Angela Yochem EVP & Chief Transformation and Digital Officer Novant Health CIO Leadership Live

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hello good afternoon and welcome to cio leadership  live i'm mary fran johnson i'm your host today and   a contributing columnist on cio.com where i write  about boardroom issues for technology leaders   twice a month we produce cio leadership live with  the generous support of my colleagues at cio.com   and the cio executive council we're streaming  live to you right now on linkedin and on twitter   and we welcome anyone who's watching and  wants to participate in today's conversation   to pop in your question and i will run it by my  guest today and we'll be watching for that and   do our best to respond i'm so pleased today to be  joined by angela yoakam who is the executive vice   president and chief transformation and digital  officer at novant health novant health is based   in charlotte north carolina and it's a non-profit  high growth health care system with thirty   thousand team members serving fifteen hospitals  and more than seven hundred clinics and physician   centers across five southern states angela joined  novan in january of 2018 as its chief digital   and technology officer and bringing with her a  broad cross-industry technology leadership from   a fortune 500 companies such as bdp international  astrazeneca dell bank of america and rent-a-center   her initial mission was to help this healthcare  organization redefine its approach to technology   by developing a strategic vision for using digital  capabilities that would expand access to health   care and also to improve the quality of care  with novan's chief medical officer angela also   co-leads the institute of innovation and  artificial intelligence and last month her digital   officer role grew into a broader transformation  role that we'll talk about more in a moment   but i asked angela to join me here today  on cio leadership live to talk not only   about her experiences as a digital leader who  reports to ceos but also about the many years of   experience that she has gathered in governance  she has had several roles on the other side of   the boardroom table essentially working side by  side with the people who are the ceo's bosses   last summer angela was appointed to an independent  director board seat with the u.s board for zurich   american insurance group which is a subsidiary of  the swiss insurance giant zurich insurance group   for the past decade her governance experience has  included several private boards a venture capital   back tech startup several non-profit boards and  the federal home loan bank of pittsburgh which is   an sec registrant and the idea for today's focus  of the show came from an interview that i did   with angela a few months ago as i was researching  one of my own boardroom bound columns for cio.com  

the topic then was why cios should not wait  until retirement to start building up their board   credentials and their own skills in the boardroom  on that other side of the boardroom table and   it was a wonderful interview it was a great  column that i've gotten a lot of response for   and it answered that question of exactly how does  a highly accomplished incredibly busy committed   full-time business technology leader managed to do  both be a hundred and ten percent devoted to your   technology leadership job and also expand your  business chops and your board credentials outside   of that so that's what we're here to find out  today and thank you very much angela for joining   us it's delightful to see you again it's always  good to see you all right now before we dive   into your board experience and the um and your  expanded role at novant health tell me how you and   your team are doing i think that whole question  about how are you doing today has taken on such   greater weight and importance to us all just  as human beings how is everything going you   know i was i was reflecting on the past year this  morning and how proud i am of our remarkable team   um first we had to respond to the pandemic  uh then we had to recover from the shutdown   when we reopened all the clinics and all of our  ours and and now we're figuring out how to best   vaccinate thousands of people each day outside the  normal 25 000 we see as part of normal operations   and throughout all of this our team members have  experienced all of the challenges that everyone   else has children loss loss of a loved one health  issues of their own or health issues in the family   loss of an income or you know if nothing else  disruption of normal routines and comfort levels   some of our team members have been giving  everything they have to improve the health   of our communities sometimes at the expense of  their own well-being so you know while i've been   tremendously impressed by the team and grateful  that they are with us in this fight i worry   thank you well sure i i can't think of a more  incredibly high stress occupation these days than   healthcare frontline workers my own daughter  is a an addiction psychiatrist working with   with communities in newark new jersey and i worry  about her every day as well so i know that this   is just it's been an enormously it's been an  enormously distracting time for everyone but   it's it's also been an incredible  time in various other ways especially   as we've seen the kind of accomplishments that we  the way we've been able to keep going because of   digital transformation work that goes on so let's  talk about that whole change in your own role   you and i have talked many times over the years  you've been a cio you've been a chief digital   officer but there's something that has changed  with this addition of transformation to your role   what's what is different in your day-to-day  concerns my team and i have a pretty broad   remit uh we are responsible of course as we were  from the beginning for what would typically be   called i.t uh plus digital health um plus a device  company plus a tech services sales organization   um everything to do with data and cognitive  computing and of course we share as you mentioned   responsibility for the institute of innovation  and ai with our chief medical officer and his team   so as we think about adding on to that the  transformation part of my role that's all   about defining new business models and new revenue  streams over and above those that i just mentioned   um whether or not they have a technology component  although so few things don't um also nurturing   smaller lines of business that maybe haven't  received a lot of investment historically   and just general business transformation  activity and by the way there's a lot of   that in healthcare and i think that's probably  something that might surprise people who don't   have say someone in healthcare and their family  and and then they may not be hearing about the   the incredible like you have product lines that  are now part of your responsibilities and it's   you don't tend to think of um healthcare companies  in that sort of range these days tell us something   about you know what counts as a product what sort  of you mentioned that it's medical devices as well   sure no we we actually sell  products like physical devices   and we also we also provide