Business Chief USA October 2019

HHH USA 

EDITION 

OCTOBER 2019 

www.businesschief.com 

A DIGITAL REVOLUTION 

IN THE US AIR FORCE 

Nicolas M Chaillan discusses the 

launch of the DevSecOps initiative 

amid technological change 

EXCLUSIVE 

VIDEO 

HARNESSING 

THE POWER OF 5G 

GROWING INTO 

A SMART CITY 

Hotels 

in North 

America 

City Focus 

HOUSTON 

Space-centric startups

Bringing together the 

community that builds 

the foundation of the 

digital world 

THURSDAY NOV. 7, 2019 

SPRING STUDIOS, NYC 

MarketplaceLIVE is the place where the complete community of cloud 

and connectivity stakeholers meet to learn, share ideas, and get inspired 

in a fun and elegant atmosphere. 

This event is packed with compelling stories on how our community 

is changing the world. Gain practical knowledge and insights that resonate 

whether you’re a network engineer at a startup, a solutions architect at 

a cloud service provider, or a CIO at a Fortune 500 company. 

REGISTER NOW 

Powered by 

or reach out to marketplacelive@digitalrealty.com for a VIP Invite

FOREWORD 

W 

elcome to the October edition 

of Business Chief USA. 

In our cover feature this month, 

we travelled to Washington D.C. to 

interview the United States Air Force. 

In our exclusive interview with the 

federal government, Nicolas 

M Chaillan, Chief Software 

Officer at the US Air 

Force, discusses the 

launch of the 

DevSecOps initiative 

amid significant 

technological change. 

“This is game changing 

for us,” affirms Chaillan. “The 

current process takes around six 

to eight months for someone to be 

granted access to a cloud to deploy 

software there.” 

Nicolas M Chaillan, 

US Air Force 

under-payed throughout the tech 

space, and how increased gender 

parity could add $12trn to the global 

economy by 2025. 

Also in the magazine are in-depth 

features with SAP Global Center of 

Excellence, City of Aurora, 

FireEye, Plaza Construction, 

Patelco Credit Union and 

YMCA of San Diego 

County that you won’t 

want to miss! 

Finally, be sure to check 

out this month’s City Focus 

on Houston as well as a countdown 

of the top 10 hotels in the United States, 

according to Travel and Leisure. 

Enjoy the issue! 

03 

Our leadership piece showcases 

technology leader, Helen Knight, 

as she takes an extended look at why 

women are underrepresented and 

If you have a story to tell, please email 

harry.menear@bizclikmedia.com 

Harry Menear 

www.businesschief.com

MEET OUR SPEAKERS 

Inderpal Bhandari 

Global Chief Data Officer, 

IBM 

September 22-24, 2019 

W Atlanta-Midtown, Atlanta, GA 

The CDAO Executive Summit is a gathering of C-Suite 

Executives and Senior Decision Makers from Fortune 

1000 and leading enterprise organizations. Our 

intimate, invitation-only event creates new business 

relationships and opportunities to benchmark with 

true peers while focusing on key business challenges. 

Our summit provides a specialized, strategically-built 

experience featuring unparalleled speaking sessions, 

on and off-site networking opportunities, and 

customized face-to-face business meetings. 

We believe in creating a memorable, collaborative 

and effective experience focused on continuous 

improvement for Chief Data & Analytics Officers, Chief 

Data Officers, Chief Analytics Officers, and other top 

executives in data, analytics, artificial intelligence, 

business intelligence, IT and data governance. 

Join us! Interested in attending, speaking 

or sponsoring? 

Contact Bobby Swartout at (212) 532-9898 ext. 248 

or email info@opalgroup.net. 

Saket Kumar, Chief Data 

Scientist - Global Premium 

Services, Google 

Danial Dashti, Senior Machine 

Learning Scientist, Amazon 

Amitha Krishnappa, Senior 

Manager, Catalog Analytics 

and Operational Efficiency, 

Merchant Technology, 

Walmart Labs 

Alan Segal, VP of Audience 

Development and Analytics, 

CNN Digital 

“Opal Group’s staff went to great 

lengths to be supportive, available 

and ensure we were all enjoying 

the conference and this event. It 

also provided another opportunity 

for people to become acquainted” 

Karen Niparko, CHRO/Exec Director, 

City & County of Denver, CO 

“Well organized and would look 

forward to participating in a future 

conference” 

Mark Rowe, Fuel50 Inc. 

opalgroup.net

USA 

EDITION 

Click the home icon (top right of page) 

to return to contents page at anytime 

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

HARRY MENEAR 

EDITORAL DIRECTOR 

MATT HIGH 

CREATIVE DIRECTORS 

DANIEL CRAWFORD 

STEVE SHIPLEY 

CREATIVE TEAM 

OSCAR HATHAWAY 

ERIN HANCOX 

SOPHIA FORTE 

SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL 

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR 

DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ 

PRODUCTION MANAGER 

OWEN MARTIN 

DIGITAL VIDEO DIRECTOR 

JOSH TRETT 

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS 

JOSHUA S. PECK 

EMILY McNAMARA 

SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCERS 

DANIEL WEATHERLEY 

JACK GRIMSHAW 

EVELYN HOWAT 

KAYLEIGH SHOOTER 

USA MANAGING DIRECTOR 

MIKE SADR 

PROJECT DIRECTORS 

CRAIG DANIELS 

DENITRA PRICE 

CRAIG KILLINGBACK 

SHIRIN SADR 

RICHARD DEANE 

MANUEL NAVARRO 

TOM VENTURO 

DIGITAL MEDIA DIRECTORS 

ARRON RAMPLING 

JASON WESTGATE 

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR 

ALEX BARRON 

GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR 

JAMES PEPPER 

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER 

ANDY TURNER 

PRESIDENT & CEO 

GLEN WHITE 

WHEN YOU SEE THE PLAY BUTTON ICON, 

CLICK TO WATCH OUR VIDEO CONTENT 

Wherever you see these icons 

in the magazine click to be directly 

connected via social media 

CLICK NOW 

TO SUBSCRIBE 

FOR FREE 

Visit the BusinessChief.com website 

and sign up to receive exclusive 

access to one of the world’s fastest 

growing business news platforms. 

05 

PUBLISHED BY

CONTENTS 

12 

40 

52 

Making a success 

of digital 

transformation

66 

Airswift: 

Automation and 

human centricity 

in recruitment 

74 82 

FIVE STEPS 

TOWARDS 

A MORE 

SUSTAINABLE 

SUPPLY CHAIN 

City Focus 

HOUSTON 

90

CONTENTS 

104 

SAP 

126 

City of Aurora

140 

FireEye Inc 

174 

Patelco Credit Union 

156 

Plaza 

Construction 

188 

YMCA of 

San Diego 

County 

202 

Transform 

Shared 

Service 

Organization

12 

WRITTEN BY 

SEAN GALEA-PACE 

PRODUCED BY 

MIKE SADR 

OCTOBER 2019


13

US AIR FORCE 

NICOLAS M CHAILLAN, CHIEF 

SOFTWARE OFFICER AT THE US 

AIR FORCE, DISCUSSES THE 

LAUNCH OF THE DEVSECOPS 

INITIATIVE AMID TECHNOLOGICAL 

CHANGE IN WASHINGTON DC 

14 

T 

he US Air Force needs little introduction. 

Operating with the mission: ‘to flight, fight 

and win… in air, space and cyberspace’, 

the organisation affirms that only the best is good 

enough. With serving the American people at the 

forefront of decision-making, the US Air Force has 

established three essential core values to which it 

adheres: ‘Integrity First, Service Before Self and 

Excellence in All We Do.’ 

Sitting down with Business Chief in the US 

capital of Washington DC, Nicolas M Chaillan, 

Chief Software Officer at the US Air Force and 

Co-Lead of the US Department of Defense (DoD) 

Enterprise DevSecOps Initiative, is responsible for 

overseeing the successful launch of Cloud One, 

supporting all business and weapon systems in 

the Air Force and the DoD Enterprise DevSecOps 

Initiative. Introduced by the Chief Software Officer 

and Gen. Schmidt in July 2019, a combination of 

both Microsoft and Amazon Web Services’ cloud 



15

Secure Your Federal 

Software Supply Chain with 

the Sonatype Nexus Platform 

A better way to build software and 

manage open source security risk. 

Control. 

Define open source 

component policies by 

organization, team, and 

application type. 

Automate. 

Automatically and 

contextually enforce policies 

across your entire software 

development lifecycle. 

Secure. 

Decrease false positives 

and negatives and reduce 

gaps in security and quality 

assurance 

Integrate. 

Continuously visualize 

component intelligence 

within your favorite tools.

Federal Software Supply Chains 

are Most Susceptible 

A series of high profile and devastating cyber 

attacks have demonstrated that adversaries have 

the intent and ability to exploit security vulnerabilities 

in the software supply chain. Never was 

that so apparent than in the massive breach at 

Equifax. But, Equifax was not alone. Hackers 

quickly attempted to exploit the Struts vulnerability 

elsewhere. According to David Hogue, 

a senior technical director for the NSA’s Cybersecurity 

Threat Operations Center (NCTOC), 

“We had a nation-state actor within 24 hours of 

scanning for unpatched [Struts] servers within 

the DoD.” The government is not immune to 

these issues, and may often be a great target for 

adversaries. 

The 2019 DevSecOps Community Survey, taken 

by thousands of IT professionals, found that 

20% of respondents from government agencies 

believed they had a breach stemming from the 

use of vulnerable open source components in the 

past 12 months. That’s an alarming number when 

you consider what those attempted breaches may 

have been trying to uncover. 

As government developers and contractors work 

towards digital modernization goals, they are 

consuming hundreds of billions of open source 

components and containerized applications 

to improve processes and catch up with their 

commercial counterparts. The good news: they 

help create efficiencies and enhance innovation 

within the government. The bad news: many of 

the components and containers they are using 

are fraught with defects including critical security 

vulnerabilities. 

In today’s world, understanding what’s in your 

supply chain, as supported by the Mitre’s Deliver 

Uncompromised report, is critical to national 

security. 

“ [Nexus] has given us visibility into 

security issues and made us more 

proactive. It scans and gives you a 

low false-positive count.” 

— EDWIN K. (IT CENTRAL STATION REVIEW) 

NEXUS REPOSITORY: Analyze the quality of components 

inside your parts warehouse. 

NEXUS LIFECYCLE: Automate open source 

governance at scale with precise and actionable 

intelligence. 

NEXUS FIREWALL: Confidently quarantine bad 

parts from entering your software supply chain. 

NEXUS AUDITOR: Efficiently monitor production 

and third-party apps for open source security. 

NEXUS INTELLIGENCE: Precisely identify open 

source components to accurately classify security 

vulnerabilities, licensing risks, and versions. 

We are laser focused on helping federal agencies 

and contractors continuously harness all of the 

good that open source has to offer, without any 

of the risk. Those equipped with Nexus products 

make better decisions, innovate faster at scale, and 

rest comfortably knowing that their applications 

always consist of the highest quality open source 

components. 

Visit sonatype.com/government to learn more 

about Open Source Security. 

Watch this video to learn more about the Nexus 

Platform: 

Using the Sonatype Nexus Platform, aligns security 

professionals and developers on the same 

team and empowers organizations and agencies 

to continuously identify and remediate open 

source risk, at all points in the software supply 

chain.

US AIR FORCE 

18 

platforms has allowed the 

Air Force to operate at heightened 

speeds, providing access to 

cloud capabilities to airmen within days 

to enable software development on 

the cloud or leveraging artificial intelligence 

(AI). “This is game changing 

for us,” affirms Chaillan. “The current 

process takes around six to eight 

months for someone to be granted 

access to a cloud to deploy software 

there.” With the initiative focusing on 

marrying automated software tools, 

baked-in cybersecurity, services and 

standards to the DoD program, it is 

set to enable fighters in the field to 

create, deploy and operate software 

applications in a secure and flexible 

way. “Having started nine years ago, 

DevOps has become the evolution of 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘NICOLAS M. CHAILLAN ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING 

DIVERSE PARTNERS WITHIN THE US AIR FORCE 

19 

“DEVSECOPS 

ENABLES US TO 

SECURELY DEPLOY 

SOFTWARE 

MULTIPLE TIMES 

A DAY” 

— 


Chief Software Officer, 

US Air Force 


y Security Compass 

FOR NON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES 

SD Elements builds security in and enables continuous 

compliance throughout the software lifecycle. 

FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES 

SD Elements allows for the cost effective adoption of 

DevSecOps for authority to operate (ATO). 

web | www.securitycompass.com 

email | info@securitycompass.com

Risk Assessments 

Automate threat modeling and 

risk assessments to expedite 

your processes. 

Compliance 

Track tasks required for compliance 

to standards and regulations for 

each application, and keep them up 

to date in near-real-time. 

Secure Development 

Automatically generate actionable 

tasks that can be used by 

development teams to code securely. 

Training 

Just-in-time Training teaches 

developers secure coding while 

they work. 

SD Elements’ knowledge-base was developed and maintained by a group of experts, 

and it can be configured to accommodate your organization’s own content. 

Automation | Defensibility | Cost Savings

Introducing Qualys 

Global IT Asset 

Inventory ® 

QUALYS.COM 

/INVENTORY 

WARNING! SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE 

Actually knowing what’s on 

your global hybrid-IT 

environment (on prem, 

endpoints, clouds & mobile) 

Improving your security 

and compliance posture 

Better decision making 

using enriched asset data 

Easily finding what you 

need via automated 

classification 

Finally having clean, 

uniform data for a single 

source of truth 

Getting that promotion 

you always wanted

agile and is now able to use automation, 

both in testing and cybersecurity, 

to help bring software into production,” 

explains Chaillan. “By removing the 

impediments we have in order to build 

software faster and better, DevOps 

enables us to deploy software on the 

commercial side multiple times a day. 

For us in the DoD, cybersecurity is vital 

because of the continuous monitoring 

side of the house. That is why we 

call it DevSecOps. It’s important that 

we’re able to constantly see what’s 

going on in production in real-time 

“PROACTIVITY IS 

THE ONLY WAY, 

PARTICULARLY 

IN TERMS OF 

CYBERSECURITY 

BECAUSE YOU 

CAN’T AFFORD 

TO BE REACTIVE” 

— 



US Air Force 

23 

EXECUTIVE PROFILE 

Nicolas M Chaillan 

Having begun his role as Chief Software Officer of the 

US Air Force in May 2019, Chaillan is an experienced 

Senior C-Level Executive with 19 years of domestic 

and international experience with strong technical 

and subject matter expertise in cybersecurity, software 

development, product innovation, governance, risk 

management and compliance. He is an expert in 

numerous technological fields such as cybersecurity, 

DevSecOps, multi-touch, mobile solutions, IoT, Big Data, 

Mixed Reality, VR, Cloud Computing and wearables. 

Chaillan has successfully launched and managed 

12 companies throughout his career. 


US AIR FORCE 

“KUBERNETES IS CLEARLY WINNING THE 

BATTLE WHEN IT COMES TO CONTAINER 

ORCHESTRATION AND SCALE” 

— 



US Air Force 

24 

with a zero-trust model down to the 

container level, with behavior detection 

and centralized logging so we can 

obtain the data and get the telemetry 

back to development teams.” 

With the task of implementing 

DevSecOps, the Air Force has begun 

implementing software factories such 

as the Kessel Run Laboratory over the 

past few years. Through Kessel Run, 

Chaillan believes the Air Force has 

transformed the way it develops and 

delivers software capabilities. “Back 

in 2017, the Air Force was already very 

innovative and decided to develop 

Kessel Run while also building software 

and mission capabilities to use 

the Kessel Run factory,” he says. “The 

goal wasn’t just to build a factory for 

the sake of having a factory – it’s been 

to create mission software and bring 

tangible value to the warfighters.” 

Chaillan began work at an early age 

in his native France. At 15, he created 


25 

and developed his first company. 

“I’ve been on the commercial side 

for a long time, I ended up selling 12 

companies and building robust teams 

in cybersecurity and software innovation,” 

he explains. “I moved to the US 

around 10 years ago and, after selling 

my companies, I decided I wanted 

to make a difference and have a real 

impact. Building mobile applications 

and other cool technologies is fun, but 

it’s not the same impact as we have in 

the federal government.” Due to new 

technology such as Big Data, machine 

learning (ML) and AI becoming 

increasingly influential globally, businesses 

worldwide are adopting innovative, 

modern processes in order to 

remain current. The case also applies 

to the US Air Force, with Chaillan 

understanding the impact that technology 

has had on the way his organisation 

conducts operations. “I think 

the entire future of war is going to be 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘LEVERAGING DEVSECOPS AND 

CLOUD ONE AT THE US AIR FORCE’ 27 

something that’s driven by embracing 

these kinds of technologies, whether 

it’s AI, ML, Big Data or cybersecurity 

offence and defense,” affirms Chaillan. 

“If you can’t adapt while in production, 

then you’re stuck in time and there’s 

nothing worse in software than that. It’s 

important to bring in new capabilities 

as well as adapting existing capabilities 

to make sure you can fix problems as 

they arise.” 

Cybersecurity is perhaps the dominant 

factor at the forefront of Chaillan’s 

decision-making. With the importance 

of keeping highly-confidential information 

secure at all times being crucial 

to both the DoD and the Air Force, the 

government must remain proactive 

rather than reactive to counteract 

any potential threats. “Proactivity is 

the only way, particularly in terms 

of cybersecurity because you can’t 

afford to be reactive,” he says. “If you’re 

not being proactive, you’re not doing a 

good enough job. You have to combine 

what’s already stable enough to use 

versus something that’s new but just a 

little too early.” Striking a fine balance 


Proud to support 

the U.S. Air Force 

Transform government, 

the open source way

etween the 

risk of embracing 

disruptive technology 

to accelerate 

current processes and 

sticking to previously successful 

approaches is challenging. However, 

Chaillan believes one of the biggest 

hurdles to overcome is continuously 

training staff with the latest trends. 

