CIO Leadership Live with THL Chief Technology Jo Hilson
hello and welcome to CIO leadership live New Zealand I'm Kathy O'Sullivan the editorian chief for CIO in Asia Pacific and I'm delighted to welcome my guest today Joe Hilson who is the chief technology officer at tourism Holdings Limited Joe was recognized as part of our cio50 in 2022 for the work she and her team are doing at THL she has more than 20 years experience across a wide range of industries from startups to multi-million dollar market leaders both here in New Zealand and in the UK welcome Joe hi Kathy thank you for having me oh great to have you great to catch up with you again and so for those of um those watching who don't really know a lot about THL can you tell us a little bit more about the organization and what you and your team do there yeah sure so tourism Holdings Limited so we are a tourism company and we actually operate quite widely so we're in New Zealand we're in Australia the USA UK Ireland Germany and Canada so um part of what we do is we provide Camper vans and RVs for rent and sale and you'll recognize some of their brands like Maui Brits in Australia we've got a polo hippie just go and bunk through the UK our Monte Winnebago and Kia just to name a few we also design and manufacture the camper vans so we do that across New Zealand and Australia and some specialist Vehicles as well so the likes of the same John's ambulance we build that and we've also got the operation for discover waitomo so that's your caves the black water rafting the waitomo homestead and finally we have kiwi experience bus tours so we're quite a diverse tourism company which is great so for me in my role it's Global and and my teams are accountable for a number of things we build our own products so our Fleet Management System our telematics products and we also have the accountability around cyber security data I.T operations across the globe supporting all of our staff and yeah quite a lot actually busy times and with the recent merger with Apollo at the end of last year it's um even busier so really exciting wow a huge variety there I didn't realize everything from ambulances to caves you look after a huge massive role and now you have worked in in various Industries as we said from the age you know from Health to insurance and now tourism so can you tell us a bit more about um I guess transformation and and how it has taken shape in your career it's often you know it is a buzzword you know a lot of people say they're transforming but you know and and like it's just a dumb thing it's just easy but it's not an easy thing to do so can you talk us through kind of how transformation has taken shape throughout your career yeah and it's interesting you know if I think back even 10 years ago there was this conscious approach to we are transforming and you're right it was that key buzzword and that word would appear on all of our strategies and transformation programs would be set up and roles would be created with transformation in the title and sometimes if you had a budget big enough you'd be Consulting one of the big consulting firms so you know there was a significant sense of importance that came with that and a massive expectation that you were going to be creating some fundamental change and and Magic I guess um because of the volume of people involved and the sheer size that it grew to be but it didn't actually always turn out that way and in my experience it a lot of the times it just got too big and went off tangent when you're trying to transform because you lost sight of what it was that we were trying to do and it became complicated and expensive so you know as the years have progressed I've noticed a lot more reduced Transformations you know we're not trying to change the world we're trying to you know keep it within a reality of what we can achieve and deliver in less time as well so for me it's changed significantly and I I don't really call things transformation anymore it's just that continuous Improvement so a massive shift from the Great Big Bang all into actually just make this part of BAU and I think that's something that's really important because a it takes the pressure off and it keeps it more realistic as well that's a very interesting approach you know taking it back to you know the Simplicity of what you're trying to do so what do you think are some of the kind of key steps cios must take along the way even if they are looking at transformation from that business Improvement point of view is there ever kind of something that will kick off you know a change within an organization yeah I think there's things that could kick it off it could be the CEO's Got A Plan and there's something new coming or you know at the end of the day it's just you're planning for the next financial year or The Current financial year I think what's important as a CIO no matter what the circumstances is that you are able to Define that North Star you know why are we doing it what are we doing where are we heading to so that Clarity is really important and it needs to be aligned to your strategy so when I'm talking about transformation and that North Star I'm also you know giving the same message that my CEO would be giving in regards to validating validating that strategy so definitely that understanding why we're doing it and where we're heading and then it's easier for me and everyone else in that role to kind of enable people to come on that Journey so another big part of that is to remember it's not always technology you know there's more than technology there's people in process with any sort of transformation as well so making sure that that big picture awareness and thinking is constantly there is super super critical you know coming back to the earlier question around those Transformations we made it very quick about technology in those days and that was a big mistake so having the roles and those reminders of Who's involved in that transformation and was also really vital as part of the the journey so you know any change can be hired regardless of of your role or or regardless of your organization so what's been your strategy for dealing with challenges when they um pop up you know whether it is people whether it is Legacy systems or constrained budgets what are some some of those kind of common roadblocks that come up when you're implementing these Transformations and how do you avoid them or I guess and help them along on the way there answer your plan and you know the better the plan the better you can manage a lot of those blockers or be aware or prepare for them and of course you know a plan's as good as the information you have and the people that are involved in and telling you the story and the dependencies or impacts so you know for me to have a good plan is to know who needs to be involved to help create that plan and again it comes back to it's always more than technology if you've only got a technology team involved in transformation you're likely going to fail because the change is going to be impacting somewhere else whether it's processed people so make sure you are really clear on who needs to be involved in that plan so that you can bring them on that journey I think that's definitely one thing and then part of that is the other end so you know you've obviously got to a point where you've delivered that transformation but how's that change management been you know managed as well is it effective are we able to manage that resistance and then that business Readiness support that comes with it as well so you know for me the challenges are absolutely right you always got Legacy and budget I think they're kind of a no-brainer and expected in any any transformation program to work but it's actually focused on a really good plan and the people that need to be involved make sure you've got some good change management practices and also your business Readiness because at the end of the day you want to just support the teams along the way when you roll out and you go live and you're holding their hands through to the end I love that yeah that there's business business Readiness and