technology services  to other smaller health care organizations   we provide their services internally obviously to  novant health so why not to other organizations   we we also provide health and wellness services to  our corporate community members these services are   um a composite set of things that include  technology capabilities which are the pieces that   i'm responsible for the actual line of business  for corporate services lives in one of my peers   uh organizations but there are so many things  that i guess every company should start thinking   about in fact mary fan if you'll indulge me for  a minute my my favorite soapbox topic right now   is this notion that we have to stop thinking  about ourselves as being part of a defined   industry because the companies that are dominating  multiple industries are those who haven't boxed   themselves in artificially with those industry  um definitions okay these are we think about   foundational capabilities that every company  that is succeeding and thriving in a world that   requires extreme agility um that you know a world  in which consumer appetites continue to shift   in a world in which you know the the bounds  of industry are getting blurrier and blurrier   then don't call yourself a healthcare company and  this is defined as a healthcare company is defined   as xyz 20 years ago therefore that's exactly what  we do we don't do anything more anything less and   that's our core business and we're never going  to do anything else we may be underserving our   communities if we stick to that sort of artificial  bounds so we've seen it in fintech with banking   we've seen it in services and the hospitality and  all of the other industries retail my goodness was   the first to be disrupted that's not that let's  just abandon this notion of industry boundaries   it's a it's a really great point and i remember  years ago having a conversation with someone   about the innovation opportunities in the  adjacencies and the things that are around   your business and ways because it's really  about leveraging a reputation in your brand   with uh with with your customers your patients  your suppliers your partners you know it's it's   definitely it's a very changing world and i think  that the incredibly uh the foundational role   of digital capabilities is actually one of the  things that has really changed that game so much   and let's talk a little bit about that i remember  some years ago when chief digital officer role   came up it's probably a good ten years old at this  point the role and there's always whenever there's   a new chief title in an industry that you have the  inevitable debates and stories about oh this is   replacing the cio and oh what what does the chief  marketing officer think of this isn't that her job   you know this sort of thing so how has the chief  digital officer role evolved in just the past five   years that's something you've been very i i think  not only deeply engaged with doing the job but   also influencing the way the job changes that's  such a great observation you know it's almost   impossible to think about the chief roles with  the possible exception of the ceo and the cfo   yeah we can't really look at the role title and  make any more than the most general assumptions   about what it does these days yeah some chief  digital officer roles have evolved into massive   roles you know as as we just discussed you know  with it responsibilities plus revgen plus other   and you know some girls see some chief digital  officers are you know three levels down from   the cio focused on you know running the consumer  surveys or the like you know and i think i think   what we have to do is um in just as i just  as i'm a proponent of abandoning artificial   boundaries related to industry i think i'm  probably also a proponent of abandoning   um defining roles by traditional titles i  think it's much more interesting to talk about   how we optimize our organizational structure this  how we define appropriate scope of responsibility   how we think about the sophistication of the  capability set that is defined and managed by a   given role and what are the interdependencies you  know how do we simplify such that we can optimize   for either speed or agility or or resiliency  or or whatever our optimization goals are um   and then we just call it something that allows us  to pay someone market i mean that's really that's   really what we we you know we can oversimplify it  a bit and probably get to a faster better outcome   as opposed to trying to confine ourselves to to  maybe what the industry is telling us this role   should be doing right and i think that's probably  a point that i suspect resonates with a lot of the   chief tech people that are in the audience because  who among us has not been put in the tech box   and told you know what you're going to do  the technology implementation we're going to   come over here we're going to make all the adult  decisions and we'll just tell you what to do now   the good news is i joined novant health because  not in a million years would novant health do that   we are every single member of the executive team  at novant health and by the way we come from a   variety of different industries everyone has a  pretty impressive amount of digital uh fluency   as you'd expect with any any um executive role to  have these days if you want to be successful you   can't you can't walk into an executive role today  and say gosh you know this finance stuff it really   confounds me i don't really understand it nor  would you ever say that about technology anymore   you can't walk into it any role and say gosh you  know my grandson had to help me with my phone   the other day i mean no one's ever gonna say that  everyone gets it now and uh and and i i happen to   to to have the privilege of being able to  help enable those sorts of very interesting   capabilities um that all of my peer group are are  so interested in and so passionate about as well   well and i know that's something that i've um i i  soap box a lot about that as well in my boardroom   column because cio's just chief anything on the  technology side has such a wonderful opportunity   to just expand the mindset and the understanding  of those board members you know the average   board member in in the fortune 500 is 64 years old  and he's a white male and he's his background has   been finance and business and you know the the  ones who are more secure in their selves are   willing to say i really don't know very much about  the technology stuff it's such a great opening to   just step in and say well not so much technology  let's talk about digital capabilities in fact we   have our first question from our live watching  audience and it's about the uh data strategy for   novant health and um talk a little bit about how  that is formulated how you describe it and i know   you'll be very conversant with it even though you  have a chief data officer who reports to you how   do you answer questions like that because the  data-driven nature of companies like yours and   organizations like yours is really tantamount  that's exactly right and that is an excellent   question and that is exactly the question to be  asked when you're thinking about any significant   effort within a