“You really have to understand the risk, 

because technology is accelerating at 

an incredible pace at the moment. In 

IT, you have the ability to completely 

change the way you’re doing business; 

sometimes it’s going to last and sometimes 

it may not.” 

In order to arrange and manage 

software containers, the Air Force 

has deployed Kubernetes, originally 

designed by Google and now maintained 

by the Cloud Native Computing 

Foundation (CNCF), as part of its 

DevSecOps platform. “As a government, 

it’s important that we don’t get 

locked into a particular cloud provider 

or platform,” 

says Chaillan. 

“When I started, 

I wanted to ensure 

that whatever we 

built was abstracted 

so we weren’t reliant on 

a single vendor or product. It 

was a key reason why we initially chose 

Kubernetes and decided to abstract our 

entire stack because, whatever application 

you use, you want to ensure you 

understand the costs and the impact of 

the lock-in with that specific application.” 

“Kubernetes is clearly winning the 

battle when it comes to container 

orchestration and scale. It’s an open 

29 


US AIR FORCE 

5,328 

Number of manned 

aircraft as of 2018 

1947 

Year founded 

30 

327,215 

Approximate number 

of active duty airmen 



31

Build on the platform 

2.1 million teams love 

Transform your business into an open 

source enterprise. 

Get started! Try GitHub Enterprise free for 14 days. 

github.com/enterprise

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘THE NEED FOR CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY 

IN THE AIR FORCE’ 33 

source product that anyone can use, 

but you have multiple companies like 

Pivotal, Red Hat, Amazon, Microsoft 

and VMware that can take the 

Kubernetes solution and make it into 

a turnkey product that you know will 

be compatible with any environment. 

It’s critical because you’re not getting 

locked in; you can take that piece of 

code and move it to a different cloud or 

disconnect and classified environment 

and it’ll behave in the same way. This 

is particularly important for our edge 

deployments.” 

The Air Force was the first organisation 

to join CNCF, the vendor-neutral 

home for many of the fastest-growing 

open source projects, outside of commercial 

companies and became an 

influence over how CNCF looked after 

Kubernetes. “When I joined the Air 

Force, I realised we had many teams 

building factories to develop their 

mission applications. We had seven 

or eight teams and incredible people 

developing mission software,” explains 

Chaillan. “Originally, we had teams 

such as Kessel Run, Space Camp, 


Software 

= 

Security 

Set 

DevOps 

free 

with the single 

embedded security 

platform built for 

the entire SDLC 

DoD OSD, DISA JSP, Navy C2C24, 

USAF BES, and DHS CDM 

DevSecOps Approved Product Lists, 

plus Army CoN 

Audit Centrally. Develop Securely. 

A June 2019 Gartner Peer Insights 

Customers’ Choice for Security Testing * 

Learn more at www.Checkmarx.com 

* https://www.gartner.com/reviews/customers-choice/application-security-testing. Gartner Peer Insights 

Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and 

data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an 

endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.

“MY JOB IS TO MAKE IT 

EASIER FOR STARTUPS 

TO WORK WITH THE 

US GOVERNMENT” 35 

— 



US Air Force 

Kobayashi Maru, LevelUp, Bespin that 

were all utilising a very limited set of talent 

to create the factory, and this then 

enabled them to build the software. We 

just decided to decouple development 

teams from factory teams and now we 

only have two factory departments — 

LevelUp and Kessel Run. The development 

teams can simply use these two 

factories so they don’t have to reinvent 

the wheel. The more development 


US AIR FORCE 

36 

US AIRFORCE FACTS 

Along with conducting 

independent air and space 

operations, the U.S. Air 

Force provides air support 

for land and naval forces 

and aids in the recovery 

of troops in the field. As of 

2017, the service operates 

more than 5,369 military 

aircraft, 406 ICBMs and 

170 military satellites. It has 

a $161bn budget and is the 

second largest service 

branch, with 327,215 active 

duty airmen, 141,800 

civilian personnel, 69,200 

reserve airmen, and 105,700 

Air National Guard airmen. 

teams we are integrating into our 

DevSecOps platform and migrating our 

existing software factories the better, 

because they can simply piggyback on 

them and on Cloud One.” 

The US government has a process 

for software approval called 

an Authority to Operate (ATO) which 

takes between six months to a year. 

“Thanks to Dana Deasy, the DoD CIO, 

Bill Marion the Air Force CIO, Lauren 


Knausenberger, the Air Force Chief 

Transformation Officer, Daniel C. 

Holtzman, Cyber Security Engineering 

and Resilience Senior Leader, we 

implemented the concept of a DoDwide 

continuous ATO to allow us to 

push software to production continuously 

within a software factory,” he 

explains. “The continuous ATO (cATO) 

enables us to automatically take software 

from development to production 

multiple times a day, without having to 

reassess the software manually. This 

becomes an automated process and is 

a clear, well-defined, step-by-step procedure 

that takes software from unit, 

integration, regression and end-to-end 

testing all the way to cybersecurity 

scanning and deployment.” Regarding 

partnerships, Chaillan hopes it will 

become easier for startups to work 

with the US government to ensure the 

Air Force continues to achieve success 

in the technological space over the 

next few years. “We’re trying to tap 

into every company that is interested 

in working with us,” says Chaillan. “My 

job is to make it easier for startups to 

work with the US government. Getting 

access to technology is critical, if we 

37 


US AIR FORCE 

38 

“THE MOST IMPORTANT 

THING IS THAT EVERY- 

THING THAT IS DESIGNED 

HAS TO BE SUSTAINABLE – 

IT MUST BE SOMETHING 

THAT WILL LAST AFTER 

I’M GONE” 

— 



US Air Force 

get behind it’s going to have a major 

impact on our mission capabilities. 

If we don’t have access to the latest 

technologies because startups find it 

too hard to work with the US government, 

then we’re going to fail. The 

second aspect is the real partnership 

with the airmen and the DoD programs. 

We have to build mission capabilities 

with the implementation of programs 

such as AEGIS, JAIC, F16, F22 and F35 

because they need to build software 

and they have to do it now. That’s my 

partnership — it’s teamwork.” 

With the future in mind, Chaillan 


39 

hopes to create a legacy that will last 

long-term. “The most important thing is 

that everything that is designed has to 

be sustainable – it must be something 

that will last after I’m gone. You have to 

ask the question: is it something that 

can scale? If I don’t do that, I could stay 

10 years and I wouldn’t have made 

a big impact. You need to change the 

system, not just go around the system. 

You have to make that change last,” 

concludes Chaillan. 


LEADERSHIP 

40 

The ethical and 

economic imperative 

for women in tech 

Business Chief sits down with technology 

leader Helen Knight to take an extended look 

at why women are underrepresented and 

underpaid throughout the tech space, 

and how increased gender parity could 

add $12trn to the global economy by 2025 

WRITTEN BY HARRY MENEAR 



41

LEADERSHIP 

42 

Last year, tech job platform Honeypot conducted 

a study of 41 EU and OECD nations focused 

around gender parity in the technology space. 

In addition to revealing that Bulgaria leads the world 

as an employer of women in tech jobs (with a 30.28% 

female workforce), the study placed the United 

States and Canada firmly in the middle of the pack. 

The US tech workforce employs just over six million 

people and Canada slightly more than 900,000, 

with both countries paying women in technology 

jobs about 18% less than their male counterparts. 

“Gender parity in the workplace is not just an ethical 

or moral issue, but also an economic one: McKinsey 

found that $12trn could be added to global GDP 

by 2025 by advancing women’s equality,” explains 

Emma Tracey, Co-Founder of Honeypot. “With the 

proportion of female tech workers remaining under 

30% across the board, we hope that this study will 

enrich the conversation concerning equality in this 

industry and inspire more women to seek out 

opportunities in tech.” 

Today, the gender gap is slowly but surely beginning 

to close, as cities like Washington DC and Baltimore 

become havens for vibrant, increasingly genderdiverse 

startup scenes, and are seeing an increasing 

number of female executives higher up the pay 

ladder – although major tech hubs like Silicon Valley, 

San Francisco and Seattle are conspicuously 


43 

“Gender parity 

in the workplace 

is not just an 

ethical or moral 

issue, but also 

an economic one” 

— 

Emma Tracey, 

Co-Founder, Honeypot 


LEADERSHIP 

44 

“I’m not theorising 

that an all-female 

board would do 

better than an 

all-male one, 

but diversity has 

been proven to 

improve boards 

in other industries” 

— 

Helen Knight, 

IT Director, Calgary DI 

absent from the list. In Canada, 

Vancouver is starting to emerge 

as a hub for women in tech. 

However, the factors that push 

women away from jobs in technology 

still remain in our cultural and 

educational institutions. “In North 

America, the influences that work 

against women becoming interested 

in technical fields start very young. 

It’s like there is an unspoken belief that, 

if you’re pretty enough, you don’t need 

to learn math. That is a uniquely 

Western perspective that I don’t see 

happening in Asian countries. It’s 

ridiculously wasteful and it happens to 

girls at a very young age,” says Helen 

Wetherley Knight, Canadian CIO of 

the Year Finalist 2018 and Director of 

Information Technology at the Calgary 

Drop-In Centre. We sat with Knight to 

hear her insight into the current state of 

women in technology, how a gender 

diversified approach can lead to better 

decision making, and how her ongoing 

work with the Women in Technology 

(WIT) Network promotes women and 

girls to pursue careers in technology. 

“My grandmother was a mathematician 

in Australia in the 1940s. When she got 

married, she could only find work as 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘THE WIT NETWORK’ 

45 

a math teacher, and once she had 

children, she could no longer practice 

her love of mathematics. My mother 

was a scientist in Australia in the 1960s 

and was accepted to study dingoes in the 

outback. However, once they discovered 

she was a woman they sent her a letter 

that said: ‘We rescind our offer as we 

have a male applicant’. Although this was 

devastating for my mother, she returned 

to school and studied to become a 

science teacher, heeding the advice from 

her mother that the only way she could 

work in the field she loved was as an 

instructor,” recalls Knight. 

“It worked out for me though, 

because at the University of Sydney, 

Australia, another student was working 

on a bold thesis that the school’s new 

Super Computer could be used to 

survey people on their interests, 

encode the data onto punch cards and 

find love matches, creating the world’s 

first computer dating system. I was 

lucky that both my mother and father 

volunteered to participate in the 

experiment, as that is how they 

became matched, fell in love and 

eventually had me, a product of 

artificial intelligence.” 


LEADERSHIP 

46 

Knight became interested in 

computers at a very young age, 

learning to program when she was nine 

and falling in love with the world of 

technology and its potential 

applications. “In high school, I was 

startled to be told that computers were 

for boys. None of my new classmates 

were interested in computers, so I 

spent my high school years learning 

how to dumb down my intellect in an 

attempt to be datable.” She didn’t 

rekindle her love for computers until she 

was 26, enrolling in technical school 

and quickly accruing certifications and 

making up for a decade of missed 

opportunities to learn. After receiving 

her MBA from Athabasca University, 

Knight proceeded to hold increasingly 

senior jobs in the tech space, founding 

her own IT consulting company in 2008. 

Alongside her current role as Director 

of IT at the Calgary Drop-In, Knight 

still speaks professionally on IT 

transformation and diversity in 

technology at universities and 

conferences across North America. 

“When I go to CIO conferences, I’m 

often the only woman in the room 

who’s not in marketing,” she says. 

“For the last year, I’ve been talking to 


men about women in IT and how, in 

financial terms and uptime, their teams 

will be better and more effective if 

they’re genuinely diverse.” 

Pointing to a Credit Suisse survey 

that tracked the performance of 3,000 

companies over a 10-year period, 

Knight highlights the fact that 

companies with women in executive 

roles were more profitable, resilient 

to market down-turn, innovative, 

collaborative, and better decision 

makers. “I’m not theorising that an 

all-female board would do better than 

an all-male one, but diversity has been 

proven to improve boards in other 

industries. We’re just struggling with it 

in technology, where women are so 

often marginalized,” she explains. 

The crux of the distinction is 

neurobiological, Knight argues. 

Referencing Dr. Louann Brizendine, 

author of The Female Brain, she notes 

that “the female prefrontal cortex is 

larger, which is what actually governs 

aggressive impulses, so it aligns with 

the fact that we do things less 

impulsively and have more patience. 

Women have a larger insula, which 

gives us an increased ability to read 

nonverbal cues like facial expressions. 

47 


LEADERSHIP 

48 

Also, we have a larger Anterior 

Cingulate Cortex, which improves the 

ability to weigh options during decision 

making, and a larger and more active 

Hippocampus, which allows us to store 

emotional memory in greater detail.” 

The upshot is that, while the male brain 

is built to generate clear and distinct 

drives towards singular solutions, the 

female brain excels at brainstorming 

activities, weighing options and 

thinking in terms of large, integrated 

systems. Knight maintains that either 

method of thinking in isolation has its 

own drawbacks and inefficiencies, but 

if the tech space became more diverse, 

“We would have better tools, better 

teamwork, less territorialism and better 

training material, because women still 

remember the emotional pain of 

learning, whereas men’s brains flush 

that out a lot faster.” 

Knight believes that one key to 

championing diversity in the tech 

sector is to increase the ability for the 

minority of women working in it to 

connect with and support one another. 

To that end, she does guest lecturers, 


“The WIT Network 

offers us the ability 

to support, not only 

our female employees, 

but also our entire 

management team, 

who are focused on 

diversity and inclusion” 

— 

Vicki Thomson, 

Chief People Officer, New Signature 

mentors’ groups of female students 

and is a member of the Alberta chapter 

of the WIT Network, with the aim of 

bringing together women and girls in 

the province who are interested, or 

already working in technology. The WIT 

Network has over 80 chapters 

worldwide, in more than 30 countries, 

offering programs, mentorship and 

inspiration for all ages and stages in a 

women’s career in tech. “The WIT 

Network offers us the ability to support, 

not only our female employees, but 

also our entire management team, who 

are focused on diversity and inclusion. 

Every current and new female employee 

will receive a welcome package which 

includes their WIT Network membership 

benefits,” comments Vicki Thomson, 

Chief People Officer at New Signature, 

a cloud-first, full-service, Microsoft 

partnered technology solutions company. 

Knight plans to continue campaigning 

for a brighter future for women in 

technology. As with all people who 

work to build a better future, a large 

part of her motivation comes from the 

desire to improve the lot of future 

generations. “I hope I am a part of the 

solution,” she says. “I’m also very eager 

to see the next generation grow. When 

my daughter was two, I saw her trying 

to stretch an image in a book to make it 

bigger. She’s grown up with tech all 

around her, today’s children have so 

much access to easy to use devices. 

The fact that there’s no gender bias 

there – no one is telling little girls today 

that iPhones are for boys - is 

something that makes me really 

excited about the future.” 

49 


Covering every angle 

in the digital age 

The Business Chief platforms offer 

insight on the trends influencing 

C and V-level executives, telling the 

stories that matter 

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE 


TECHNOLOGY 

52 

MAKING A SUCCESS 

OF DIGITAL 

TRANSFORMATION 

Nancy Hammervik, Executive Vice President, 

Industry Relations at IT trade association 

CompTIA, discusses the work the organisation 

does to enable digital transformation 

WRITTEN BY MARCUS LAWRENCE 


europe.businesschief.com 

53

TECHNOLOGY 

54 

Tell us a bit about yourself and your role 

as Executive Vice President of Industry 

Relations at CompTIA. 

I have been in the tech industry for nearly 35 years, 

starting on the media side (selling advertising, 

sponsorships, and staging events around the 

world that bring vendors, distributors and partners 

together). Eight and a half years ago, I joined 

CompTIA as Executive Vice President, Industry 

Relations. A big part of my role is managing our 

membership programme, providing value to 

members to both grow their businesses and have 

a positive impact on the industry. I am responsible 

for growing our membership numbers, member 

engagement and value, and expanding our reach 

and relevance in the tech ecosystem. 

CompTIA has 10 member-led communities 

(in vertical markets like Managed Services and 

Security, demographic markets like Advancing 

Women in Tech and Future Leaders, and geographic 

markets like the UK and Benelux) and 

five industry advisory councils that serve as the 

headlights for our organisation and industry. 

The part of my role that I enjoy the most is 

providing members with the tools and resources 

they need to stay relevant in a fast paced, evolving 

industry while harnessing the power of our 


“YOUR TEAM SHOULD BE AS DIVERSE 

AS YOUR CUSTOMER BASE” 

— 

Nancy Hammervik, 

Executive Vice President, 

Industry Relations, CompTIA 

55 

membership to be true advocates for 

the industry and its workforce, driving 

the adoption of emerging technologies 

and having a positive, palpable impact 

on the business of tech. 

In your own words, what does 

CompTIA offer firms around the 

world with regards to enabling 

successful digital transformations? 

CompTIA’s mission is to advance the 

adoption of technology and the 

growth of the tech industry. That’s 

why we offer an unparalleled selection 

europe.businesschief.com

TECHNOLOGY 

56 

of resources related to digital transformation 

and other tech topics. 

The vast majority of these resources 

– greater than 90% – are available at 

no cost, whether you are a dues-paying 

member of the association or not. 

We have comprehensive, worldclass 

research reports and staff, howto 

guides, whitepapers, and other 

educational materials developed with 

the collective expertise of thousands 

of IT professionals and executives 

around the world. We also have webinars, 

podcasts, conference sessions, seminars 

and networking forums that offer 

peer-to-peer insight and best practice 

sharing. We offer industry leading, 

vendor-neutral skills training and skills 

validation. CompTIA is the largest 

provider of vendor-neutral skills 

certifications for technology 

professionals around the world. 

