 200.

Does for other folks like when I came into my new role, and Gilbane had a wonderful conversation with one of our board members about Okay, first 90 days, make sure you're not just taking a list from people, right, because you will set yourself up for failure, you have to be proactive about what you're going to focus on for 90 days.

Right. So just little tidbits, micro interactions, a lot of training and development through some of the partnerships that we now have. So it's really a wonderful organization. I'd encourage anybody to join. Well, good. Well, good.

Well, I you know, and I'm very cognizant, in fact, a lot of times CIOs who come on the show, are there because they've got positions open in technology, and they want to talk about the culture that they're working in at all.

What do you have in terms of recruiting and finding the talent you need? Are you all full up and completely happy with the team you have?

Or do you have areas where you're still looking for people in technology to join the Yeah, I think the areas where we will have growth are just in line with our strategic plan. So cybersecurity and data, in particular are two areas that that will be growing.

I'm really happy with the team that we have. I think they've all stepped up in you know, the different leader. Yeah, setting different expectations. I think I've I've been impressed at their flexibility and willingness to to opt in. That's great.

Well, and you'd mentioned to when we talked earlier, that a lot of what you do is getting people to suspend disbelief. So as we're closing here, I want you to talk a little bit more about that what you mean by that.

And what's an example of a place where you where you got that done? Yeah, no, it's it's a great question. And I think it is one of the benefits of coming from an industry that is further along on the transformation curve.

Because you know, when I started, and this was before my time, but there was a time in banking, where banks would charge customers to use the ATM instead of .. And that was before my time, but it so yeah. And yours too.

But now 60% of balance changing transactions come through a mobile phone, like that's something you would never predict, like, if you went to those folks and said, Hey, everyone's gonna carry a little computer. It's about this size. That's right.

And so I think this suspension of disbelief, has to happen early if you're going to scale innovations. Yeah.

Well, I remember one particular scenario, when I was running a PMO, in a credit card business, and a project came for prioritization for web collections, bill collectors, like late bills, people, right, but this was going to be self service.

So if you were behind, and in collections, you could go online to this newfangled thing called the web, yeah, and submit your payment.

And I'm thinking to myself, like these are people who are not paying us any way, like why, like, if we're really putting a lot of faith in the honor system, we're gonna prioritize this. And it just seemed odd to me, because it didn't fit my existing mental map.

And what I did not appreciate was the nature of the interaction with the customer and ended up being wildly successful.

Yeah, because it's a much more psychologically safe experience for a customer to work through their payment plan, if they're in collections then to receive a call from a collector. And, and that's what I mean by suspending disbelief.

So I think, you know, when, when a crazy idea comes to you, or I should say, an idea that you think does not have potential, you have to examine your own underlying assumptions as to why you believe that to be true and potentially look at cross industry examples of where, where and how it could be.

Yeah, well, and that's, that's a wonderful example. I'm thinking of a similar one from a CIO.

I know, in the restaurant industry, when they started enabling people to just while they were waiting in line to order, they could have their they could do their order on their mobile phone.

I mean, there was a time a few years ago, and that seemed like a crazy idea. And they found that people actually ordered more food. Oh, interesting, because they have to be at the counter with everybody listening to them saying, I'm going to supersize that.

They can do it right on their phone. It was I mean, it was almost a privacy play in a way. And that was a huge percentage more it was like people would order 40% More food or something, something truly ridiculous.

And every, you know, technology, people who tried it out and they was like, Wow, that really worked. So let's go to it's one of the things I love about technology executives, just in general is that your minds are cracked open to the possibilities.

So thank you so much for joining me here today. I learned so much about the construction and building industry and just about all the amazing innovation attitudes that you can have sure out there and about. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you for having me. It was great.

If you joined us late today, do not despair. You can see the full episode of my conversation here today on LinkedIn, but also on cio.com. And on CIOs YouTube channel, cio leadership live is also available as an audio podcast wherever you find your podcasts.

And I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with 娇色导航Karen Higgins-Carter of Gilbane Company as much as I did. We will be back again next month on Wednesday, April 3, at noon, Eastern with Katrina Redmond who is the 娇色导航of Eaton Corporation.

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