within a complex company  particularly those um yes within a traditional   industry bound that's under transformation so  um one of the first things that i did when i   joined three three years ago a little over three  years ago was to recruit a world-class chief data   officer many of you may know carl hightower he  came in he brought on board a tremendous team that   is responsible for not just traditional  enterprise information management stitch you know   capabilities so for example when you think about  you know how is your data stored how do we think   about our data how do we describe our data how do  we move it how would at what point is it transform   how is it you know what at what point is it  encrypted when is it not you know all the sort of   classic and what's master data how do we  manage mastery all those sorts of things   um that's kind of classic ein so all of that  is handled and handled very well and by the way   those are not simple questions to answer  especially not to answer optimally so um his   team has spent a great deal of time and i think  done a great job helping us get our arms around   the business the language of our business the  elements that are most important to making   decisions in our business and by the way the  things that are most important to help us identify   the health condition of our patients so that's  when we start getting into some of the more um   the newer things that that carl and his team  have introduced into our estate so for example   um we have a strong cognitive computing team um  we have real live data scientists who work in our   our team that are doing some pretty remarkable  things yeah there are a lot of technology   vendors who will sell us capability sets um  that look at our clinical data um and and   help us identify trends and it may help us do  some prediction and what we found is that while   um while they're better than nothing and some  of them are quite sophisticated but you know   generally speaking sometimes if we have something  fairly precise we need to know we need to predict   um we can get to it pretty fast with our own  folks so we we have built that capability out   with some some brilliant people who who do some  amazing work and have done some industry leading   work and as a result we're now able to think about  our data which by the way we host in a data lake   cloud-based data lake access through a robust api  layer um you know so that allows us to operate on   our data through a variety of mechanisms and um in  the data it's not just our clinical data it's it's   it's you know behavioral data it's um data that  you know comes from a variety of sources some of   it's commercially available other parts of it are  not are from other devices that stream in and you   know as we look at this as we ask questions of  ourselves you know what what do we wish we knew   in a clinical setting or an operational  setting that we don't that we don't know today   that team can get us those answers pretty quickly  and it's been so essential and so differentiating   for us as we've responded to the the coping  crisis in particular well and i was imagining   that when you talk to your novant board about the  data strategy say you're on boarding a whole new   board member and they just you know they run in  i was going to say we run into each other in the   hallway we don't do that so easily these days but  eventually we will um and they say angela give me   the top line on what our data strategy is i would  imagine it it links right back to the delivery of   the quality of care oh a hundred percent so when  you think about i think you mentioned it in the   opening there's a we think about access to care we  want to expand access to care that's when we think   a lot about our digital health space and then we  want to increase the quality of care my goodness   everything about quality of care as  well as quality of our operations   yeah dependent upon our understanding of of  the data that defines everything that we do   and so it's yeah it is directly linked yes well  we have another question which i think is a good   follow-up from our audience and this is an advice  question for organizations uh what do they need to   address in their foundational capabilities  before embarking on digitization efforts   i guess it's a cart before the horse kind of  question in a way um but you've been in so   many different industries and organizations so  you've probably seen all different scenarios of   that so would you advise organizations to take  care of foundational things first and if so how   so you know i think you can the first thing  to ask yourself because the answer to that   question's gonna be different but the process by  which you arrive at the answer can be uh you know   fairly similar so the first thing  that you can do is ask yourself   what are the outcomes that my business is trying  to achieve short-term median term long-term right   and then you start thinking before you even set  about defining a strategy for how you're going to   achieve that outcome just think to yourself what  are the what are the foundational capabilities   that i'm likely to need in support of these  outcomes and you know you'll find that you   start defining your strategy and the required  capabilities simultaneously and a lot of the   capability sets that you define will end up being  it'll become obvious to you it should become   obvious to you which have to be more robust in  advance of others in advance of the the evolution   of the others and uh and i think understanding the  interdependency between some of the capabilities   that you define um understanding which ones you  can achieve and and provide opportunistically uh   perhaps over others that may require a little more  effort um you know those are the sorts of things   you consider when you think about priority um and  and what is foundational to you is is likely to be   um likely to go beyond just the traditional um  infrastructural elements and capability sets   that we tend to think about as foundational  right excellent good answer thank you now one   part of the your new role that we talked about  earlier was about the unconventional partnership   aspects of the work in terms of building and  growing revenue streams how did that start for you years ago i'm going to guess maybe 2009 2010 2011   there was an article in the hbr forgive me  for mentioning another publication no problem   harvard business review everybody should read it  all the time i have lots of lots of friends who   have worked there it's actually it's a wonderful  business journal i found i found that as well um   so it is uh there was an article about a uh one  of the large energy companies that had set up an   innovation network they had recognized early on  that it was no longer reasonable to expect that   they all of the great ideas about energy would  come from within their four walls and so they they   started building out a formal network of third  parties with whom they interacted as they tried   to create you know new ways of operating new ways  of working and i remember being struck by that um   and and at the time i was working with astrazeneca  i was working at astrazeneca as a chief technology   officer and a colleague of mine a brilliant guy  