When compared to other organisations, 

what makes CompTIA unique 

is our member communities. As mentioned, 

we offer member-led communities 

across a variety of markets, all in 

the business of influencing and enabling 

digital environments for themselves 

and their clients. We hear all the 

time that these communities offer a 

trusted, safe haven where all players 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘LAUNCH YOUR CAREER WITH COMPTIA CERTIFICATIONS’ 

57 

in the ecosystem can gather and learn 

from each other. 

Our UK Channel Community has 

750 members. They meet face-toface 

at least three times a year to 

share strategies and best practices, 

and members have built such strong 

relationships that they can rely on 

each other throughout the year as a 

resource to grow their businesses. 

Based on the recent CompTIA Top 

10 Emerging Technologies report, 

what can enterprises around the 

world do to ensure they can capitalise 

on the opportunities afforded by 

upcoming and ascendant solutions? 

A great starting point for any organisation 

– large enterprise, mid-sized 

firm or small business – is to inspire 

and invest in their employees with 

ongoing skills training. Encourage 

staff to join CompTIA, even at the free, 

registered user level, to stay close to 

industry trends and dynamics and 

make important contacts they that can 

build a solid network from. Attending 

industry events, conferences, and 


TECHNOLOGY 

58 

other meet-ups in the industry is 

invaluable when it comes to being 

in the know and being prepared. 

Second, invest in updating infrastructure. 

All emerging technologies 

will need sound and secure platforms 

and systems. 

Third, make sure everyone in the 

organisation is on board with moving 

forward. Build a culture conducive to 

change and progress. Articulate the 

benefits of automating processes, 

saving dollars, operating more efficiently, 

and recognise and reward 

efforts. Bring on external partners, 

business and technology consultants, 

and leverage their expertise. Make 

sure to bring line of business managers 

into the process. 

Build diversity into your staff. Your 

team should be as diverse as your 

customer base. Seek new and diverse 

perspectives and experiences to 

foster a culture of innovation. 

Finally, when it comes to innovation 

and new and emerging technologies, 

consult with your trusted technology 

partners. The best tech partners are 

the ones that truly understand your 

business – the products or services 

you sell, the customers and markets 

“TECHNOLOGY IS 

DRIVING ALL 

BUSINESSES, 

INDUSTRIES AND 

GOVERNMENTS” 

— 




you serve, and the short and longterm 

goals you have for business 

growth. Equipped with these insights, 

a technology provider can make 

informed recommendations on the 

technology options that make the 

most sense for a business, today 

and into the future. 

Aside from the tech mentioned in 

the Top 10 report, what do you view 

as the most influential established 

technologies at present? 

For me it’s all about IoT and Big Data – 


59 

capturing data and building programs 

to analyse the data can have a tremendous 

impact on both businesses 

and consumers. While IoT and Big 

Data are improving businesses and 

lives, they are also solving world 

problems. Having insight on your 

operations, workflow and customers 

– and doing something with it – can be 

the catalyst for cost savings, improving 

efficiency, mitigating risk, maximising 

sales and driving new revenue. 

For consumers, IoT can monitor and 

regulate the climate of your environment, 

automate your shopping experiences 

and allow home healthcare solutions. 

Managing fleets of trucks and trains 

more efficiently can allow us to reduce 

our carbon footprint, and smart buildings 

in a city can help to better manage 

renewable resources. 

I met a young lady at a conference 

last week who invented the world’s 

first smart white cane for the blind 

and sight impaired, which allows them 

to have a greater understanding and 

control of their environment. With the 

cane collecting data on the user’s gait 


TECHNOLOGY 

60 

and centre of balance, the development 

team realised it could also be used by 

the frail and elderly to help predict and 

avoid a traumatic fall three weeks 

before it happens. The implications 

for healthcare and quality of life are 

tremendous. 

In a general sense, what are the 

most significant challenges facing 

a successful digital transformation? 

Security and the workforce. With multiple 

components and “access points” 

in every advanced digital solution, the 

need for comprehensive and advanced 

security solutions is imperative. The 

global security market for IoT alone 

is a £30bn market. Small and medium 

businesses (SMBs) are still relatively 

unaware and unprepared for the level 

of security that should be protecting 

their – and their customers’ – security. 

Working with a professional consultant 

or service provider is recommended. 

We are also dealing with significant 

workforce skills gaps. In Q2 2019 

employers across the UK were seeking 

to fill more than 140,000 core IT job 

openings. That represented 9% of all 

UK job postings in the quarter. 

Not only do we have skills gaps, we 

have a confidence gap where many of 


the next generation do not see themselves 

in a technology role. As we 

continue to introduce new technologies, 

we create new roles – like data scientists, 

drone service providers, AI 

ethics leads and more. CompTIA is 

focused on building programs that will 

encourage, train and certify the next 

generation of the workplace. Digital 

transformation is defining the 

business of the future. 

Are there any particular industries 

that appear to be lagging in terms 

of technological implementation/ 

innovation? 

“THE BEST TECH 

PARTNERS ARE THE 

ONES WHO TRULY 

UNDERSTAND YOUR 

BUSINESS” 

— 




In general, most small businesses, 

across all industries, are lagging. 

Without the internal skill and talent to 

deploy and implement a digital strategy, 

they are left to collaborate with external 

partners, business and technology 

consultants. While there are many 

solutions and service providers available 

to support them, many of them are 

small businesses themselves and on 

the long tail of the learning curve. 

We are seeing the greatest advances 

at the enterprise level being deployed 

by larger system integrators and 

global consultants. CompTIA is working 

hard to equip smaller solution providers 

with the insight, education, tools and 

resources needed to drive the adoption 

of emerging technologies into the 

SMB. We are also focused on building 

the tech workforce through education, 

training and certification so more 

companies can staff and skill up with 

relevant talent. 

In your view, which industries are 

leading the charge with the most 

successful digital transformations? 

Digital transformation has taken hold 

in virtually every industry, but there are 

clear distinctions in the degrees and 

61 


TECHNOLOGY 

62 

pace that different industries are 

embracing these changes. 

The advances in healthcare have 

been tremendous. The use of electronic 

health records got off to a relatively 

slow start, but the pace of adoption 

has increased in recent years. Digital 

records help contribute to better care 

and treatment, especially as patients 

see multiple doctors or are transferred 

to different care units or facilities. 

Care givers have instant access to the 

latest patient information, delivered in 

a way that’s more secure and allows 

for better data organisation. 

Another digital innovation that’s taking 

hold is wearable technology, from Fitbit 

and similar devices that allow patients to 

monitor and record their daily activities 

to more advanced technologies for realtime 

monitoring of symptoms and vitals, 

medication reminders and status 

reports for medical staff. From hospital 

mattresses that measure and manage 

the patient’s vitals, through to robotic 

surgeries, insightful patient portals and 

AI-empowered diagnostics, the healthcare 

industry has been revolutionised 

by digital transformation. 

Retail is also pushing forward quickly 

with customer-centric data management, 


IoT store cameras managing inventory 

and shopping patterns, 

and enhanced security solutions 

managing mobile payments. McKinsey 

forecasts the retail IoT market will hit 

£28.6bn this year, with healthcare 

coming in at £130bn. 

Cloud computing, analytics and 

robotics are among the most innovative 

digital tools revamping the core of 

banking and finance. People have 

financial management at their fingertips 

via mobile banking apps, smart 

ATMs, virtual assistants and chatbots, 

and internet-based virtual banks. 

To whatever extent, technology is 

driving all businesses, industries and 

governments. Whether it be hospitality, 

back office, construction or even 

agriculture, the use of technology, 

along with the internal staff and/or 

external teams to develop and manage 

it, is quickly becoming the single most 

compelling factor contributing to an 

organisation’s ability to compete, 

provide value, grow and succeed. 

63 


PEOPLE 

66 

Airswift: 

AUTOMATION AND 

HUMAN CENTRICITY 

IN RECRUITMENT 

Business Chief talks to Janette 

Marx, CEO of Airswift, about the 

effects of digital transformation 

on recruitment and retention, 

and what the future holds 


© Albert Robida / Wikimedia Commons 



67

PEOPLE 

68 

In 1899, French artist Jean-Marc Côté was 

among a team of illustrators commissioned 

to create a series of drawings to commemorate 

the 1900 world’s fair in Paris. The series, 

originally printed as inserts for cigar boxes (and 

then later reprinted, but never sold, as postcards 

– science fiction author Isaac Asimov reportedly 

owned the only surviving set) took the artists’ 

best guess at how technology would change 

our lives by the advent of the 21st century. 

The subject matter of En L'An 2000 is, for 

the most part, spectacularly off the mark. 

Firefighters battle flames while flying through 

the air on bat wings, deep sea divers ride giant 

seahorses through the ocean and students 

have the contents of history books transferred 

directly into their brains via psychic helmets. 

Endearingly hopeful and bizarre, Côté and his 

fellow artists’ work does betray just how hard it 

is to predict where the next wave of technological 

developments will take us. 

In 1995, renowned astronomer and author 

Clifford Stoll wrote in an article for Newsweek 

that “the truth is no online database will replace 

your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take 

the place of a competent teacher and no computer 

network will change the way government 

works.” He also vociferously argued that there 


69 

© Jean-Marc Côté / Villemard / Wikimedia Commons 

was no such thing as a future where 

people would buy things over the 

internet, or read books and magazines 

online. “Discount the fawning technoburble 

about virtual communities,” he 

continued. “Computers and networks 

isolate us from one another. A network 

chat line is a limp substitute for meeting 

friends over coffee.” seventeen 

years after the article’s publication, 

Newsweek became an exclusively 


PEOPLE 

70 

“THERE IS A LOT OF AUTO- 

MATION IN SOURCING 

NOW… THE PIECE THAT’S 

OFTEN MISSING IS 

THE PERSONAL TOUCH” 

— 

Janette Marx, 

CEO, Airswift 

online publication. Obviously, the future 

is not something to be predicted lightly. 

However, one or two predictions 

made by En L'An 2000 came partly 

true. Several of the illustrations portray 

a world in which a single worker 

sits, comfortably pushing buttons, as 

automated machinery does the work 

of a dozen laborers. In this respect, at 

least, Côté was entirely on the money. 

Automation has completely changed 

the way in which people work, reaching 

further and further into aspects of our 

jobs and changing the culture of work 

forever. While organisations like the 

Office for National Statistics predict 

that, in the UK, as many as 1.5mn jobs 

are at risk of being eliminated by automation, 

a greater number of thought 

leaders believe that increased automa- 

tion (and digitalisation in general) only 

highlights the continued need for the 

human element in business. 

“There is a lot of automation in 

sourcing now, a lot of technology that 

companies use within their applicant 

tracking systems to interact with 

people applying for jobs, and engage 

with them via automated responses,” 

says Janette Marx, CEO of Airswift. 

“The piece that's often missing is the 

personal touch.” Founded in 1979, 

Airswift is an international workforce 

solutions provider within the energy, 

process and infrastructure industries. 

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the 

company has over 800 employees and 

6,000 contractors operating in more 

than 50 countries. “We're specialists in 

industries where companies, no matter 

what country they're in around the 

world, have the challenge of trying to 

source the right talent,” Marx explains. 

“We're not only experts in identifying 

the right talent for our clients, but also 

experts in mobilising that talent wherever 

it’s needed. Whether it's locally, 

nationally or globally, we do everything 

from making sure people have a place 

to live, feel that they are welcomed 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘OPPORTUNITIES WITH AIRSWIFT IN MOZAMBIQUE’ 

71 

into a new country and understand 

the culture, to helping find schools 

for their kids.” 

Airswift partners with some of the 

largest companies around the world to 

solve talent sourcing, recruitment and 

retention challenges in any number of 

new and existing markets. In terms of 

the ability to comment on the effect of 

digital transformation and innovation 

on the modern workforce, few are 

in a better position than Marx. “The 

biggest change in the talent sourcing 

world is, if you take a step back, how 

digital transformation will change the 

interaction between employer and 

future employee,” she says. “From a 

sourcing point of view, the medium 

has changed so much, from ads in the 

newspaper to online job boards to the 

invention of LinkedIn and so on. There 

are a lot of different ways to attract 

candidates to different companies.” 

The increased digitalisation of the 

recruitment space, according to Marx, 

has radically altered the size of the net 

that companies can cast. This is where 

automation becomes so important. 

“We can use chatbots and other types 

of automation to make sure that we're 


PEOPLE 

72 

reaching the right audience. There 

are companies using chatbots to prescreen 

candidates to make sure they 

are qualified before doing an actual 

interview,” elaborates Marx. “It's really 

broken down a lot of barriers and globalised 

our outlook, especially if the 

skill you’re sourcing is niche, specific or 

hard to find.” 

However, at the heart of recruitment 

is still the human relationship. “When 

a person decides to leave a job to 

go to another job, that's a really big 

decision. Facilitating and navigating 

the thought process surrounding that 

change is where real recruiters come 

in to help connect the dots between 

the employer and the job seeker,” Marx 

explains. “The digital world is coming 

into it, but you still need a human element 

in the recruitment process.” 

Digital transformation is not only 

changing the way that companies 

attract talent. Marx notes that, as the 

human capital space is increasingly 

reshaped by the accelerating pace of 

innovation, the strategies and values 

companies use to retain their talent are 

becoming increasingly people–centric. 

“Retention is a really important piece, 

© Jean-Marc Côté / Wikimedia Commons 

especially with where the unemployment 

levels sit around the world right 

now,” she says. “There are a lot of 

measures companies can take to 

increase their retention and employee 

engagement, to really train and 

develop their people.” More and more, 

Marx finds, career progression is the 

number one reason people switch 

jobs, with opportunities for training and 

development coming a close second. 

The global workforce is as aware of 

the pace of change as anyone, and 


“THE TRUTH IS: NO ONLINE 

DATABASE WILL REPLACE 

YOUR DAILY NEWS- 

PAPER, NO CD-ROM CAN 

TAKE THE PLACE OF 

A COMPETENT TEACHER 

AND NO COMPUTER 

NETWORK WILL CHANGE 

THE WAY GOVERNMENT 

WORKS” 

— 

Clifford Stoll, 

(Newsweek, 1995) 73 

prioritises personal development in 

order to keep up. 

In the same way that Côté and 

Stoll struggled to accurately envision 

where technology would take humanity, 

the next five to 10 years are a time 

shrouded in mystery, brimming with the 

possibility of rapid advancements and 

new challenges to face. Marx herself 

is filled with optimism. “The future is 

going to be really, really interesting 

with regard to how we balance human 

interaction with technology and how 

the technology will support that overall 

experience,” she enthuses. “I can’t wait 

to see where the next five years take us, 

particularly in terms of communications. 

It would be nice to have holograms,” 

she says, somewhat wistfully. 


SUSTAINABILITY 

74 

FIVE STEPS 

TOWARDS 

A MORE 

SUSTAINABLE 

SUPPLY CHAIN 

John Perry, Managing Director at SCALA, 

a leading provider of management services 

for the supply chain and logistics sector, 

shares the processes businesses should 

undertake to become more sustainable 

WRITTEN BY JOHN PERRY 



75


76 

Sustainability is becoming 

increasingly crucial to both consumers 

and key stakeholders 

alike, with research from Unilever finding 

that one in three consumers now 

choose brands based on their social 

and environmental credentials. This, 

combined with the UK having recently 

become the first major economy in 

the world to legally commit to net-zero 

emissions by 2050, means that businesses 

are now having to ensure that 

their supply chains are as sustainable 

as possible – the question is, how? 

DEVELOPING A BUSINESS CASE 

The first step towards achieving a 

more sustainable supply chain is to 

build the business case for action. 

This will help to identify the highest 

priority supply chain issues for the 

company, evaluate opportunities and 

risks, and build the internal support 

needed to move forward. 


77 

The business case for a particular 

company depends on a variety of 

issues, including: industry sector, 

supply chain footprint, stakeholder 

expectations, business strategy and 

organisational culture. However, in 

most cases, supply chain sustainability 

offers a number of significant benefits. 

This can include minimising business 

disruption from environmental, social 

and economic impacts, protecting a 

company’s reputation and brand value, 

reducing the costs of material inputs, 

energy and transportation, increasing 

labour productivity, and fostering 

growth by meeting evolving customer 

and business partner requirements. 

ESTABLISHING A VISION 

Once the business case has been successfully 

put forward, it’s important 

to then establish a clear vision for the 

company’s sustainable supply chain 

programme. Defining the objectives at 



78 

“A key element 

of supply chain 

sustainability 

is efficiency” 

— 

John Perry, 

Managing Director, SCALA 

the outset of the project will prove invaluable 

when it comes to devising the 

strategy. Having a vision in place also 

makes it easier to evaluate the success 

of the programme and identify areas 

for continued improvement. 

In order to ensure full support from 

the business’s senior executives, which 

will be crucial for success, they should 

be actively involved throughout the 

creation of the vision. In addition to the 

c-suite, representatives from across 

the business including sales, marketing, 

finance, IT systems, manufacturing and 

procurement should be consulted, as 

each of these functions will have a role 

to play in the implementation of the 

sustainable supply chain programme. 

STRATEGIC PLANNING 

A key element of supply chain sustainability 

is efficiency, which is best 

achieved through careful planning. 

Sophisticated digital modelling tools 

can provide end-to-end supply chain 

perspective, enabling businesses to 

pinpoint inefficiencies and design a 

more sustainable supply chain and 

logistics network going forward. 