named john reinders and i spent a lot of time   talking about what that what that um might look  like at astrazeneca and we we built we set about   building that um certainly within the the the r d  organization there was a lot of that same sort of   approach going on you know the the research that's  happening in pharma was happening a lot of the   especially in the life sciences space that um  it was happening in these smaller labs and so   the partnership so we started thinking about  ways we could facilitate formal relationships   with smaller labs and so on and it grew  and then i started thinking why why not   do that inside of a traditional technology  organization why would we rely on either what   we could develop in our four walls or what we  purchased from large vendors which by the way   i love large vendors they're wonderful nothing  against them but they're not going to provide   everything to us that we need and so there's  no longer a conversation about buy versus build   there's a conversation about do i build do i buy  or do i maybe co-create with a third party maybe   that third party is a a startup maybe maybe i  adopt a software uh excuse me maybe i adopt a   solution from a startup that doesn't yet have a  commercially available product maybe maybe i help   them you know land the plane on their product  um and their and therefore get to market with   the capability before my before my competition  does um you know it all started with this idea   and then once you have this idea i guess it was  easy to sort of expand it to thinking about ways   in which we could go to market together with a  variety of other entity types of ways in which we   could help lend if not developers maybe we lend  subject matter experts in our industry and and   we've as a result in my experience across a  variety of industries in which i've worked   it's it's relatively easy to do and it's something  that i think every technology leader needs   to needs to have as just part of a way a basic  way of working well i've noticed too over time   talking with technology leaders like yourself  uh and and many others in different industries   that when we start talking about vendor management  for instance the first point everybody tends to   make is that i don't want to work with vendors i  want to work with partners and that whole approach   and that whole willingness to you know it's what  are my suppliers and partners bringing to us that   we can use we're happy to help support them and to  invest in their products and so forth but do they   how much do they understand my business and that  sort of thing so i think that that's very it's not   so much leading edge with cios anymore as i think  that it's in that best practices bucket about it's   not about vendors that you buy things for from  its partners that you work with and suppliers who   are fueling different parts of your business let  us now let's say if you're just joining us this   is cio leadership live and i am joined today by  angela yoakam who is the chief transformation and   digital technology officer at novant health and we  are going to switch our conversation over now from   oh i i want to call it's not exactly typical  cdo business because you do a lot of so many   different business parts of your role as  a technology leader but i want to switch   over and talk about the board your board and  governance career and let's start by rolling   back a decade to the first experience you had in  your board career how did that opportunity arise   i find that every cio i know every chief  digital officer who serves on outside boards   everybody's got an origin story where it all  started for them so tell us your origin story   i think thank you for that question that's a great  question uh i think i'd like to answer that in two   parts i first you know my first for profit board  i'll tell you that story but then i think i also   would like to share if i can did how i feel about  service in general yes because that's important   it's important part of my origin story um it's my  first for-profit board outside of those that were   affiliated with my executive roles was the federal  home loan bank of pittsburgh a dear friend of mine   although at the time i didn't know her well um  asked me about my interest in serving on a board   and we had a couple of long conversations  um she suggested i throw my name in the hat   as a candidate for an open board position um  that you know she she was on that particular   board as well and the rest is history so that's  that's how that went for me and by the way i've   shared a lot of stories um with others who who  have also found their first board see through   people that they know a personal connection  personal connections in your network   now as it relates to general board service and  community service um that's seen something that's   something that i've i've had modeled in my  own family for as long as i can remember   my parents have always served in and supported  groups promoting health and education equity   sustainability the arts veterans uh other  civic issues and they instilled in me from   a very early age um the belief that if  you can work and there is work to be done   uh then you know what are you waiting for  go go get it done and so um things do work   sorry find the time create the time to do it  find the time you know go get it done so uh   with that with that is my example um you know  i think i think service in in whatever form it   takes is is something for which we can always  we can always make the time yes well and i've   had many conversations with cios over the years  about the whole concept of servant leadership   and the idea that you are and it's not necessarily  applying to board work but it is the notion that   you are in a leadership position because that  puts you in a better position to help to help   people around you to help the people working  for you to help your companies and so forth   many cios will their first likely board position  will it's very likely 75 percent of the time   you find it through a personal connection usually  someone in the business community not necessarily   another chief information officer so a lot of  times non-profit boards will come up as uh your   first service example and there's often debate  in the board world i think people assume that if   you've served on a non-profit board it's some kind  of a natural stepping stone to a for-profit or a   private board not necessarily the case it comes  down to a lot of depends on the industry your own   networks and so forth but tell us why you have  found you've been on several non-profit boards   and i think you're currently serving on a couple  of them in your own community in charlotte so   we know it doesn't necessarily need to lead to a  paid board seat why is it worthwhile to be part   of a non-profit board and to seek that yeah three  three reasons uh first you have the opportunity   to do something meaningful for the community in  which you live so that's that's number one right   and that's why most people serve secondarily it  gives you an opportunity to exercise those muscles   that you know are understanding how another  complex organization works it might expose you to   different problem sets than you're used to seeing  perhaps different industries different company   types different sorts of problems different sorts  of political structures inside of the organization   this exposure allows you to to expand your own  understanding of organization i think that's   important that's something that we all need in our  day jobs so so i think you learn something from it   outside of just serving the community and the  third thing i will say is that how better so if   you look at if you look at non-profit boards you  look at who's serving on these non-profit boards   um oftentimes there are people who are in big  big executive roles and so they're learning from   you just as you're learning from them and one of  the things that they're going to learn is how you   operate they're going to learn how you work and  so if if you know if you're if you're in it purely   for selfish reasons this gives you an opportunity  to show what your talents bring to an organization   that needs your talents um so you know i would say  everyone wins if you join a non-profit it's not   going to lead to a for-profit board um that is not  a stepping stone in the the executive recruiting   community finds meaningful and by the way it  often is irrelevant in terms of skill sets but   um as you build your own foundational capabilities  those muscles you need to do that anyway just as   just as part of your personal growth well it's a  wonderful way to to build your business network   because as as much as and i've worked with cios  for well over 20 years now and i'm a huge fan   of a strong cio network i mean it's one of  it's one of my when people say oh what's   your superpower you know i love that question  because it's not just about whether you can bake   bread or not it's basically my superpower is  knowing so many cios and having this wonderful   network but that wonderful network of cios will  not lead to board success it's your business   community friends those ceos and chief financial  officers that you meet on the nonprofit board so i   think that's a great point now let's think about  today's boardroom talent needs just in general   for private company boards fortune 500 fortune  1000 boards is there anything especially in light   of the global pandemic that we've been going  through now is there anything that makes this   a better time for full-time senior executives  like yourself to think about board service or   to reach out why why would a board need  your capabilities today talk about that   well if you think about think about  what we're seeing in the world today   everybody's talking about how  rapidly the world is changing   and businesses of all sorts are thinking  about unconventional competitors and they're   thinking about changing market opportunities and  changing customer appetites and you know everyone   acknowledges that the biggest challenge is the  rapidity of the change happening around them   who what type of executive what type of  executive has been best positioned to deal with   rapidly changing or advancing capability sets over  the last 20 years i would say it's the technology   executive the one who's been running the estates  that have you know that that you know whose   landscape shifts every half year um we're in the  middle of it we're very well positioned to help   with agility um to help with um that all of the  new the new muscles that all of the companies are   trying to build and all of these boards need as  they as they as they guide their management team   as they ask questions of their management team  as they pressure test the management team's work   so you know i think that that is probably  the first reason why it's a great time   for technology leaders to to reach out  and and and look for opportunities to   serve in this capacity and the second is  of course that it's impossible to separate   any of the advances that are happening in any  of the industries again i said i don't like to   talk about industries but across the industry  spectrum all of those changes are enabled by   some sort of technology advance or some sort of  unprecedented but now available access to data and that's our world so you know why would we  why would we form up a board that doesn't have   the perspective of somebody who understands  that accelerating force and again can ask the   right questions of the management team to make  sure that that's being taken into consideration   not just from a risk mitigation perspective  as it relates to operational risk but also   as a as a future state future planning strategic  sort of risk mitigation there's a lot being   written today too about the changing nature of  the board's governance responsibilities i mean   it's certainly oversight and the shareholder value  and making sure the company is profitable and and   guiding it away from you know wrong directions  certainly are very core to what board members are   needed to do today but there's also stakeholder  attention now when the i've read so much of board   literature over the last year or so that points  out the incredible importance of diversity and   inclusion and equality and how those issues i just  i have a column being published next week about   environmental societal and governance issues the  esg which is and one of the tie-ins there for cios   is that esg is going to come down to a lot of  data that the boards are going to need i mean   there's not a lot of regulatory requirements  around esg data yet but the big institutional   investors are all paying a lot of attention to it  and i think and i like when i say diversity that   way i actually mean diversity kind of writ large  where it's diversity of thought and background   and education and capabilities i love the way  you always talk about capabilities rather than   technology skills because it really does reach  across different opportunities that are out there   have you found that serving on outside boards  has that helped you work more effectively with   your own board at novant health at you know  rent a center when you were there all the   different what five or six companies where you  have been involved and during most of that time   i think from astrazeneca on you've been involved  in boardwork how did you find that it helped you   with your own company board i think uh two  ways first of course it allowed me to see   our engagement through their you know with with  wearing the board hat i understand what what the   sorts of things they're likely to be looking for  i i had a i had a perspective that was similar   to theirs and that helped me but i think maybe  less obviously but equally if not more important   is the type of exercise that serving on a board  allows me to to perform that helps me just be a   better version of myself so professional athletes  i always by the way i should preface this by   saying i always get in trouble when i try to do  some sort of sports analogy so i'm not going to   try to be careful i never try it either because  i mix all that stuff up i'm just not about i   i can talk about classical music and pianists  but i can't really say much about sports   i'm going to try so we all know even those of  us um i have a dear friend um clint who refers   to his favorite sport is sports ball i'm like  yes so even if you have sports ball a player   um somebody we know