By assessing all potential options 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘CATHERINE WEETMAN - FUTURE-FIT LOGISTICS’ 

79 

and analysing a range of future ‘what 

if’ scenarios, companies can ensure 

not only that their supply chain and 

logistics networks are resilient to 

future changes, but also that they can 

benefit both the environment and their 

bottom line by eliminating wastage 

and overspending. 

For example, modelling software can 

help supply chain professionals to minimise 

physical space used by identifying 

redundant facilities or opportunities 

to rebalance storage, avoid empty 

miles by analysing their transportation 

network, and reduce emissions by 

directing inventory to serve demand. 

SOURCING RESPONSIBLY 

While it’s impossible for businesses 

to fully control the practices of every 

third party they deal with in their supply 

chain, they should work to ensure that 

wherever possible they only partner 

with companies that share the same 

goals, sustainability values, and environmentally-conscious 

supply chain 

processes as themselves. 

Customers will ultimately hold the 



80 

businesses they interact with directly 

accountable for the products or 

services that are delivered. So, if it is 

discovered that products contain parts 

manufactured unsustainably that have 

come from an external supplier, it won’t 

be the supplier that faces the backlash 

and suffers the consequences. 

Qualifying the right sourcing partners 

is a critical piece of the sustainability 

puzzle, and it requires businesses to 

enforce the same high sustainability 

standards to which they hold themselves. 

Establishing and communicating 

expectations through a supplier 

code of conduct is an effective way for 

businesses to involve suppliers in their 

sustainability efforts. 

OPTIMISING DISTRIBUTION 

When looking to improve sustainability, 

logistics is one of the areas where the 

biggest difference can be made. With 

a large number of vehicles moving high 

volumes of goods to diverse and dispersed 

locations, there is a significant 

risk of inefficiency when it comes to 

transport operations. 

In order to optimise their logistics 

network, businesses should look at 

whether their fleet’s size, type and 

geographic spread remains optimal, 

whether their distribution centres are 

in the right places, whether customer 

order profiles and delivery requirements 

have changed since the original 

transport operation was designed, 

and whether a dedicated transport 

operation is even still needed, or if 

it could be more economical and 

environmentally-friendly. 

This will not only help to ensure 

that the supply chain can operate as 


“Businesses are 

now having to 

ensure that their 

supply chains 

are as sustainable 

as possible” 

— 

John Perry, 

Managing Director, SCALA 

81 

smoothly as possible, but also reduce 

empty miles and carbon emissions, 

which has a significant positive effect 

on a business’s environmental impact. 

In addition to helping the environment 

and satisfying public demand 

for ethical and environmentally sound 

business practices, sustainability 

can drive significant business value 

both now and long into the future. 


CITY FOCUS 

82 

City Focus 

HOUS 

Business Chief explores 

Houston, Texas, 

an energetic and diverse 

hub of business and 

innovation, and home 

to some of the country’s 

most enterprising 

space-centric startups 


TON 


83 


CITY FOCUS | CHICAGO 

HOUSTON 

84 

T 

he most populous city in the state 

of Texas and the fourth most populous 

in the United States, Houston is home 

to over 2.3 million people. Houston is very much 

a multicultural city: its residents are among the 

youngest in the country, speak over 90 languages 

and the metropolitan area lays claim to the thirdlargest 

hispanic population in the US. ‘H-Town’, 

as it’s known, is also one of the nation’s leading 

business hubs. With the exception of New York, 

Houston is home to the most Fortune 500 

companies in America. 

Also nicknamed ‘Hustle Town’, the city’s spirit of 

entrepreneurship and innovation is perhaps most 

iconically embodied by the moniker ‘Space City’. 

Located on Galveston Bay, looking out across the 

Gulf of Mexico, Houston hosts NASA’s Johnson 

Space Center, where the organization’s famous 

Mission Control Center is located. With 2019 

marking the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, 

hailed by many as one of humanity’s crowning 

achievements, Business Chief takes a look at 

some of the Houston native companies continuing 

to uphold the legacy that earned Space City its 

name, according to a report by InnovationMap. 


85 

NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon ©WIKI 


CITY FOCUS | HOUSTON 

86 

COGNITIVE SPACE 

“The world is moving towards automation 

through artificial intelligence – for 

good reasons. It can provide consistent 

reliability, sustainability and 

exceptional performance, often 

surpassing our brightest minds. 

Our mission is to render our precious 

orbital machines fully autonomous, 

such that we can fully rely on their 

invaluable services from space – a 

domain that is becoming increasingly 

crowded and complex.” 

As AI-driven automation continues 

to permeate almost every aspect of 

the business landscape, one former 

NASA specialist, Guy de Carufel, 

is working to bring this cutting-edge 

technology to the approximately 

2,000 operational satellites currently 

orbiting the Earth’s outer atmosphere. 

With the planet rapidly becoming 

cloaked in an ever-thickening blanket 

of space junk (NASA reported in 2017 

that there were more than 25,000 

pieces of debris larger than a softball 

orbiting the Earth) the need for efficient 

organization of spacefaring 

technology is greater than ever. 

Founded in 2018, Cognitive Space is 

based in Houston and is currently working 

on the production of a prototype 

product in preparation for an upcoming 

seed round, expected by the end of 2019. 

“Our mission is to render our 

precious orbital machines fully 

autonomous, such that we can 

fully rely on their invaluable 

services from Space” 

— 

Cognitive Space 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘CEMVITA FACTORY’S CEMVITA FACTORY 

MOJI KARIMI AT NASA ITECH’ 87 

CEMVITA FACTORY 

In addition to space, one of Houston’s 

most significant industries is oil and 

gas. For both, the production of CO2 

is a major issue. Founded in 2017, 

Cemvita Factory aims to provide 

“economical solutions for a sustainable 

future, on Earth and on Mars”. The 

people behind this biotechnology 

startup’s lofty goal are brother and 

sister team Moji and Tara Karimi. 

A member of the Capital Factory 

Accelerator Program, Cemvita Factory 

plans to use its proprietary CO2 

Utilization platform in order to mimic 

the photosynthesis process found in 

plants “by simultaneous uptake of 

solar energy, water, and processing 

of carbon dioxide to produce nutrients, 

pharmaceuticals, intermediate 

chemicals, and polymers.” 

In an interview with Space Bandits, 

Moji Kamiri said: “We fundamentally 

solve the food problem for deep 

space exploration and survival on 

Mars. Planning on taking food to 

space is very risky and astronomically 

expensive ($100k/kg to Mars at a 


CITY FOCUS | HOUSTON 

“There would not have been 

any better place for us in the 

country than Houston” 

— 

Cemvita Factory 

88 

minimum). We believe the optimal 

solution is a mix of all but cannot only 

rely on taking the food with us.” The 

company has reportedly had success 

creating glucose from CO2, a huge 

step in the process of making space 

travel a sustainable endeavor. The 

sustainability implications of harvesting 

CO2 from Earth’s atmosphere and 

converting it into usable chemicals 

that no longer damage the environment 

speak for themselves. 

When asked by InnovationMap 

about Cemvita Factory’s home, Tara 

Kamiri said: “We’re in Houston, and we 

have a technology that is from biotech 

and have applications in the space 

industry and the energy industry. There 

would not have been any better place 

for us in the country than Houston.” 

RE:3D 

Founded in 2013 by ex-NASA 

colleagues Samantha Snabes and 

Matthew Fiedler, re:3D is changing 

the digital manufacturing game. 

The company’s flagship product, the 

Gigabot, has an eight cubic feet build 


volume and is by far the most competitively-priced 

industrial printer on the 

market for its size and price point, 

with a retail price of $9,000. 

Bootstrapped from the ground up 

using crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, 

re:3D’s crusade to democratize 

the capabilities of industrial 3D printing 

has captured the imaginations of 

donors across the world. The company’s 

customer base now comprises an 

esteemed group of specialty manufacturers, 

engineers, designers, 

universities, and hobbyists in over 50 

countries around the globe. 

Invested in its local community, re:3D 

works with other Houston residents to 

support a large number of sustainable 

projects, from developing children’s 

social skills through Dungeons & 

Dragons (re:3D printed every child an 

individual miniature of their character) 

to 3D printing sustainable energy 

solutions after Hurricane Maria. 

The company occupies headquarters 

a few streets away from the 

Johnson Space Center and, along 

with the other startups on this list and 

scattered across the rest of the city, 

embodies the pioneering and adventurous 

spirit that, half a century ago, drove 

NASA to put a man on the moon. 

89 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘GIGABOT X: CREATING A PELLET PRINTER TO 3D 

PRINT USING RECYCLED PLASTIC’ 


TOP 10 

90 


Hotels 

in North 

America 

Business Chief examines the ‘Top 

100 Hotels in the World’ according 

to Travel and Leisure to bring you 

the top 10 hotels in North America 

91 

WRITTEN BY SHANNON LEWIS 


TOP 10 

92 

10 

Montage Kapalua Bay 

Hawaii 

Spanning delete 24 acres, the Montage Kapalua Bay is located in 

Maui, Hawaii. With a Travel and Leisure score of 95.88, it is rated the 

63rd best hotel in the world. Its amenities include over 50 residentialstyle 

multi-bedroom suites, 24 beachfront acres, five restaurants, 

four bars, and a complete spa service, according to the hotel’s website. 

Overlooking Kapalua Bay, it has received public acclaim, with 

a five-star rating on TripAdvisor and a 9.3 rating on Booking.com. 


93 

09 

North Block Hotel 

California 

With a score of 96.00, North Block Hotel is tied for 55th place, 

according to Travel and Leisure. Situated in Yountville, California, 

it is the number one Californian hotel in the world. With only 20 

rooms, these are well-stocked with private entrances, individual 

patios, heated floors in the bathrooms, and 300-count linens. North 

Block hotel boasts a full spa and an Italian-inspired eatery, the Redd 

Wood Restaurant, headed by Michelin-starred Richard Reddington. 


TOP 10 

94 

08 

Fogo Island Inn 

Newfoundland 

Tied for 55th best hotel in the world, the Fogo Island Inn has a Travel 

and Leisure score of 96.00. Located in Newfoundland, Canada, 

National Geographic calls it “a great feat of contemporary architecture.” 

Perched on stilts, each of its 29 guest rooms and suites are unique, 

with floor-to-ceiling windows that open to a spectacular ocean view. 

With a focus on sustainability, 100% of the hotel’s operating 

surpluses are reinvested into the community, according to its website. 


95 

07 

The Bristol Hotel 

Virginia 

The Bristol Hotel, situated in Bristol, Virginia, is a 65-room boutique 

hotel with a rooftop bar that offers far-reaching views of the Appalachian 

Mountains. With a Travel and Leisure Score of 96.09, it is the 

53rd best hotel in the world. The building was built in 1925. Originally, 

it functioned as a hotel before becoming the most prominent office 

building in the city in the 20th century. Then eventually it reverted 

back to its original intention as the 65-room, 11-suite hotel. 


TOP 10 

96 

06 

The Row Hotel 

Massachusetts 

The 44th best hotel in the world, The Row Hotel at Assembly Row 

has a Travel and Leisure score of 96.32. Part of the Autograph 

Collection of Marriott Hotels, it is located in Somerville, Massachusetts, 

a seven-minute train ride from Boston. With a heated pool and 

24-hour fitness centre, its amenities include a guest pantry and 

sun terrace. The Row Hotel at Assembly Row has high ratings: 

4.5 stars on TripAdvisor and 4.7 stars on Marriott’s own website 


97 

05 

Hotel Eleven 

Texas 

Situated in Austin, Texas, Hotel Eleven is one of the most recent 

boutique hotels to open in East Austin. With a 14-room capacity, 

it provides an intimate space for fans of music and art. Adorned with 

locally-sourced artwork, its lounge features a rotating cast of local 

artists. With a Travel and Leisure score of 96.55, it places 36th in the 

world. Its private roof deck provides guests with views of downtown 

Austin, the Texas Capitol, and the University of Texas. 


TOP 10 

98 

04 

The Inn of the Five Graces 

New Mexico 

With a Travel and Leisure score of 96.62, The Inn of the Five Graces 

is the 33rd best hotel in the world. Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

each room is adorned handcrafted artisanal art and priceless 

artefacts dating back to the Silk Road. It was inaugurated in 1996 

under the name “Serets’ 1001 Nights”, changing its name in 2004, 

according to the hotel’s website. With 24 rooms, it has a five-star 

rating on TripAdvisor and a 9.4 rating on Booking.com. 


99 

03 

Rabbit Hill Inn 

Vermont 

Located in Lower Waterford, Vermont, the Rabbit Hill Inn is a 19 room 

bed and breakfast. It places 27th in the world, according to Travel and 

Leisure, with a score of 96.89. The hotel boasts breathtaking views of 

the White Mountains, a swimming pool, spa facilities, and awardwinning 

cuisine. World-class, Rabbit Hill Inn has a five-star rating on 

TripAdvisor, a 4.5-star rating on Yelp, and a 9.4 rating on Booking.com. 


TOP 10 

02 

Inn at Willow Grove 

Virginia 

100 

Situated in Orange, Virginia, Inn at Willow Grove is right in 

the middle of Virginia wine country. A restored plantation 

house from the 1770s, it is rated the 24th best hotel in the 

world, with a Travel and Leisure score of 97.22. Seeking 

to capture Southern American charm, the hotel is staffed 

by butlers and is equipped with a parlour piano. Its room 

choices include 10 boutique rooms, 10 luxury suites, and 

five premier suites and cottages. 



101

TOP 10 

01 

Brush Creek Ranch 

Wyoming 

First on our list and second in the world is the Lodge & Spa at Brush 

Creek Ranch, with a Travel and Leisure score of 98.67. Situated 

in Saratoga, Wyoming, the 30,000-acre property provides luxury 

accommodation and also acts as a working cattle ranch. 

Among its 33 available units are 11 log cabin residences, 13 rooms 

in its Trailhead Lodge, and nine fully furnished cabin suites, giving 

it a capacity of up to 150 guests, according to the hotel’s website. 

102 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘BRUSH CREEK RANCH ADVENTURES’ 

103 


104 

SAP: Harnessing 

the power of 5G 

WRITTEN BY 

WILLIAM SMITH 

PRODUCED BY 

CRAIG DANIELS 



105

SAP 

Frank Wilde, Vice President 

for SAP’s Global Center of 

Excellence, explains the 

transformative potential 

of 5G for enterprise 

106 

S 

AP is renowned for its enterprise software, 

providing solutions across finance, supply 

chain and more. Another side of its business, 

however, lies in advising customers on the adoption 

of innovative technology. Frank Wilde is a Vice 

President for SAP’s Global Center of Excellence 

(COE), which serves to provide this advice and 

expertise. “The Global COE is designed to be an 

incubator to support the sales motion and create 

a linkage to our product organization,” he explains. 

“We help introduce new innovations and showcase 

the latest aspects of our portfolio to drive new 

customer conversations. A core component lies 

in making it easier for our sales teams to learn 

about new aspects of our portfolio, and then turn 

those into customer driven conversations. We’re 

fundamentally changing the relationship with 

customers to be much more customer focused 

and much more agile as a result.” 



107

YOU DIDN’T 

KNOW WHAT 

WAS BEST 

FOR YOUR 

BUSINESS. 

BUT THAT WAS 

0.67 SECONDS 

AGO. 

SAP HANA DATA 

MANAGEMENT SUITE. 

Having a lot of data is only 

a start. With the SAP HANA ® 

Data Management Suite, you 

can source and combine all 

data types in real time, at the 

speed and scale of business. 

So you can solve problems your 

business could never solve 

before – in the blink of an eye. 

THE BEST-RUN BUSINESSES 

MAKE THE WORLD RUN BETTER. 

Learn more at sap.com/speed 

© 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

SAP 

“We’re fundamentally changing 

the relationship with customers 

to be much more customer 

focused and much more agile” 

— 

Frank Wilde, 

Vice President, Global Center 

of Excellence, SAP 

110 

One of the most potentially transformative 

technologies of recent times 

is 5G, and SAP is ensuring companies 

successfully weather the change with 

the aid of technology. “5G is a fundamental 

transition and transformation 

of the network,” says Wilde. “Moving 

from hardware driven upgrades and 

a hardware driven network into a 

software defined network turns the 

network into a platform. For example, 

because you are now able to guarantee 

a level of connectivity to a robotic 

arm that’s performing a surgery a 

hundred miles away, you can wrap 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘REIMAGINE EVERYTHING WITH SAP & DELOITTE’ 

111 

a new business model around that 

and charge for that as a service. 

You can then expand that to remote 

equipment diagnostics, or being able 

to engage in a retail experience in novel 

ways. We see 5G as very much a game 

changer as we look at the next three, 

four or five years.” 

The introduction of 5G brings with 

it a host of considerations as well, an 

increase in data volume being one of 

the most important to address. “One 

of the main opportunities that we’re 

encountering is data management,” 

says Wilde. “As we move from a 4G 

to a 5G world, the size and quantity 

of data streams is growing exponentially. 

We’re envisioning a six, seven, 

eight-fold increase in data usage over 

the next few years. That is going to be 

a significant challenge for our customers 

with regards to data management 

and data strategy.” To successfully 

deal with data in such volumes, one 

solution SAP offers is its recently 

launched Data Hub, which can link 

data regardless of where it is stored. 

“Organizations which had been trying 

to organize data into data lakes can 

now lean on HANA and our Data Hub 


Unleashing the power of 5G 

How 5G will drive the future of business transformation 

The world’s economy is at another pivotal stage as technologies such as artificial 

intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and virtual/augmented reality transition from 

early stage applications to engines of economic growth. A critical catalyst to realize 

this growth is the fifth generation of wireless technology, or 5G. 

5G is not simply an extension of 4G, nor is it merely a 

faster wireless capability offering more capacity and 

enhanced performance for smartphones. 5G makes 

possible the connection and interaction of billions of 

devices of almost any kind and collection of 

data from those devices. In addition to connecting 

people to people through their smartphones, 5G 

connects an unlimited number of things, which 

can communicate all day, every day. The business 

opportunity for 5G technology to influence productivity 

and automation is anticipated to have a seismic impact 

to macro economies. 

Enabled by 5G, the volume and variety of connected 

device types and the data they generate and consume 

are expected to dramatically increase within and across 

enterprises. This networking technology now provides 

a range of customizable capabilities that can be “fit for 

purpose” to specific solution requirements, resulting 

in game changing opportunities to drive new revenue 

streams and unprecedented operating efficiencies. 

For example, in retail, next generation personalized 

customer experience is now possible with on-site 

intelligent analytics that combines location based, realtime 

customer data with accurate pricing, inventory 

and competitive information across stores and 

regions. In manufacturing, high performance campus 

5G networks can simultaneously raise the quality of 

precision manufacturing with real time sensors, while 

untethered factory robots bring new levels of flexibility. 

The low latency property of 5G also provides numerous 

opportunities to realize the potential of the examples 

provided above. 

In addition, 5G solutions will also involve an architectural 

shift where critical analytics and artificial intelligence 

functions will be executed in close proximity to the 

connected devices. Edge computing capabilities enabled 

by 5G will drive higher accuracy, efficiency, and results 

to the device or devices across secure private or public 

networks. Further, in typically low connectively locations, 

such as oil rigs, mining, and agriculture, 5G makes 

it possible for IoT devices with minimal computing 

power and low-speed connectivity to “behave” like 

powerful computers using a similar 5G/edge computing 

architecture. 

5G will likely create numerous business opportunities 

across all industries. To be able to realize the benefits, 

many business processes and solution architectures 

will need to be overhauled. Deloitte recognizes that 

unlocking 5G’s potential at enterprises requires both 

technical and industry expertise combined with multiple 

functional disciplines, including next gen networking, 

cloud, and AI. In collaboration with SAP, we are taking 

an industry vertical, multi-disciplinary approach to assist 

enterprise clients to envision and develop 5G enabled 

transformational solutions. 

Deloitte’s 5G Center of Excellence brings the breadth, 

depth, and scale of our practice to create practical 

solutions and opportunities for our clients to utilize the 

capabilities of 5G to transform their business and market. 

Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed 

description of Deloitte's legal structure.

Deloitte’s 5G Center of Excellence 

Delivering key solutions and technology necessary to help unlock 5G’s enterprise potential: 

Industry solutions 

Deloitte’s leading industry practices are developing 5G-enabled solutions specific to each 

individual industry and sector such as Retail, Manufacturing, Life Sciences and Health Care, 

Financial Services, and Government/Smart Cities. 

5G technical expertise 

Deloitte’s solutions leverage our deep experience in telecommunications, bringing together 

all capabilities ranging from network infrastructure, distributed application and mobile edge 

computing necessary to enable 5G solution. 

Deloitte Catalyst 

Deloitte Catalyst accelerates innovation and growth as we help enterprises, governments and 

startups–from early stage to high growth–innovate, scale, and deliver transformative value by 

connecting and co-developing solutions with key ecosystem partners. 

Design thinking 

Utilizing our Doblin and Deloitte Digital capabilities, our 5G COE intersects human-centered 

design, research and business strategy, with core 5G capabilities and industry specialization 

to help organizations imagine and build new business and operating models. 

Enterprise technology 

Deloitte’s Technology Strategy and System Implementation practices lead the transformation 

of the underlying enterprise technologies required to support 5G capabilities. From digital, to 

cloud, and to ERP. 

To learn more about Deloitte’s 5G capabilities, contact us at deloitte5g@deloitte.com or 

www.deloitte.com/us/en/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications.html 

© 2019 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.

SAP 

114 

platform to stitch together a hybrid 

data environment. Knowing that a 

central depository or even one data 

lake is not going to be able to serve the 

enterprise needs of a given customer, 

we’ve put in place a framework and 

a data strategy that relies on a hybrid 

approach. You need to take into account 

that federated model rather than try 

to centralize it.” 

Aside from 5G opening up new 

business possibilities, Wilde also 

identifies the potential of the technology 

when deployed together with new technologies 

such as AI, machine learning and 

edge computing. “We’re embedding AI 

and machine learning across our entire 

portfolio,” he explains. “Everything from 

being able to automate the selection 

of resumes to embedding it within 

analytics to help streamline and drive 

decision making. We see it as very 

much a fundamental component of how 

we handle design and development, 



Frank Wilde, 

Vice President, Global Center of Excellence at SAP 

Wilde leads data and data science innovation focused on telecom 

and high tech as a Vice President for SAP’s Global Center of excellence. 

In this role, Frank’s teams of data scientists and platform architects 

spark innovative thinking with SAP’s customers through 

a combination of data science and design thinking. 

Frank is a seasoned executive with a track record of success 

in product innovation, sales and sales operations. Before 

joining SAP, Frank led a software development group 

at Apple which supported Apple’s strategic partnerships 

with IBM, Cisco and AT&T. Prior to Apple, Frank led 

a corporate strategy organization and a sales innovation 

organization at Dell. At Dell, his teams designed and 

built Dell’s first consumer loyalty platform and created 

a competitive version of iTunes. In addition, Frank 

spent 9 years with Deloitte Consulting leading digital 

transformations with high tech, telecom, and 

public sector clients. He began his career as a 

software engineer building CRM and supply 

chain applications before transitioning into 

management consulting. 

115 

Frank attended University of California, 

Los Angeles, for college, earned an MBA 

of Business Administration at Duke University 

and served as an officer in the Navy. 


1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

ASSEMBLY 

LINE 

ROBOTICS 

REAL-TIME 

INSPECTION 

& ANALYTICS 

PREDICTIVE 

MAINTENANCE 

MASSIVE IOT 

TRACKING 

REMOTE 

EQUIPMENT 

CONFIGURATION 

5G 

SMART MANUFACTURING KEY APPLICATIONS

“5G has the potential to add new smart 

manufacturing capabilities in electronics 

manufacturing — both for manufacturers focused 

on extremely high yield levels and equipment 

suppliers looking to do more remote diagnostics.” 

Tom Salmon, 

Vice President for Collaborative 

Technology Platforms at SEMI and the Executive 

Director of the Fab Owners Alliance (FOA) 

5G – Its Potential 

Impact in SMART 

Manufacturing 

5G technology will create an 

unprecedented fabric of connected 

devices, pushing the wireless revolution 

well beyond handsets, enabling 

widespread connectivity of just 

about everything, including laptops, 

vehicles, IoT devices, manufacturing 

plants, and city infrastructure. 

Businesses, governments and consumers will reap 

the benefits of multi-gigabit speeds, ultra-low 

latency, simplistic scalability, and virtually unlimited 

capacity. While the full benefits of the 5G rollout is 

on the near horizon, one of the earliest beneficiaries 

is expected to be manufacturing. 

In the semiconductor industry, 5G is being hailed as 

an enabling technology for “smart manufacturing” 

that uses production and sensor data to improve 

manufacturing efficiencies and adaptability. 

With greater reliability and peak data speeds that 

will be at least 20 times that of 4G networks, 5G 

will enable wafer fabs to use wireless technology 

for many quality control and predictive maintenance 

applications that existing networks cannot. 

For example, 5G speeds makes it possible to apply 

edge or cloud-based AI technologies to packaging 

and inspection steps, improving quality and yield. 

5G will also help maximize the uptime of manufacturing 

equipment, enabling technicians to perform 

maintenance and repair operations remotely. The 

streaming of sensor data over 5G networks will not 

only enable fabs to build chips more efficiently and 

reduce waste, they will also provide real-time data 

on the environmental conditions within a fab, 

delivering immediate warnings in the cases of 

chemical-related worker safety hazards. 

Currently, chip makers and equipment vendors are 

showcasing real-use examples for 5G. In the case 

of brand-new “greenfield” chip fabs, investing in 5G 

infrastructure is a no-brainer, as the high-speed 

wireless connectivity will reduce the amount of 

hardwired infrastructure required. 

In the case of existing fabs, SEMI members are 

weighing the return on investment associated with 

replacing existing networks with 5G. The future 

ahead and potential impact for 5G is bright indeed. 

Learn about SEMI SMART Manufacturing at: 

semi.org/semiismore 

SEMI is the global industry association representing the electronics design 

and manufacturing supply chain, connecting over 2,100 member companies 

and 1.3 million professionals worldwide.

SAP 

118 

COMPANY FACTS 

• SAP is envisioning up to 

eight-fold increase in data 

usage over the next few 

years due to 5G. 

• SAP has a history of 

business process expertise 

in 26 industries 


and when it comes to innovation, that’s 

where we’re helping customers on the 

ground think differently. How they can 

use 5G coupled with AI and machine 

learning, with conversational AI, to bring 

new processes to life and streamline 

their approach, for example.” 

This combined approach is emblematic 

of the solutions SAP provides. 

Wilde identifies two guiding principles 

informing the company’s operations: 

customer driven innovation and an 

ecosystem approach. The company’s 

work with key telecommunications 

firms serves as an example of this 

mindset in practice. “It’s very much 

a strategic partnership as well as a 

customer relationship that we’ve 

nurtured over the course of the last 

couple of years,” says Wilde. “We’ve 

helped them put in place a core data 

backbone and the ability to lean on 

the core functions around finance 

and supply chain that they need to 

be able to succeed and grow going 

forward. We realize that SAP is uniquely 

positioned to be able to help telecom 

organizations digitally transform, 

consolidate their environments and 

land on one enterprise data platform, 

119 


EXPECT 

BRILLIANCE 

HARMAN designs and engineers connected 

products and solutions for automakers, consumers, 

and enterprises worldwide, including connected 

car systems, audio and visual products, enterprise 

automation solutions; and connected services. 

LEARN MORE 

CONTACT US 

car.harman.com

“We see 5G as very 

much a game changer 

as we look at the next 

three, four or five years” 

— 

Frank Wilde, 


of Excellence SAP 

not only for their own internal use but 

also for how they go to market. Where 

telcos bring the connectivity, SAP brings 

an enterprise data platform and the 

two solutions very much are tied at the 

hip, particularly as we look to innovate 

around 5G.” 

The process by which SAP’s Center 

of Excellence brings customers on 

board is comprehensive, aiming to 

understand the customer’s needs and 

in turn inform them of the possibilities 

SAP offer. “We’ve put together and 

created a co-innovation playbook that’s 

specific to 5G through our partnership 

with Deloitte, for example. We’re helping 

customers look holistically at what 5G 

is, understand what the use cases are 

and develop solutions together,” says 

Wilde. To accomplish this, SAP employs 

concrete demonstrations. “We’ve started 

5G proofs of concept to showcase the 

121 


$24.7bn 

Approximate 

revenue 

1972 

Year founded 

96,498 


of employees 123 

art of the possible and bring 5G to life. 

We want to be able to use these engagements 

as a lighthouse to say, ‘this is 

one example of the smart manufacturing 

of the future,’ for example. Or, 

‘these are the use cases that we’ve 

identified and brought to life in a retail 

environment.’ We’re doing that across 

targeted industries and then flowing 

into all 26 verticals that we have business 

process expertise in. 

“Based on the proofs of concept that 

we run, we create points of view to 

identify the top 12 or 15 innovations in 

a given industry. Whether it’s predictive 

modeling or AI or machine learning, 

we bake that into a point of view to 

showcase the art of the possible for 

each one of the industries we operate 

in. Having that baseline with tangible 

outcomes is one of the core components 

that helps us drive customer 

conversations, because we’re able 

to point to work that we’ve performed.” 

Going into the future, SAP has 

assembled a 5G Council, pulling 

together hardware manufacturers, 

telecommunications companies, 

equipment providers and customers 

to further innovate in the 5G space, 


SAP 

124 

“We’ve started 5G proofs 

of concept to showcase the 

art of the possible and 

bring 5G to life” 

— 

Frank Wilde, 


of Excellence SAP 


125 

and Wilde is clear that such innovations 

do not represent business-asusual 

incremental upgrades, but 

instead a transformative tsunami. 

“5G adoption is not just for the sake 

of new technology but represents a 

fundamental shift in thinking, moving 

from a hardware driven network into 

a software defined one,” says Wilde. 

“Look at how fast Tesla, Uber and 

Airbnb came to life. We’re seeing an 

ever increasing speed of testing new 

business models. We want to be able 

to give our customers that same 

platform, so they can incubate new 

ideas and land on new monetization 

strategies as they go to market 

in new ways.” 


126 CITY OF AURORA: 

GROWING INTO 

A SMART CITY 

WRITTEN BY 

WILLIAM SMITH 

PRODUCED BY 

CRAIG DANIELS 



127

CITY OF AURORA 

ALETA JEFFRESS, CHIEF 

INFORMATION AND DIGITAL 

OFFICER AT THE CITY OF 

AURORA, COLORADO, DETAILS 

THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 

AND SMART CITY MEASURES 

BEING PUT INTO PLACE 

128 

A 

leta Jeffress is Chief Information and Digital 

Officer at the City of Aurora, Colorado. 

“There’s a lot of growth in Aurora, and we 

happen to be in the fortunate position of having 

land, so our footprint can continue to expand,” says 

Jeffress. “There’s a lot of development east of the 

city, and with that comes a lot of different challenges. 

Infrastructure for instance – how do we ensure 

access to water? How do we ensure that public 

safety is covered as the city continues to grow, 

and then what do we need to do internally to ensure 

everything is working well?” 

Jeffress, and the IT department which she heads, 

have embarked on a program of digital transformation 

in order to better meet the challenges that 

growth presents. When Jeffress joined five years 

ago, she began to implement a series of structural 

changes. “One of the first steps in ensuring that 

what we did and how we did it was repeatable was 

the creation of a project management office in the 


129 

$800mn 

Budget for 

all funds 

1891 

Year founded 

4,000 


of employees 



130 

“AS WE LOOK 

AT SMART 

CITIES AND, IN 

AURORA’S CASE, 

THE PHYSICAL 

GROWTH THAT 

WE HAVE, 

THERE’S JUST 

SO MUCH 

OPPORTUNITY” 

— 

Aleta Jeffress, 

Chief Information and Digital Officer 

IT department,” she says. “We’re on our 

third iteration now, and there’s a good 

process in place. Our customers know 

what to expect, we can utilize our 

resources and share updates and 

move projects along in a timely manner, 

considering resources and budget.” 

It was also a matter of systemic 

upgrades, modernizing legacy systems 

and moving to the cloud. “We have a 

solution rationalization modernization 

effort – an SRM for short. When I got 

here, we took inventory of all the 

products we had, really ensuring that 

we were looking at the entire picture 

and not just the biggest applications.” 

Beneficiaries of this approach include 

the upcoming modernization of 

computer aided dispatch and ERP 

systems, and Jeffress is also “working 

on a workflow implementation that 

would update how we do our 

land management, and how we 

work with developers and 

permits.” The city also examines 

its systems in order to 

determine if they would benefit 

from cloud transformation. “If 

the platform is such that we 

could move to a cloud model, 

and it makes sense from a cost 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘AURORA TV – AURORA NOW’ 

131 

and functionality perspective, then 

that’s likely our first choice. We went 

to a cloud-based solution for sales tax 

management in the past year or two, 

and that’s been very successful.” 

Throughout this systems change, 

Jeffress has maintained a focus on 

security for the data contained within. 

“We’ve built a lot more rigor into the 

security side as well as more knowledge, 

both with staff very specific to 

security, as well as education across 

the organization. Looking at it from 

a data perspective, it’s a question of 

understanding the data classifications 

that we have, the data sources, who 

has access to what, and putting all 

of that together so that we can more 

efficiently manage what we have.” 

This focus on data will serve the city 

well as it embarks on a new smart city 

initiative, bringing a new influx of data. 

“Aurora was one of the founding cities 

of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance,” 

says Jeffress. “We had done a few 

independent smart city projects and 

then realized that we needed to have a 

bigger strategy. We made a request for 

proposal earlier this year and engaged 

with a firm who are putting together 


City of Aurora's Security 

Posture Starts with its People 

Proofpoint email solutions empower and 

engage city employees in the fight against 

cyber threats 

The City 

Known as the Gateway to the Rockies, Aurora, Colorado, boasts 

spectacular views of the Rocky Mountains. Aurora is the 

third-largest city in Colorado with more than 381,000 residents. 

When Tim McCain was hired as the City's CISO, he and his team 

found themselves besieged by phishing attacks. Before they 

could focus on implementing risk-based governance and 

building security operations, they had to reclaim hours of time 

being spent on email attacks and cleanup. 

The Challenge 

The existing infrastructure lacked an email gateway. The City 

had added Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection to its Office 

365 deployment, but attacks still occurred regularly, and 

internally generated spam was still overwhelming. Worse, the 

team had no visibility and no incident data for improving 

defenses. For each incident, investigation through the vendor 

portal could take several days and still not deliver meaningful 

answers. 

“Low security efficacy and visibility are bad for any organization,” 

said McCain. “But the real problem is how attacks affected our 

people. We needed to defend City employees and services for 

the community, as well as empower and energize our team.”

“Proofpoint enables us to successfully address the 

issues at the very heart of risk—people and email.” 

—Tim McCain, Chief Information Security Officer, City of Aurora 

The Solution 

Picking a Pro 

The security and infrastructure teams evaluated 

solutions, including numerous Proofpoint 

competitors and Proofpoint. When it came to 

conducting a POC, the choice was clear. 

“Proofpoint's level of professionalism, technical 

ability, and understanding of our needs was 

way above other vendors,” said McCain. “They 

made the POC easy and answered every 

question we asked. They even answered 

questions we didn't think to ask.” 