football players for example  sometimes take you know ballet right or yoga   we know that regardless of the nature of the  athletics in which you're engaging you have   a whole set of conditioning exercises you have to  go through right and you know you're in there with   your athletic trainers you're in there with your  strength coaches you're in there with you know   i don't know see this is where my my knowledge  peters out but you know you're in there with a   whole bunch of people who are who are not running  you through football drills if you're a football   player right you're you're not only practicing  football over and over and over again you're also   doing all the flexibility work you're doing all  the strength training work you're doing all the   other stuff that helps your muscles be more  explosive if that's what you're looking for   be faster if that's what you're looking for or be  more resilient if that's what you're looking for   and i think for executives our mental muscles are  they need to be exercised not just in doing the   actual job that is ours to do on a day-to-day  basis and how do we exercise those muscles we read   we attend industry events but my goodness what  about getting into the weeds of another industry   another company understanding someone else's  problems that are not the ones that you deal   with on a day-to-day basis there is no better  conditioning exercise that will make you a better   version of who you show up to be at work i'm a  strong believer that that ceos should encourage   their executive teams to do exactly that yes well  and that's that's actually a great segue to my   next question that comes up every time i make this  argument to my very busy full-time cio friends   about you should be looking into board service  and they say well i kind of have a job that's   120 of my time mary fran what are you talking  about how do you convince a ceo because anyone   who's working full-time at a company you are  all uh fiscally responsible you're fiduciary   officers of your companies how do you convince  the ceo that there's a benefit for him or her   and the company for you to be involved in another  company i of course not a competitor but spending   any of your time not thinking about them and and  their little world so talk to that a little bit   because i'm sure you've had those conversations  with ceos i will say that i've been i've been   pretty fortunate so i've worked for a number of  ceos who who understand that to be a stronger   exec um you have to understand how a variety  of different businesses work how they operate   they they get it um they themselves often serve on  boards of very different sorts of companies i mean   true that's true you know in understanding you  know how governance works increases an executive's   impact uh in their own company that's it's almost  common sense um and so i've been fortunate in that   that the the significant that the ceos for whom  i've worked have all all understood that and are   100 behind that mission um i haven't yeah i would  say that i probably would not go to work for a ceo   who didn't who didn't think that who needed to  be convinced otherwise um because i think if you   if you believe that everything that one might ever  need to learn is contained currently within one's   own business as it exists it today i think that's  fairly dangerous because your business isn't going   to look the same in three years again because of  industry disruption that's happening so rampantly   every industry is going to look very different  three four five years from now than it does today   and so focusing on and specializing in only the  world of today in which you're in which you're   operating um puts you at risk and so i certainly  hope that executive teams are not being encouraged   to to focus inwardly only right this doesn't seem  like a good idea it seems especially not like a   good idea right now with everything changing  so much what about the time factor i mean when   i look at your linkedin profile it's a little  daunting when i think about the job you have   you get promoted consistently you  take on more business responsibilities   and yet you've still got a couple uh you serve  on two um for-profit you know serious board   seats the one for the big insurance company  and then i believe another one and you also   um work with venture capital based startups in an  advisory role where are you finding all the time   for this angela that's a really that's a very  serious question even though i'm kind of like   rolling my eyes about it where do you find the  time for this no it's a valid question so um every day does not look like every other day okay  so there are some days where i don't think about   anything in fact in recent days um you know  since the since the new year i've been pretty   consistently head down with a couple of things  that are happening in the american heart   association world um otherwise i'm i'm pretty  heads down on what's happening in novant health   we're trying to vaccinate an entire you know  states of people um and it's you know under some   changing frequently changing constraints um so  so i've i've been pretty heads down at work um   however in normal course of events although  i hate to you know i don't want to presume   it will ever be fully normal again but  i'm i'm i have a couple of things uh   a couple of secret weapons so you asked you  know you said your superpower is your network   um by the way i think that i think that your  superpower is your ability to um context very   very quickly when you meet people and your ability  to keep those details in your head and understand   connections between all the people in your  network forever i think that's your superpower   and the ways in which you influence the industry  is is phenomenal but anyway that aside um one of   my zebra powers is that i read extraordinarily  quickly so i can plow through about 400 pages   in an evening so um when it comes to being when it  comes to absorbing a lot of material that's very   um complex very quickly um it doesn't  take me weeks and weeks to do it takes me   what i what i like to do is i i try to plow  through as much material as i can absorb   it and then what i like to do is think about it in  my off cycles so when i'm walking my dogs or when   i'm you know making dinner or you know doing  the dishes or whatever i start thinking about   what i've read i started applying it i started  expanding upon it that's where the real magic   happens for me the consumption sorry that's where  the connections happen your different neurons are   just firing differently that's right so so i  consume very quickly and then i let it you know   i let it marinate over time and and that's that's  how i learned that's how i operate and that's how   i i balance so many different things um if you  know it's um as long as i can do that so far   as as my parents always said you know if you can  work you should work get it done yes that's what   that's what i'm doing that's great well and  i have uh there are so many there's a couple   things i've been recommending to my friend  because i like to also listen to podcasts   and that sort of thing while i'm doing like  you know puttering around in the kitchen or   or out in my garden and