The City of Aurora chose a comprehensive 

Proofpoint solution. Email Protection protects 

users against malware, impostor emails, and 

stopped the flood of spam that was generated 

from infected systems. If emails are become 

malicious after delivery or use evasion tactics, 

Threat Response Auto-Pull (TRAP) enables 

McCain's team to automatically pull them out 

of users' mailboxes. Targeted Attack Protection 

(TAP) proactively stops advanced threats 

before they reach users’ inboxes, including 

zero-day attacks and emerging threats. In 

addition, the TAP Attack Index identifies the 

City's most attacked people and surfaces 

targeted ransomware attacks. With Email 

Encryption, users can now encrypt email 

messages with a click, enabling the City to 

more easily meet a wide range of compliance 

requirements. Proofpoint Security Awareness 

Training provides phishing reports that enable 

the team to analyze the City's phishing risks 

and know where to target additional training. 

Empowered and Engaged 

McCain’s team is taking on a security 

operations role with the help of the Proofpoint 

dashboard and support. They're proactively 

preventing spam flare-ups. The SecOps team 

historically would see a 72-hour turn-around 

from the point of attack to exploitation that in 

certain cases would result in thousands of 

emails being sent to City employees. It took 

hours to remove these from mailboxes. The 

team has reduced spam flare-ups to zero. 

The Results 

“Proofpoint's ability to make security real 

enables us to engage everyone — from City 

leadership on down,” said McCain. “My team's 

confidence has grown, and now they feel like 

‘CyberCSI Aurora,’ which is great.” 

McCain said he can't overstate the value of 

Proofpoint solutions and regular business 

reviews with his Proofpoint account team. 

Proofpoint is always available as the team 

gains leading-edge security knowledge and 

experience, giving them confidence. In fact, 

deployment of the Proofpoint platform has 

been accomplished faster than planned, which 

has enabled Tim to shift focus to roadmap 

projects almost a year ahead of time. 

“Proofpoint enables us to successfully address 

the issues at the very heart of risk—people and 

email,” said McCain. “Their support is amazing. 

I can say without hesitation that Proofpoint is 

an unqualified success.” 

For more information, visit www.proofpoint.com


134 

and helping us drive a smart city 

strategy. That’s helped us to refine our 

mission and our vision for what smart 

cities should be for Aurora. For 

instance, we’re in the process of 

finalizing a purchase of our streetlights, 

which would then allow us to expand 

on how we use them for our various 

smart city initiatives.” 

Facilitating change is not just 

about putting different technological 

initiatives in place and hoping for the 

best, however. “Culture is a big part,” 

says Jeffress. “Whenever you do 

change management, you have to 

“THERE’S A LOT OF 

GROWTH IN AURORA, 

AND WE HAPPEN TO 

BE IN THE FORTUNATE 

POSITION OF HAVING 

LAND, SO OUR 

FOOTPRINT CAN 

CONTINUE TO EXPAND” 

— 




make sure that the culture is ready 

and accepting, because otherwise it 

just creates resistance. We sometimes 

think of innovation as these big-ticket 

items, but it’s important to figure out 

a way to allow people to innovate 

themselves, to be comfortable with 

change and to be able to make 

suggestions on how things could be 

different.” For Jeffress, it’s crucial to 

remember the role of people amidst 

the technology transformation. 

“Although we’re implementing a lot of 

technology and a lot of digital transformation, 

one of the things that really 

remains important is making sure 

that you hire the right people. That’s 

especially true in technology where 

it’s a continuing challenge due to the 

low unemployment rate and number 

of open positions.” 

The IT department itself can act as 

a harbinger of change for surrounding 

organizations, as Jeffress explains. 

“The City of Aurora has about 21 

different departments. The IT organization 

here supports all of them, so we 

have to be very aware of what’s going 

on in each to ensure we’re in a place 

where we can help them to succeed. 

135 


Aleta Jeffress 

Aleta Jeffress is the Chief Information and Digital Officer for the 

City of Aurora. She has over 20 years’ experience as a successful 

executive business leader and technologist building 

relationships between business and technology to enable 

digital transformation and market growth. She drives 

innovative strategies for business and IT leadership, 

and has developed teams for Cybersecurity and Project 

Management Offices from the ground up. Her career 

began in startup software companies where she 

started in a call center environment and moved 

through private and public sector organizations in 

the areas of software quality, development, product 

management, security, and ultimately leadership. 



136 

“WHENEVER YOU DO 

CHANGE MANAGEMENT, 

YOU HAVE TO MAKE 

SURE THAT THE 

CULTURE IS READY AND 

ACCEPTING, BECAUSE 

OTHERWISE IT JUST 

CREATES RESISTANCE” 

— 





137


COMPANY FACTS 

• City of Aurora has 21 

different departments 

• City of Aurora was a 

founding member of the 

Colorado Smart Cities 

Alliance in 2017 

138 


We need to understand what the 

solutions are. It’s not just ‘here’s your 

phone and here’s your computer’, it’s 

‘how are you trying to meet the goals?’ 

Whether it’s the animal shelter or 

public safety or the water department 

or the library, the question is: ‘are your 

constituents being served and how 

can we help you to enable that?’” 

Ultimately, as Aurora continues its 

transformation journey with the likes 

of the smart city initiative, Jeffress 

considers it vital to embrace rather 

than fear change. “Growth is just very 

positive. Some people might be 

intimidated by that, but really nothing 

stays the same. As we look at smart 

cities and, in Aurora’s case, the 

physical growth that we have, there’s 

just so much opportunity. We have to 

make sure that we take a step back 

and really look at the opportunity and 

leverage the opportunities that are 

in front of us. Whether that’s through 

process change or digital transformation, 

it is what’s needed to propel us 

into the next era.” 

139 


140 

HOW INTELLIGENCE 

LED SECURITY FIRM 

FIREEYE IS FIGHTING 

CYBER THREATS 

ON THE FRONT LINES 

WRITTEN BY 

HARRY MENEAR 

PRODUCED BY 

CRAIG DANIELS 



141

FIREEYE INC 

FIREEYE CIO COLIN CARMICHAEL 

SHARES HIS INSIGHT INTO THE CHANGING 

LANDSCAPE OF CYBERSECURITY, AND 

HOW THE COMPANY USES CUTTING EDGE 

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN EXPERTISE TO 

WIN THE WAR AGAINST CYBER THREATS 

142 

T 

he first two decades of the 21st century 

have borne witness to dramatic and 

unilateral change of a scope and scale 

seldom seen before. Ubiquitous mobile devices, 

the rise of artificial intelligence and the sweeping 

digitalization of the global landscape have, even 

in the last decade, brought about dramatic and 

constant reinvention of the way businesses 

operate. In few places is this transformation more 

pronounced than the field of cybersecurity. 

From sophisticated phishing attacks and ransomware 

to high-profile data breaches, perpetrated by 

nation-state funded groups of cyber criminals, and 

direct interference in democratic elections, the war 

against digital crime has never been waged more 

fiercely. Colin Carmichael, CIO of leading cybersecurity 

firm FireEye, lives and works in the heart of 

this conflict. “We live and breathe on the front lines 

of cybersecurity every day here at FireEye,” he 

says. “FireEye is called into the biggest breaches 

all over the world. We see, first hand, what’s going 

on and what the bad guys are up to.” 



143

FIREEYE INC 

144 

“SECURITY CERTAINLY 

HAS CHANGED A LOT. 

BACK IN THE DAY, IT 

WAS SIMPLY A CASE 

OF MAKING SURE 

YOU HAD THE BEST 

PERIMETER SECURITY 

OUT THERE. TODAY, 

NO ONE’S SAFE” 

— 

Colin Carmichael, 

CIO, FireEye 

For the past 15 years, FireEye has 

fought tooth and nail against the 

machinations of cyber criminals, 

relentlessly protecting its customers 

from the impact and consequences 

of cyber attacks. Carmichael himself 

came to the firm in 2016, having 

previously worked in “every function 

of IT you can think of: hands on coding, 

managing people, building data 

centers, building applications. 

You name it, I’ve done it,” he laughs. 

Carmichael cut his teeth at Californian 

technology giant Sun Microsystems, 

and later held senior roles at Amazon 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘KEVIN MANDIA: WHO IS FIREEYE?’ 

145 

and Polycom. “The one role I avoided 

for most of my career was security, 

because back in the day it didn’t excite 

me.” We sat down with Carmichael to 

find out what changed his mind, get his 

insight into the complex and dangerous 

world of cybersecurity, and discover 

how FireEye is fighting the war against 

increasingly sophisticated and capable 

bad guys. 

“Security certainly has changed a lot,” 

recalls Carmichael. “Back in the day, 

it was simply a case of making sure you 

had the best firewall and DMZ structure 

out there to secure the perimeter. Then, 


FIREEYE INC 

146 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘FIREEYE: LEADING FROM THE FRONT LINES’ 

“FIREEYE’S MAJOR 

DIFFERENTIATOR 

IS WHAT WE CALL 

INTELLIGENCE- 

LED SECURITY” 

— 


CIO, FireEye 

if that perimeter was totally secure, you 

just got on with your life.” In previous 

decades, the motivations behind 

cybersecurity breaches weren’t as 

clearly understood, and even major 

technology firms like Sun Microsystems 

saw competitors looking to steal 

intellectual property (IP) as the primary 

risk when it came to cyber espionage. 

“Today, no one’s safe. Every industry is 

at risk of being attacked for multiple 

different reasons,” says Carmichael. 

“There are obviously still attempts to 

steal IP, but there are also financial 


attacks, people who want to ‘bring you 

to your knees’, ransomware and 

phishing are off the charts – there’s a 

whole industry of adversaries out there, 

and they are very, very sophisticated.” 

This increase in sophistication, 

Carmichael maintains, is the leading 

driver behind the unending innovation 

cycle at FireEye. “The bad guy used 

to be thought of as a teenager in dark 

glasses and a hoodie,” he chuckles. 

“Today, that’s not the case. There are 

organized Advanced Persistent Threat 

groups – that are typically nation state 

driven – as well as organized crime 

groups out there. It’s a war.” 

Carmichael and FireEye are as close 

to winning that war as anyone, but the 

process is a constant battle to stay one 

step ahead of the bad guys. “You have 

to continuously innovate. When you 

identify a new vulnerability – a new 

attack vector for those bad guys – 

you’ve got to be able to respond 

immediately,” he says. As technological 

security measures become increasingly 

airtight, users are being targeted 

more and more as weak points in 

security systems. According to 

Carmichael, ransomware attacks are 

147 


Colin Carmichael 

As Chief Information Officer, Colin Carmichael is 

responsible for leading the Information Systems & 

Services organization as they seek to deliver highly 

secure, modern and frictionless IT architecture and 

services to FireEye. Prior to FireEye, Colin held senior 

IT executive positions at Coopervision, Amazon and 

Sun Microsystems. At Sun, he was handpicked to run 

one of the world’s largest ERP implementations for the 

office of the CFO for 2 years, which led to the eventual 

integration into Oracle Corp after the acquisition 

of Sun. Colin has a Masters, IT in Commerce and 

Industry from The Open University in the UK. 


Service Management 

Automation X 

Smarter for employees. 

Smarter for IT. 

Start delivering Intuitive, personalized, no-wait selfservice 

— powered by machine learning — to every 

employee. See productivity rise. See costs, outages, 

ticket volumes, and resolution times fall. 

Contact Us

The James Hutton Institute Offers 

a Better Experience for Everyone 

The James Hutton Institute, a world-leading 

scientific organization based in Scotland, 

works to resolve global challenges in food, 

energy, and water security. 

The Institute’s IT team had been taking a 

fragmented approach to capturing requests 

from its 600 users. One site used a SharePoint 

solution, another a service automation solution. 

But neither solution really met the Institute’s 

service demands. “We didn’t have a 

single place for all staff to submit their requests,” 

said Ben Watt, end user computing manager 

at The James Hutton Institute. “This made it 

hard for the end users, but also for the team of 

14 working on the requests.” 

Lack of full visibility was one of the team’s 

biggest challenges. “Without visibility across 

the process we could not easily allocate 

resources and deliver an effective service,” 

Watt said. “We wanted to provide a better 

experience for everyone, and create a service 

portal that would not just be used for IT requests, 

but for our estates, communications, 

and finance departments as well.” 

The Institute selected Micro Focus Service 

Management Automation X (SMAX) to provide 

a digital self-service experience for IT and 

non-IT users. Today, the SMAX-driven service 

desk manages about 500 IT requests and 300 

non-IT requests a month. Users leverage 

smart virtual agents to receive automated 

assistance, 24x7, along with email. A fully 

integrated self-service portal makes it easy for 

users to raise requests, check the status of 

existing requests, and leave comments or 

questions for IT. 

Issue resolution is easier too. Now the IT team 

can see all open tickets and use knowledge 

articles to reduce ticket volumes. Written by 

IT, knowledge articles are short answers to 

specific questions. For more details, users can 

link to the complete article in the SMAX 

knowledge management module. “Our views 

across all knowledge articles are now in the 

thousands, compared to the tens of views we 

had in the past,” Watt said. “In addition, SMAX 

Hot Topic Analytics, using advanced search 

and analytics capabilities to recognize request 

patterns, has helped us create knowledge 

articles or problem records to address 

common issues.” 

After every request, SMAX sends a survey 

to the user. According to Watt, the SMAX 

survey platform has streamlined the survey 

process and boosted the response rate from 

10 percent to an impressive 50 percent. The 

team also uses SMAX Hot Topic Analytics to 

highlight keywords in the surveys and determine 

if extra services or knowledge articles 

are needed. 

With SMAX, the Institute has successfully 

delivered self-service for all. “Our SMAX service 

portal is well liked by staff, and we regularly 

receive requests for other departments 

to be included,” Watt said. “Users are very 

comfortable doing their own research through 

the various channels at their disposal, which 

helps us focus our resources where we can 

add the most value.” 

Learn More

FIREEYE INC 

150 

on the rise. “It’s not unheard of 

nowadays for CEOs to get emails that 

look very much like a normal communication 

from inside their network. 

It looks like it’s come from a legitimate 

source, and they’re moving so fast that 

they just click on a link or respond 

saying ‘yeah, I approve this.’ Then, that 

email launches some bad stuff in the 

background,” he explains. “Ransomware 

is the biggest growth area right 

now. Humans are humans, and 

sometimes you need to repeat that 

message several times before it sinks in.” 

Both in its relationships with clients and 

“THE WORLD 

IS A SCARY 

PLACE, BUT AN 

INTERESTING ONE 

NONETHELESS” 

— 


CIO, FireEye 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘THE FIREEYE INNOVATION CYCLE’ 

151 

internally, FireEye promotes a continuous 

education cycle in order to keep security 

awareness at the highest possible level 

and constantly strengthen “one of the 

weakest links in the chain”. 

While humans are increasingly the 

weakest point in a company’s cybersecurity 

armor, FireEye uses people as its 

most effective defensive asset. 

“FireEye’s major differentiator is what 

we call intelligence-led security,” says 

Carmichael. It is the company’s view 

that technology alone isn’t enough to 

combat cyber attacks, and that 

‘hands-on front-line expertise, combined 


FIREEYE INC 

152 

CYBERSECURITY STATS 

• 3.5 million unfilled 

cybersecurity jobs 

worldwide 

• $600bn: estimated 

annual cost of 

cybercrime globally 


with innovative technology,’ is the most 

effective defense. Top level cybersecurity 

professionals are essential to FireEye’s 

business model, making the process of 

attracting and retaining the best 

possible talent a critical objective for 

the company. “There are 3.5mn open 

positions in the cybersecurity world 

today. That’s an absolute dearth of 

talent and everyone’s scrambling for it,” 

Carmichael says. “There are a lot of 

experts in the cybersecurity world who 

would love to come and work at places 

like FireEye, but that doesn’t change 

the fact that we’re constantly working 

to figure out how to educate our people 

and how to partner better with universities 

that have curriculums focused on 

cybersecurity, so we can get new blood 

and a new generation of graduates 

coming out into this field, who are 

prepared to walk into a job on day one.” 

One way in which FireEye is helping 

its clients compensate for a shortage 

of cybersecurity talent is its new 

Expertise On Demand service. Given 

that “insufficient and under-skilled staff 

increases team workload, leading to 

burnout and attrition as well as 

increased business risk,” according to 

the company, Expertise On Demand 

153 


FIREEYE INC 

$831mn 

Approximate 

revenue 

2004 

Year founded 

154 

3,200 


of employees 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘APT41: A DUAL ESPIONAGE AND CYBER CRIME OPERATION’ 


allows companies to utilise FireEye’s 

vast expertise as a remote service, in 

exchange for prepaid units including 

training, capability development, and 

custom intelligence. The progression 

towards service-based products is 

something FireEye has been embracing 

for several years, moving from 

hardware appliances to a servicebased 

cloud model. “We still have 

customers that prefer the old appliance, 

we have customers that are now much 

more software driven, and we’ve got a 

lot of customers who are migrating fully 

to the cloud and don’t want to manage 

anything in terms of their network. 

They would rather have their cloud on 

AWS or Azure or just want a SaaS 

application,” says Carmichael. 

Looking to the future, the war against 

cyber threats is only going to escalate, 

and FireEye will escalate along with it. 

“We’ll continue to evolve our products 

and our business, whether that’s 

through organic growth or acquisitions,” 

predicts Carmichael. “We know 

we’ve still got areas we want to offer 

capabilities in and, internally, my drive 

is to develop systems that actually get 

IT out of the way of the business and 

allow the business to go at the speed 

of business.” As a veteran of IT and 

cybersecurity fighting on a daily basis 

against sophisticated and organized 

threats, Carmichael admits the world 

“is a scary place, but an interesting one 

nonetheless, and one that FireEye will 

continue in its mission to relentlessly 

protect our customers.” 

155 


156 

It’s a big world. 

Plaza is building it. 

WRITTEN BY 

DANIEL BRIGHTMORE 

PRODUCED BY 

TOM VENTURO 


Sky Rise Miami 

157 


PLAZA CONSTRUCTION 

The global contractor is delivering 

prestigious and award-winning 

hospitality, commercial, corporate, 

and residential projects by 

leveraging new technologies 

with a forward-thinking approach 

158 

F 

ounded in 1986, Plaza Construction strives 

to be an outstanding builder and trusted 

partner, creating value for its clients 

and their communities, through a commitment 

to excellence and integrity. The company started 

to expand significantly in 2004 with operations in 

Miami. Subsequently, Plaza established a presence 

in Washington DC and in the past 18 months has set 

up shop in central Florida, specifically in Tampa and 

Orlando. “We’ve also opened up an office in Los 

Angeles working on a large mixed-use project,” 

adds President, Brad Meltzer. Recently awarded 

another sizeable project in San Jose, California – 

a large data center for CMI, China Mobile – Plaza 

is aiming to focus on markets like these, with 

a strong outlook and working in partnership with 

like-minded clients. 

Technology plays a big part in Plaza’s approach. 

“We have a group within our operation specifically 

focused on innovation. For example, in order to 

make sure our staff is trained effectively on the 

systems and software we currently use, such as 


159 

Plaza project at 99 Hudson Street, Jersey City, NJ 

Rich Wood CEO company address 

at Town Hall meeting 

Ritz Carlton Residences 



160 

“Sometimes technology 

is like the human brain 

and we’re only using 

10% of our capacity […] 

so it’s important our 

technology team reaches 

out to all of our staff, so 

they appreciate the true 

power of the tools they 

have at their disposal” 

— 

Brad Meltzer, 

President, Plaza Construction 

BIM360, our technology group, along 

with support from the manufacturer, 

holds live training sessions in our 

various regional offices. This allows 

staff to ask real-world questions to 

trainers and get immediate feedback 

and, ultimately, real-world results,” 

reveals Meltzer. He explains that Plaza 

beta tests new software on specific 

projects to carry out a cost benefit 

analysis to ensure that upgrades will 

make the company more effective and 

efficient in the long run. “Sometimes 

it might be as simple as selecting a 

new project and testing that tech over 

OTM and Marquis 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘PLAZA CONSTRUCTION SOUTHEAST 

– CHANGING MIAMI’S SKYLINE’ 

161 

a six-month period to make sure it’s 

working effectively for us, before we 

then roll it out company-wide.” 

Meltzer notes that technology is 

advancing so rapidly, it’s important to 

avoid a “knee-jerk” reaction to buying 

every shiny new toy available. “When 

you’re investing hundreds of thousands 

of dollars in new solutions, it’s important 

to make sure these advancements can 

help your business today. And have the 

patience to wait for the right technology 

that works for your organization.” 

While technology can provide 

opportunities, it also represents 

a challenge for the industry as a whole 

believes Meltzer. “The biggest issue we 

face is with training,” he says. “Sometimes 

technology is like the human 

brain and we’re only using 10% of 

our capacity […] so it’s important our 

technology training team reaches all 

of our staff so they appreciate the true 

power of the tools they have at their 

disposal. Plaza’s CEO Richard Wood 

is a builder first, a former superintendent, 

who believes in empowering 

people through workshops and 

mentoring – it’s part of Plaza’s forwardthinking 

philosophy.” 


Plaza uses software solutions such 

as PlanGrid (part of the BIM 360 suite 

from Autodesk) to enhance efficiencies 

on site. “Five years ago, our superintendents 

would be walking the job site, 

with a set of plans,” explains Meltzer, 

“but there was almost no way to 

confirm if that was the latest set of 

drawings. They would need to ask if 

the drywall and electrical foremen have 

the latest set? But now, we hand out 

iPads to all key individuals on site and 

we’re able to know with certainty 

they’re working with the latest set of 

plans. They can now just pick up the 

phone and speak to the architect or a 

subcontractor/vendor at their fabrication 

facility and know they are collaborating 

in real time. They can take a picture of 

a job site condition, tag it to their iPad, 

to that location, and then are able to 

discuss and solve that issue.” Innovation 

is a core value at Plaza and one 

Meltzer believes makes its staff feel 

part of a forward-thinking group. “It’s 

also really helping with recruitment of 

some of the best and brightest young 

people in the industry.” 

Meltzer believes that Plaza’s 

collaborative approach, involving 

163 

Brad Meltzer 


A master of architecture with more than three decades 

of experience, when Brad Meltzer began working at Plaza 

in 1989, he was among members of the current senior 

leadership team who cut their teeth as in-house contractors 

for larger developers. “We had no computers,” recalls 

Meltzer. “We did our own estimating, purchasing, project 

management and teams were smaller. I think having the 

opportunity to have performed in those roles, and as a 

superintendent, has given me a greater perspective on the 

challenges that all our staff face. It allows me to be a better 

leader and to mentor members of our team. I think that’s 

the most important thing, being able to lead by example.” 


anz.businesschief.com


“We’re fully engaged with our 

sub-contractor partnerships, 

what we like to call our best 

in the group, as they are an 

integral part of our process” 

164 

— 

Brad Meltzer, 



Resorts World New York Casino 

165 



Servicing the tri-county 

area for over 30 years 

Miami Shores Plumbing is the finest plumbing contractor in Miami Dade Country. 

We can handle all of your plumbng needs with excellent service and fair prices. 

Call Now: 305-751-2446 

or e-mail info@miamishoresplumbing.com 

Click here to Learn More 

BAKER CONCRETE 

CONSTRUCTION 

is the largest concrete contractor in the nation, 

specializing in all types of cast-in-place concrete 

construction. Baker prides itself on our 51 year 

history of building complex concrete structures 

from forms to finish. Baker is proud to have a 

lasting relationship with Plaza Construction. 

OUR PROJECTS 

OUR WEBSITE 

Biscayne Beach Club 

Miami, Florida 

OCTOBER 2019 

800.539.2224 | www.bakerconcrete.com

565 Broome St, NY 

167 

“They are collaborating in 

real time. They can take 

a picture of a job site 

condition, tag it to their 

iPad, to that location, and 

then are able to discuss 

and solve that issue” 

— 

Brad Meltzer, 


key-subcontractors during pre-construction 

and utilizing their services in 

design-assist roles, allows the process 

to be the most successful. “This approach 

between client, architect and contractor 

has proved successful on numerous 

projects. For example, we’re currently 

finishing One Thousand Museum 

Tower, designed by Zaha Hadid 

Architects (awarded its TCO in June), 

arguably the most complicated 

concrete project in America,” says 

Meltzer. “If Capform Inc. had not been 

part of the pre-construction effort with 

us for such a long time, it would’ve 



“The mindset in America 

has transformed and 

I think with Plaza’s 

strengths and the great 

story we have to tell, we 

can take our philosophy 

to wider markets” 

— 

Brad Meltzer, 


168 

been much more difficult to have 

executed that project in such a timely 

fashion. Power Design did all of the 

electrical and low voltage work – again 

it was critical to have them on board 

early in the process.” 

Safety is paramount on all these 

projects. Corporate Safety Director 

Tomasz Dering leads safety operations 

for Plaza, regularly meeting with OSHA 

(Occupational Safety and Health 

Administration) to make sure the 

company is on track with the latest 

regulations. “We have safety initiatives 

to reward the subcontractor workforce 

for a safe job environment,” adds Meltzer. 


One Thousand Museum, Miami, FL 

“We have an incredible safety track 

record. Our EMR (Experience Modification 

Rate) is among the lowest in the 

industry for a company of our size.” 

Plaza is committed to building 

projects of lasting value that not only 

enhance surroundings but respect the 

planet. “We work with our clients to 

make sure that initiatives with regard to 

sustainability are available through our 

combined research and efforts with 

the design team,” confirms Meltzer. 

“We try to provide these opportunities 

to our clients at the most reasonable 

price. There was a time when people 

thought building green was more 

expensive but with more products on 

the market, the cost of achieving a 

sustainable outcome has become 

more competitive.” As a member of the 

US Green Building Council (USGBC), 

Plaza has built roughly $5bn worth of 

LEED certified projects across 

America; it’s a strategy at the core of 

the company’s offering. “One of our 

most interesting projects in this field 

was the 1 Hotel & Homes development 

on Miami Beach,” reveals Meltzer. “As 

an adaptive reuse project, it was a gut 

renovation of an older hotel complex 

transformed into a sustainable hotel 

169 



Florida’s 

Premier 

Mechanical 

Contractor 

Since 1975 

Southeast Mechanical Contractors is a full service commercial 

air-conditioning contractor with over 40 year’s of experience. 

We provide HVAC design assistance and installation for the South 

Florida commercial, institutional, and industrial markets. 

Southeast 

Mechanical 

Contractors 

LEARN MORE 


and condominium through the 

strategic use of reclaimed materials, 

recycling and effective design solutions. 

I’m very proud of our team, as 

well as the collaboration with the owner 

and design professionals, in achieving 

that LEED certification.” 

Across all sectors Meltzer sees a 

positive, growing trend for developers 

to think more strategically. “They’re not 

viewing their contractor as a commodity 

any longer,” he says. “We’re finding 

the more experienced and savvy developers 

engaging with us earlier, bringing 

us on as part of their team, at the same 

$1bn 

Approximate 

revenue 

1986 

Year founded 

600 


of employees 

Century City Plaza development 

171 



Building tomorrow 

172 

Plaza Construction’s President 

Brad Meltzer is excited for the 

company to be leading the 

500,000 sq ft second phase of 

the $400mn expansion of the 

Resorts World New York casino 

complex, scheduled for 

completion by the end of 2020. 

The Queens venue attracts 10 

million visitors a year where, in 

addition to expanding gaming 

space, the firm will manage 

construction of a 10-story, fourstar 

hotel with conference and 

meeting rooms. Plaza has also 

been chosen by Berkowitz 

Development Group to build 

SkyRise Miami; the $540mn 

1000-foot tall entertainment 

and observation tower will be 

the tallest building in Florida. 

The Arquitectonica-designed 

downtown Miami building will 

overlook Biscayne Bay and 

include a 55mph base jumping 

experience, an indoor drop 

tower ride with a 95mph 

descent speed and a skywalk 

at 908ft. 

China Mobile Data Centre, San Jose, CA 


Ritz Carlton Residences, Miami 

time they’re selecting designers to 

promote a more collaborative process. 

More than 90% of what we do is 

negotiated work. We’re working with 

like-minded clients and their teams all 

at the same table from inception to 

completion. That’s allowing us to help 

our clients with regards to schedule 

and cost early on. If they allow a design 

team to take a job too far before 

engaging with a construction manager, 

it’s harder to keep a project on track 

with respect to time and money.” 

Ultimately, Meltzer is keen for Plaza 

to continue to be known as the go-to 

contractor in the markets in which it 

operates. “We will steadily and thoughtfully 

expand into markets we believe are 

growing,” he adds. “For a long time, 

construction was a very territorial 

business, but I think that’s changing 

and regions are expanding. The 

mindset in America has transformed, 

and I think with Plaza’s strengths and 

the great story we have to tell we can 

take our philosophy to new markets.” 

173 


174 

Patelco Credit 

Union: creating 

a culture 

of innovation 

WRITTEN BY 

SHANNON LEWIS 

PRODUCED BY 

SHIRIN SADR 



175

PATELCO CREDIT UNION 

We speak to Kevin Landel, SVP of 

Innovation and Payments Strategy 

at Patelco Credit Union, to discuss 

how collaboration between business 

and technology teams is the key 

to creating a culture of innovation 

176 

A 

not-for-profit organisation, Patelco Credit 

Union’s focus is on community. Started in 

1939, it was originally the Pacific Telephone 

Company’s credit union, where employees could 

collect deposits and fund loans. Rooted in that 

cooperative nature, Patelco has grown to a US$7bn 

company with more than 350,000 members. 

Landel says, “we truly believe we’re here to help 

our members”. Patelco has multiple community 

outreach and support programmes, from connections 

to the Children’s Miracle Network to its loan 

programme that offers an upfront 0% interest $500 

cash loan to disaster-stricken customers. 

Kevin Landel started at Patelco six years ago 

as Chief Information Officer. “At the time,” he says, 

“virtually all of our technology was home grown.” 

While this has the upside of flexibility, it meant the 

company was spending most of its resources on 

support rather than strategic building. Landel 

shifted to a platform strategy, sourcing out Patelco’s 

technology. CU Direct took on its loan origination 

system; Alkami made its system for online banking. 


177 

$7bn 

In assets 

1939 

Year founded 

1,100 


of employees 



178 

“There’s no reason for us 

to reinvent the wheel, 

so we partner with 

providers that offer a 

great foundation that 

does all the basics but 

is an open platform 

that allows us to build 

strategically on top of it” 

— 

Kevin Landel, 

SVP of Innovation and Payments Strategy, 


Now, when Patelco wants to add a 

widget to simplify customer donations 

to its community outreach programmes, 

it can do so easily without 

having to develop the technology for 

an entire web platform. “I’m happy to 

say we are out of fix mode and into the 

build mode,” says Landel. His role has 

since shifted as Patelco brings on a 

new CTO, as well as marketing and 

credit analysists with strong data 

science backgrounds. Now, Landel 

focuses on developing other areas of 

innovation where the company can 

flourish: robotic process automation, 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘MEET PATELCO ONLINE’ 

179 

virtual agents, and bringing in AI for 

data analysis. 

“There’s typically this build or buy 

decision that technology leaders 

make,” Landel says, “and we take a 

middle ground. There’s no reason for 

us to reinvent the wheel, so we partner 

with providers that offer a great 

foundation that does all the basics but 

is an open platform that allows us to 

build strategically on top of it”. Patelco 

chooses providers based on their 

“flexibility and willingness to work in an 

unusual way.” When updating its online 

banking system, for instance, Patelco 

asked a room of potential providers 

if they were willing to update its mobile 

site first and online site second. “It was 

an innovation in the industry, but it’s not 

a big leap in technology,” says Landel. 

Because mobile users are more 

flexible and accustomed to change, 

this strategy allowed Patelco to 

“concentrate on what’s important and 

limit the risk”. Patelco launched the 

new system without removing the old, 

incentivising customers to change over 

with additional functionality rather than 

forcing them. 85% of members 

switched systems of their own accord. 


The gold standard 

in digital banking 

Grow confidently at 2X 

the market rate* with the 

nation’s most successful 

digital banking platform. 

To learn more 

visit alkami.com

“The culture of 

innovation here 

starts at the top. 

It falls into three 

areas: learning, 

doing, and refining” 

— 

Kevin Landel, 



This, in conjunction with a virtual 

advisory team that asked for feedback 

from the mobile users, allowed Patelco 

to limit the usual dip in customer 

satisfaction when making the platform 

conversion and to come out of it in 

only three quarters. “It isn’t using 

unusual technology,” Landel says, 

“it’s just a different way of thinking. 

“The culture of innovation here starts 

at the top. It falls into three areas: learning, 

doing, and refining,” he adds. From 

sending executives to the Credit Union 

Executive Society (CUES) Innovation 

Institute at MIT and Stanford, to putting 

181 


Kevin Landel 

Kevin has held executive positions, been a principal in 

two startups, and as an alumnus of the MIT Media Lab 

and subsequently at the San Diego Supercomputer 

Center, Kevin has designed systems, taught courses, and 

consulted for many companies in the US and abroad, has 

been awarded a variety of grants and awards, and holds 

a patent for computer video display technology. Kevin 

is a sought-after voice in financial services technology 

and innovation, and has served on advisory boards 

for Fiserv, CO-OP, Alkami, CUISPA and others. 

An avid surfer and outdoorsman, Kevin lives 

in Pleasanton with his family. 


anz.businesschief.com


“It was an innovation 

in the industry, 

but it’s not a big 

leap in technology” 

— 

Kevin Landel, 



182 

the full leadership team through the 

Harvard Business School online course 

about disruptive strategy, Patelco 

ensures its heads of teams all speak 

the same language. “Filene Institute has 

an innovation immersion that we’ve 

done with our executives, and we had 

them come out to do a follow-up 

presentation with our whole team.” 

One of the ways in which Patelco 

instils collaboration into its culture of 

innovation is through the use of the 

SAFe framework, a scaled AGILE 

system that “goes higher than just a 

team level with scrums and sprints. 

It really works at the company and 

portfolio level.” According to Landel, 

“it allows us to understand what the 

dependencies and risks are in any 


project that we’re working on.” During 

the planning sprint, business leaders 

and technology teams get together 

to discuss solutions to projects. 

“It dramatically increases the transparency 

and flexibility of the teams by creating 

a higher level of collaboration between 

the business and technology teams,” 

says Landel. This has allowed Patelco 

to go from taking 90 days to roll out a 

product to going from ideation to 

rollout in three weeks. 

Patelco leverages the collaborative 

aspect of credit unions. “We don’t 

have the budget like big banks,” says 

Landel, “but we do have the collective 

strength of credit unions working 

together.” Landel serves on several 

industry advisory boards and is active 

in credit union collaborative initiatives, 

including big data and financial 

health research initiatives with Callahan 

Credit Union Financial Services 

Limited Partnership, and as a member 

of the strategy council of CO-OP 

Financial Services, a credit unionowned 

service organization that 

provides payment card services, 

shared branching, contact center, and 

other services to Patelco and the CU 

industry. “We leverage the collabora- 

183 


MEMBER FINANCIAL JOURNEYS: 

FROM EMOTION TO IMPACT 

EMPOWERING MEMBER 

PAY 

INTEGRATE 

ENGAGE 

PROTECT 

CONSULT 

Measuring your members’ experience at every touchpoint 

is critical to building a better relationship with them. 