everything and there's two  podcasts that i've been recommending especially if   you're interested in board service um it is i  i've been calling it the digital twin there's a   boardroom bound podcast that is actually it's a um  a band named alexander lowry who is a cfo trained   he's a college professor in massachusetts  and he's been doing this boardroom bound   podcast it has nothing to do with my column i just  happen to pick the same kind of name he's actually   i think got a a patent on his name and he's been  allowing me to use boardroombound in my cio.com   column every week he interviews someone on this  podcast about different issues he's on a mission   to help board members become better at what  they're doing and now that alexander and i have   met i'm on a mission to get more cios interviewed  cios and chief digital officers interviewed   because he's done over a hundred of these  interviews but they're mostly people from   the business world and when i looked through the  list i only saw one cto on the list so alexander   and i have a pact going where i'm going to send  him more in fact i'm sure i'll be introducing   you to him angela so i recommend listening to  alexander's podcast and there's also just a new   one that i mentioned to you that brene brown  the famous social researcher on human emotion   is doing it's called dare to lead and i posted  about it on linkedin the other day because i think   it's just phenomenal and she's been interviewing  all kinds of people about leading to she started   this podcast like two months ago so it's right in  the midst of the pandemic and it's all kinds of   wonderful wonderful interviews with people that  are really paying a lot of attention to these   elements so let me uh switch gears one more time  and say uh talk about the your work on the federal   home loan bank board when i was looking through  your whole list of all the things that you've   served on i look at that and i think oh well  you probably have an mba and all this financial   expertise behind you so how did how did that  experience come about and you served for over two   years on that board what did you learn there and  how did that all happen well first let me say the   only reason i left that wonderful board which was  such a strong board is because there's a regulator   there's a regulatory requirement that the board  members live in the region and when i left when i   left the region to move to texas i had to design  for the board and it was just heartbreaking   because what a wonderful group of people um doing  you know doing good work doing the right work   um yeah so that board was actually the board  that i i mentioned to you having having   joined as a result of a conversation with  a dear friend who who at the time i didn't   know as well um but certainly came to know over  time um and so that's how that came about i had   the privilege of serving um i think i started  serving on the operational risk committee the um   operational risk committee and governance uh and  public policy committees uh and that was that was   fascinating um operational risk is of course right  up my alley at the time it was right up my alley   still is obviously um the um governance and public  policy the governance side of that was more like a   nom gov committee and the public policy piece  was something new so i had an opportunity to   um look at how you know it's a organization  that was regulated by an entity um the same   entity that regulates uh fannie and freddie  or used to regulate fannie and freddie   so it's really regular regulators that you  don't typically read about in the paper so it   was interesting to learn more about that and how  that works um and then i moved into being the vice   chair of the enterprise governance board and also  joined the audit committee ultimately so very um   very uh very wonderful my i i do have experience  in the banking um so i was i worked for suntrust   for a few years in bank of america for a  few years i mean i it's not as if i didn't   have an understanding of banking federal home  loan banks though i wasn't as familiar with   they are the banks that provide liquidity to  other banks they function more as a co-op which   is really interesting so they're an sec registrant  but um instead of having shareholders they have   members and so you still you still are are are  um you're still governing member value just as   you govern shareholder value dividends are paid  out you know there's there's still it operates   very much the same as as shareholders but it's a  membership instead it's a co-op but you're still   the same sec submissions the same artifacts  have to be crafted it's this you know it's a   a variety of regulatory considerations as you  consider any any number of industries so those   are fantastic thank you for asking about that  it was a really fantastic experience and uh i   treasure my time uh with those those board members  well and i think it's a great example also of   how much you can not only learn from getting  inside another industry on a board that way   but also what cios can bring just because of cios  and cdos and chief transformation officers what   you can bring to the table that is different from  everything else around the table um one of the   the people i interviewed for um a virtual event i  took part in a few months ago she was the former   president of princeton university and she was a  very well-known shirley tegman and she's a um on   the google board she got asked in 2004 to join the  google board and she knew eric schmidt had called   her up and she knew him because he was a princeton  alumni so she was always basically you know   compa university presidents basically fundraise  right and so eric knew her very well and he called   her up one day and said come and be on the board  and she said you know silicon valley she lives   in princeton new jersey at the time you know  and she ended up being one of the few consumer   east coast academic type people on that board  and we ended up talking about that diversity of   thought and knowledge that somebody who's truly  an outsider from an industry so i think there may   be a um there may be a misconception that you can  only be on a board where you bring this incredible   expertise it's actually and that's leading me  one of my long-winded rambling questions leading   me into asking you what cios and people that are  technology leaders what they can bring to boards   to give them a new way to think about that as you  know as the central nervous systems of the way   their companies operate why do boards need those  kind of talents to come on these days especially   um so again i think i'm going to  give you an answer in two parts   part first part what what cios bring on paper  which is also what they bring in reality so   first part is number one part of operational risk  management which is either part of audit committee   it could be part of a separate auto operational  or enterprise risk committee um that's where you   manage um and pressure test management decisions  around cyber risk yes and of course that's   also where you pressure test manage management  decisions around um major technology investments   technology infrastructure infrastructural  considerations maybe outside of the cyber   space security space um and all of that you know  is within the domain of expertise presumably   that is held within a cio cto sort of tech  leader position um the other piece of that   on paper answer is uh that because so many of the  business innovations that uh are coming out of a   variety of industries are empowered by and in many  cases entirely enabled by advanced technologies   the people who are the executives who are  in charge of those sorts of transformative   capabilities are those technology leaders and  can bring that same sort of thinking into the   discussion with management so that you think  about you know are you are you thinking the right   way about moving into adjacencies or doing all of  these other things that we think about on a daily   basis so that's the on paper answer now the other  answer this may be a little more subtle is again it's it's not enough to say i'm the outsider  so i'm going to bring a different perspective because you're only going to be the  outsider for a short period of time because pretty soon you're not going to be  an outsider anymore unless something has   gone terribly wrong you know so so you  know um what we all should be bringing   whether it's to our executive roles or to  our board roles is is is it a mental agility   is it is an understanding that the world around us  will shift very very quickly is is the ability to   break down into the most basic components what's  required to be successful and to thrive and that   is going to change regardless of in your same  industry for 25 years or if you're in different   industries year year year year you're going to  have to understand when where those pivot points   are occurring recognize them anticipate them uh  get ahead of them and and and be positioned to   thrive whether you're um you know regardless of  industry so that kind of thinker is i think um   i think you can find that kind of thinker  again in the technology leadership ranks   because of how quickly technology  has continued to advance over time   and how facile we've had to be as you know in the  face of that change so that's very much a practice   that you've made as you've built out that senior  team that you have of all those different chiefs   you know chief security officer chief data officer  chief technology officer yeah i know also yeah   yeah exactly you look for those kind of thoughts  i want to quote something back to you that you   said during our interview for that boardroom  column i mentioned and you were summing up   the intrinsic value that you yourself have gotten  from serving on different boards and why you along   you join me in thinking that it's so important  for technology leaders to get out there and   serve on boards you said if you believe business  innovation will continue at unprecedented rates   and that market opportunities will expand  and the consumer appetites will keep growing   realize that your industry won't be the same in  five years right so in terms of exercising that   that agility and that muscle that helps us deal  with change with all the change around us today   it seems it's it's pretty hard to imagine a better  way to do that than to get experience on that   other side of the boardroom table i'm completely  biased on this point so tell me if i'm being a   pollyanna about it oh no you are you and i are  exactly aligned on this you know that's i think   it is our if someone is paying us to come and work  and and well virtually or physically or otherwise   and and and to do to and to make strategic  decisions to put their strategies in play   we have an obligation to that entity to expand  our perspectives beyond the walls of the company   as it exists today that is just an obligation  we you know again i'm going to take a chance   with the athletics you know you might you  know a professional sport here thank you   a professional sports team hires a professional  athlete at the peak of his or her you know   physical athleticism and they expect that person  to stay in shape they're not going to be happy   if that person comes in eats a bunch of donuts and  gates 50 pounds right similarly executives have to   come in and continue to be world-class and we have  to make ourselves world class by exercising those   muscles we exercise those muscles by expanding our  perspective and getting deep into the weeds and   continuing to learn quickly applying our natural  strengths to someone else's problems learn what   it's like to sit on the other side of the table um  it's part of our growth it's part of our personal   growth plan as an executive and it also allows  us to to best lead um our companies regardless   of industry in this changing world because they're  as we've said several times it's it's a changing   world changing environment yes and who knows that  better than chief information and digital officers   and it also reminds me a couple of cios who all  like you serve on multiple different boards have   pointed out that one of the ways they win  that argument with their ceo is they point   out that it's basically for the company it's a  free executive education that another company   gets to provide for you it's an i mean it's  enormous personal growth i think for individuals   but in terms of what you bring back to the company  i think that it's very important so that's much   more succinct than what i said and i but you're  exactly right well thank you thank you so much   for letting me veer off usually on leadership  live we talk about kind of the usual lineup of   cio topics it's innovation and business strategy  and leadership and talent retention and all that   but this was just a very i thought that this was  a very appropriate change as we are heading into   a whole new decade and a new administration in  washington and i especially appreciate that you   joined me here today instead of watching the  inauguration live so thank you for that angela   and i hope i will see you again soon and in well  it'd be nice to see you in the real world but   i especially appreciate you joining us today  virtually thanks so much it's my pleasure to   be here thank you for having me if you joined  us late today please do not uh despair uh you   can watch the full episode later today on cio.com  or you can also catch us on youtube where we have   um the idg tech talk channel has not only this  wonderful interview with angela yoakam today but   also the 50 60 i think this might have been number  61. we've kept a whole library of all of these cio  

conversations there on our idg tech talk channel  and i hope you enjoyed today's conversation with   angela as much as i did and that you will join  us again here in two weeks for the next episode   of cio leadership live on wednesday february 3rd  i'm going to be joined again at 12 noon eastern   by justin kershaw who is the chief  information officer at cargill   the ag giant the agricultural giant company one of  the largest privately held companies in the united   states and take a moment before you leave us  to check out that idg youtube channel there   and you'll be able to find all the previous  episodes and thanks so much for joining   us today stay well and safe out there and  we'll see you back here again in two weeks

2021-01-29

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