CO-OP Financial Services surveyed more than 1,200 credit union 

members across 13 high-frequency touchpoints to understand 

how credit unions are performing across the entire journey. 

Read our “Mapping the Member Journey” report to discover how 

to leverage this research to improve the member experience at 

your credit union. 

Download the Report: visit.coop/memberjourneyresearch 

©2019 CO-OP Financial Services

tive nature of credit unions to multiply 

our energy to provide the best tech we 

can for our members.” 

Being located close to Silicon Valley, 

Patelco has access to all of the very 

latest technology and innovative ideas. 

“There’s a real synergy,” says Landel. 

“We have knowledge, data, and an 

understanding of our business that an 

entrepreneur may not, while an 

entrepreneur has the technology, 

skillsets, ideas, and capacities to build 

things that we may not. Considering 

this, it’s natural to get together and do a 

partnership.” This synergy gave 

Patelco an AI chatbot that it now uses 

as the primary knowledge database for 

“We have knowledge, 

data, understanding 

of our business that an 

entrepreneur may not 

while an entrepreneur has 

the technology, skillsets, 

ideas, and capacities to 

build things that might not. 

It’s natural to get together 

and do a partnership” 

— 

Kevin Landel, 



185 



186 

“It isn’t using 

unusual technology, 

it’s just a different 

way of thinking” 

— 

Kevin Landel, 



the entire organization. Actionable 

Science approached Patelco with 

background data machine learning 

technology; Patelco was looking for a 

way to help members understand its 

new credit cards. The pilot was so 

successful as an in-house training tool 

that Patelco “took it and expanded it 

across all knowledge areas […] our 

entrepreneur was able to take these 

learnings and develop products from 

them,” Landel notes. “We’ve launched 

a startup and we have a solution that’s 

meeting our needs.” 


187 

In the next two to three years, 

Patelco will cross the $10bn threshold, 

a major milestone for US financial 

groups that would trigger several 

compliance regulations. “Our work for 

the next few years is to get prepared 

for that and cross the threshold with 

momentum. We’re growing at a 

tremendous rate,” explains Landel. 

Patelco is looking at improving its 

payment system with AI, investing in a 

blockchain group exploring digital 

identity, and in a group focused on 

natural language processing. While 

digital changes are underway, Patelco 

still strongly believes in its physical 

branches, although these have been 

shifting from transactional locations to 

places of advice and financial health. 

True to Patelco’s core values, Landel 

concludes, “we strongly believe in 

people helping people.” 


188 

MAINTAINING A 


DRIVE AT THE 

YMCA OF SAN 

DIEGO COUNTY 

WRITTEN BY 

SEAN GALEA-PACE 

PRODUCED BY 

CRAIG KILLINGBACK 



189

YMCA OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY 

LUIS D’CARPIO, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

ASSET MANAGEMENT, ENTERPRISE 

RISK MANAGEMENT & SUSTAINABILITY, 

DISCUSSES THE INFLUENCE 

SUSTAINABILITY IS HAVING ON HIS 

ORGANISATION’S OPERATIONS 

190 

D 

edicated to helping people improve their 

quality of life and achieve their fullest 

potential, the YMCA of San Diego County is 

a key component to the lives of thousands of people. 

Focusing on three core areas – youth development, 

healthy living and social responsibility, the YMCA 

serves more than 435,000 San Diego residents, 

employs over 5,500 people, and covers 1.2 million of 

real estate assets (18 branches and three overnight 

camps). Having been founded in 1882, the YMCA 

of San Diego County has become the largest YMCA 

association in the United States. Luis D’Carpio, 

Vice President of Asset Management, Enterprise 

Risk Management & Sustainability, discusses how 

important the ‘Y’s’ corporate social responsibility 

(CSR) strategy is. “Environmental stewardship is 

rooted in our commitment to social responsibility. 

It’s vital to us and is a significant area of the service 

that we provide to the community,” affirms D’Carpio. 

“For us, it’s important we provide facilities that 

improve the quality of human life through health 

and wellness, be a great place to work or volunteer, 


191 

1882 

Year founded 

5,500 


of employees 



192 

“ONE OF OUR BIGGEST 

CHALLENGES HAS 

BEEN HELPING TO 

SHIFT THE YMCA 

AWAY FROM BEING 

A DECENTRALISED 

ENTITY BECAUSE 

BRANCHES OPERATED 

AS INDEPENDENT 

BUSINESS UNITS” 

— 

Luis D’Carpio, 

Vice President of Asset Management, 

Enterprise Risk Management & Sustainability 

and give back to the community by 

reinvesting the savings generated by 

our sustainability efforts.” 

Having joined the YMCA of San 

Diego in 2017, D’Carpio has over 20 

years of experience working for a 

diverse range of entities, in addition to 

spending a considerable amount of 

time on a range of project types with 

a particular emphasis on sustainable 

design, construction and operational 

measures. Holding such a varied 

background, D’Carpio believes his 

experience has laid the groundwork 

for him to succeed in his current role. 

“I’ve been fortunate in my career to 

have worked across three areas: 

owner-developer, general contractor 

and specialty contractor. As a result, 

it has given me a different perspective 

on what needs to be accomplished to 

achieve the desired end result,” he 

explains. “One of our biggest challenges 

has been helping to shift the YMCA 

away from being a decentralised 

entity because branches operated 

as independent business units. This 

centralisation allows us to focus on 

standardising our asset management 

approach and process to help establish 

and achieve our sustainability goals.” 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘YMCA FOR ALL OF LIFE’S HEALTHIEST MOMENTS’ 

193 

In a bid to accelerate its sustainability 

efforts, the YMCA more recently 

completed two major capital projects; 

Dan McKinney Family YMCA and the 

Jackie Robinson Family YMCA, to 

create a lasting impact on its facilities 

and the community, in combination 

with its capital efforts. Having opened 

in 2017, the $25mn Jackie Robinson 

YMCA building was developed to meet 

the YMCA’s vision to serve the 

community and is also recognised with 

a LEED Gold certification. “The Jackie 

Robinson facility was also acknowledged 

with San Diego Gas and Electric’s 

(SDGE) 2018 Excellence in Energy 

Leadership Award because of the work 

that was done in collaboration with 

vendors and the utility company to 

implement sustainability features,” 

explains D’Carpio. “Both projects 

consist of over 45,000 sq.ft each and 

have the amenities that our communities 

needed. The Y’s first LEED Gold facility 

was the Copley-Price Family YMCA, 

which opened in January 2015.” 

In 2015, the YMCA created a 2025 

plan for the next decade and set out 

clear targets of the projected place 

the organisation hopes to be within the 



194 

next 10 years. “We’re looking at 

building three to five new YMCAs, 

renovating our existing facilities to get 

them all to a comparable standard, 

and ensuring we provide a safe and 

clean environment that is good for our 

community,” says D’Carpio. “Our goal 

is to double our impact in order to 

positively benefit the communities we 

serve.” Four years in, and following the 

construction of the Jackie Robinson 

and Dan McKinney YMCA buildings, 

work is well underway. However, D’Carpio 

affirms there is still more to be done 

over the upcoming six years. “There’s 

definitely a lot of work to get finished. 

Our current efforts continue to focus 

on energy and water management, 

implementing key certifications, such 

as LEED or WELL and incorporating 

additional renewable energy projects,” 

he says. “We’re also looking at how we 


195 


Luis D’Carpio 

A hands-on and collaborative professional with 

experience helping design/build $500mn+ in civil, 

commercial, industrial, and renewable energy projects. 

His background includes providing strategic leadership 

for a non-profit organisation, owner representation/ 

construction management to a real estate ownerdeveloper 

(residential, commercial, industrial), and 

project management/engineering to self-perform 

contractors (GC’s & concrete subcontractors). 



196 


“OUR GOAL IS 

TO DOUBLE 

OUR IMPACT 

IN ORDER TO 

POSITIVELY 

BENEFIT THE 

COMMUNITIES 

WE SERVE” 

— 




197 


DEDICATED TO 

QUALITY WORKMANSHIP 

Since 1914, the professionals at A.O. Reed have been 

dedicated to quality workmanship, uncompromising integrity 

and customer satisfaction. As Southern California has 

grown, we’ve grown as well, becoming one of the West’s 

leading mechanical contractors. 

LEARN MORE 

www.aoreed.com 

CONTACT US 

858.565.4131 

MONTH 2019

manage our solar projects. We’ve 

completed six installations so far 

(2.5MW) out of 18 branches and three 

overnight camps. It’s important that we 

continue to look at where the benefits 

come from and how these projects tie 

into the return of the community.” 

D’Carpio added that current efforts 

also continue to focus on partnerships. 

“We believe that long-term sustainability 

comes from key partnerships with 

vendors, regulatory agencies, and 

our local utility.” 

“WE’RE IN THE EARLY 

STAGES OF SUSTAINABILITY, 

BUT OPEN COMMUNICATION 

IS PART OF OUR CHANGE 

MANAGEMENT PROCESS” 

— 




199 



200 


With the future in mind, the importance 

of remaining versatile and adaptable 

to the latest trends is essential to 

long-term success. To achieve this, 

D’Carpio believes observing change 

management is key and is continuously 

monitoring the ways in which his 

organisation can grow. “We’re in the 

early stages of sustainability, but open 

communication is part of our change 

management process so there are 

many opportunities for us to grow 

as we continue our transformation 

towards our strategic goals,” he 

explains. “We’ve still got a long way 

to go and we believe that continued 

success will be based on establishing 

high performing teams, implementing 

technology to effectively manage 

our work, and further developing 

collaborative partnerships.” 

201 


202 

WRITTEN BY 

MATT HIGH 

PRODUCED BY 

JUSTIN BRAND 



203

TRANSFORM SHARED SERVICE ORGANIZATION 

TransForm SSO is taking a 

pioneering approach to healthcare 

supply chain innovation, driven 

by the desire to offer exceptional 

patient care across Ontario 

204 

T 

ransForm Shared Service Organization 

(TransForm SSO) provides an innovative, 

end-to-end supply chain service driven 

by one vital goal: offering healthcare employees the 

support they need in order to provide exceptional 

patient care across Ontario. TransForm SSO was 

established in 2013, following the amalgamation 

of two shared service organisations and, since 

then, has embarked on a journey of consolidation 

and digital innovation that has seen its approach 

to managing healthcare supply chains evolve. 

Director of Supply Chain, Renee McIntyre, has 

been instrumental in this journey. Today, she is 

responsible for overseeing all day to day operations 

of TransForm SSO’s supply chain division, as she 

explains: “We provide a true end-to-end service 

covering everything from market research and 

procurement, through to strategic sourcing, 

contract and vendor management, capital procurement, 

and value analysis. We support five multi-site 

hospital organisations across the Erie-St. Clair 

region in southwest Ontario, as well as third party 

customers such as the Local Health Integration 


205 

2013 

Year founded 

190 


of employees 



206 

“We provide a true 

end-to-end service 

covering everything 

from market research 

and procurement, 

through to strategic 

sourcing, contract and 

vendor management, 

capital procurement, 

and value analysis” 

— 

Renee McIntyre, 

Director of Supply Chain, TransForm SSO 

Network Home and Community Care. 

Alongside those services listed, we 

also support the hospitals’ internal 

logistics and provide value by maximising 

savings and coordinating product 

conversions and recalls.” 

Since its establishment, TransForm 

SSO has implemented innovative and 

digitally-driven methods of improving 

its services, in line with the wider 

digitalisation of the supply chain sector. 

“With our organisation and the structure 

that we have in place, we’ve been able 

to take great steps to automate our 

supply chain operations, to implement 

Derek Robertson, Vice President, Business 

Development speaks to TransForm staff during 

one of the organization’s Town Hall events. 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘TRANSFORM SSO – 2019 CEO AWARD NOMINATIONS’ 

207 

new data analytics systems and 

provide significantly more value for 

money in healthcare – which is an 

absolutely key goal,” says McIntyre. 

“For example, we’ve migrated all our 

hospitals onto a single ERP platform 

with a single item master file that we 

manage for them; while that alone may 

not be new to the supply chain industry, 

it has established the foundation to 

achieve significant savings and create 

efficiencies for our members.” 

This evolution has occurred despite 

the more challenging conditions in 

which TransForm SSO – a public sector 

entity working in an industry primarily 

focused on providing the best value 

services – operates. “I would say that 

healthcare lags behind other industries 

when it comes to supply chain,” 

McIntyre states. “Historically, processes 

like barcoding scanning and the 

appropriate and direct supply chain 

principles that you would apply to the 

private or retail sectors have taken a 

back seat when it comes to healthcare. 

In Ontario, the health sector represents 

41% of overall programme spending, 

with ever increasing pressures to 

reduce costs and find efficiencies. 



208 

However, we’ve seen significant 

movement more recently as these 

supply chain principles take more 

of a precedent in healthcare.” 

TransForm SSO has become a 

frontrunner in implementing some 

of those changes, particularly, says 

McIntyre, with regards to expanding 

beyond acute care and hospitals. 

“We’re the only shared service organisation 

in Ontario that has integrated 

the Home and Community Care supply 

chains into what we do, whereas most 

others focus solely on the hospital 

sector. This really epitomises our vision 

of expanding our services to cover the 

entire patient care continuum. For that 

reason, we are leaders in defining the 

direction that public procurement can 

go in Ontario, and we’re providing the 

game plan to other shared service 

organisations in the province.” 

While technology has facilitated 

TransForm SSO’s development, McIntyre 

is also keen to highlight the importance 

of the collaborative approach to 

providing healthcare supply chain in 

Ontario. On a broader level, legislative 


changes in the province have led to 

a more coordinated healthcare offering, 

but TransForm SSO has also worked 

closely with its member hospitals and 

other shared service organisations to 

drive efficiencies. “The strategic 

direction in the early stages really did 

come from the hospitals with which we 

work,” she says. “Our member hospitals 

comprise our board of directors, 

and so we had that leadership buy-in 

very early on. This led to, in my opinion, 

one of our biggest differentiators – that 

all our hospitals share information 

across a single platform. From a data 

and operational perspective, it’s a huge 

benefit to the way we work.” 

TransForm SSO places a strong focus 

on collaboration and partnerships to 

continuously improve its operations. 

“The ability to work closely with our 

vendor partners and leverage our 

relationships to help achieve value for 

the healthcare system is a team priority. 

One such example is a partnership 

with Scotiabank, which has been able 

to directly reduce our costs of delivery 

and enable reinvestment to further 

improve our digitisation goals. 

“Our ERP system is a multi-solutions 209 

Renee McIntyre 

Approx 100 words. 



Reduce costs, 

increase revenue 

and create 

efficiencies. 

Talk about a 

power move. 

Find out how. 

Managing cash flow and improving efficiency are essential to your business success. 

The Visa * Payables Automation service (VPA) 1 helps you do both. With this streamlined 

payment solution, you can easily pay your suppliers that enrol in VPA, plus: 

Save on operating expenses. 

Streamline payments through this automated service to help you save on operating expenses. 

Create a new revenue stream. 

Earn cash back on payments 2 made through VPA which you can invest in your business. 

Achieve operational efficiencies. 

Our team works with yours to seamlessly integrate VPA into your enterprise resource planning 

(ERP) system and simplify your payment process. 

Let us show you what Visa Payables Automation could do for your business. 

Contact us at commercialcardsales@scotiabank.com for more information. 

1 The VPA service is operated by Visa Canada. The Bank of Nova Scotia is not responsible for the VPA service. 

2 Subject to approvals or other conditions. 

® Registered trademark of The Bank of Nova Scotia. * Visa Int./Licensed User.

211 

platform that is backed by GHX’s 

robust ecommerce platform. This is 

the centrepiece of our supply chain 

operation: it validates transactions 

against our contracts and validates 

orders in real time against vendor 

catalogue and description data to 

minimise order exceptions and is 

layered upon a BI tool to support our 

data analysis in a seamless manner. 

We’ve put significant focus on automation 

into the supply chain. A large 

portion of our business is fully automated 

from the point of the purchase 

order being sent, through to being 

digitally acknowledged by the vendor, 

matched and then paid, with no human 

intervention. Having a talented and 

dedicated team and leveraging our 

technology has allowed us to offer 

a very strong supply chain operation 

that, in turn, allows everyone to focus 

on how we can achieve the best value 

for hospitals so they can save lives.” 

Despite these achievements, 

McIntyre is keen that the strategic 

focus of the business continues. She 

cites two key areas for the foreseeable 



212 

“We’re the only shared 

service organisation 

in Ontario that has 

integrated the Home 

and Community Care 

supply chains into 

what we do” 

— 

Renee McIntyre, 

Director of Supply Chain, TransForm SSO 


future: growing TransForm SSO’s Home 

and Community care business, including 

closer collaboration and sharing with 

other health service providers, as well 

as continuing to implement technology 

to tie in supply chain data to clinical 

outcomes. The latter, she says, “is a 

growing need in healthcare: the ability 

for us to evaluate how we can tie in 

clinical patient outcomes and utilisation 

data to our own supply chain in an 

automated way to bring even greater 

value to our organisation. Looking 

further ahead, I see the ability to 

implement our supply chain model 

across the broader public sector as 

a significant focus moving forward. 

Ideally, that would involve finding all 

those other public sector entities within 

our region and collaborating to develop 

a sustainable model that allows us to 

scale it right across the province. I think 

that could bring tremendous value to the 

public sector in the whole of Ontario, 

and it would be great to lead that drive.” 

213

Business Chief USA October 2019

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?