making sure you're not setting it up for a failure um so you mentioned earlier that you like to see transformation as you know continuous Improvement part of ba you with that approach then how do you manage change fatigue both internally within your team but also you know within the wider organization you've been through a lot of change at TH and particularly with the merger now so how do you manage that you've got to find time for rest rest and Recovery is like sports it's kind of like you've got your A game you're a game your A game but to your point there's fatigue and we're humans right so we've really got to make sure that we're thinking about that well-being component of their crew because they can't operate at this level you know 24x7 there's going to be some sort of consequence and I definitely don't want that you know I want to make sure there's a well-balanced approach so again it comes back to planning and it comes back to opportunity to make sure that I'm encouraging my teams to take some time out but at the same time I've created a transformation program or a continuous Improvement you know whatever I'm calling it opportunity where there is an end and they've actually got to a place where they've gone ah I've achieved something you know so they're getting that recognition as well for themselves you know we're all humans we all like to say great I feel good I've achieved something I've learned something from it so it's a combination really of making sure that we're getting you know small bites of recognition and value that's come out of it and then when they have been going at those longer you know term sort of Transformations and some of them can go on for over a year we're really focusing on that time out for them that time to kind of breathe relax even if it's a holiday you know they might not have been able to take a break in that time because obviously time time frames or deadlines whatever it might be it's just really bringing it back to them and their well-being and the opportunity to recover and listening to okay are you ready for the next challenge or is there something else that's going on because there's always BAU and other projects in my world so there's more more than one opportunity where they can also give their view on hey yeah I'm ready for this next big program of work or actually I'd like to try something else so really listening and being mindful of of the crew because you know they are the ones that are going to be driving that delivery and we and we need to look after them so for me it's definitely around that absolutely and I guess working in a tourism related business as well you see all those beautiful pictures like the one in your background there of uh beautiful New Zealand and other markets that you serve I'm sure that um makes people think about their own holidays as well and so uh speaking of buzzwords another buzzword that's you know that that comes up is AI it seems like a day doesn't go by that people aren't chatting about chat gbt and Dally e and all of the other generative AI tools that are emerging so what role do you see for AI in the tourism industry you know is it something that you see Valley for in your organization absolutely I I think every organization should see value in Ai and you know whether we like it or not IAT AI I should say is part of our environment you know I see it naturally occurring through some of the software that we already have and I'll get an upgrade and ah yeah we've got this new AI feature in it and you know to your point jet chat GPT it's just like just being used so much more and um you know for me the value is the reality is with my teams there's so much work there's absolutely so much work that we can't always focus on the Innovation and the opportunity for automation so when something like this comes along I'm like seizing the opportunity because it can take us so much further you know the one thing that I do want to balance though is I want AI machine learning to be a compliment to my team not a replacement and so that's the area that I'm still really trying to figure out well how do I manage that and how you know how is it effectively really going to occur but for me right now you know for example we've just done a replacement data warehouse and some of the key drivers on the decision was that AI machine learning capability because it's an area that we just haven't touched on a lot and it's an area that will drive a lot of value you know data is everything for us and by the size of our company and obviously the variety of the different tourism components there's just so many opportunities that we just can't get to alone because of everything else that we're focusing on so for me it's something that's definitely going to be top of Mind in the next financial year we've already made some decisions on some software to implement and where it takes us you know 12 months after that I'm excited by um and I'm even excited just to see it in air day-to-day living you know outside of the organization the one thing though that does concern me about AI is you know because it's developing so quickly and maturing that humans will get lazy and stupid so that's why you know I'm coming back to the whole it's there to support us so we still put a lot of emphasis on ourselves as humans to do the work in parallel yeah absolutely it's a fasting fascinating area and who knows this time 12 months where we will be with that and so Joe um tell me how do you um influence and collaborate with you know both your leadership team that you sit on and The Wider organization how do you and what ways do you work with them as as Chief technology officer so I'm a real people person so put me in a room and I'll talk to anybody I love talking socializing and and connecting with people so for me um forming relationships is key so that I can influence we are physically located in a different building to the majority of the business um in Auckland so that also makes it a lot more difficult because I don't have that regular interaction and of course covert has seen a lot more people working from home anyway so for me to build relationships is absolutely critical so I will look for every opportunity that I can and whether that's a zoom call or whether that's going out to the branches to see people or going across to head office as often as I can it's really important so that I'm seen and people get to know me um and then on top of that what I also do is you know a lot of emails I send out a lot of company-wide emails just on updates about things that are going on so more and more people are from familiar and more importantly with my teams you know the key thing is that I'm constantly able to say hey we're here and we're demonstrating value and this is what we've delivered this time and this is the impact that it's it's going to have on you and your team so mainly through that relationship building I'm getting that influence and then I'm ensuring that my teams are also doing that and we're able to constantly demonstrate value which gets hard when we're a company the size that we are because you can't please everybody but then I can at least also be having those conversations which are hey you know you're not doing we're not giving you this this time round but we will look at planning you know in the future or maybe we want to think about our work around so just keeping those connections open and that communication open but also making it wider than just my my executive team you know I love learning more about the business and who's in the business and those key roles and those people as well now you mentioned the coveted word earlier and it has changed you know a lot about how we work but it has also brought technology into shark Focus for a lot of organizations and of course tourism was one of the industries really badly hit by the pandemic so how do you think the role of the CIO has changed since you know we were all locked down and until to go home foreign I think there's a lot more pressure on us to trust because we don't see the people as much as we you know once would have and you know I can even say that within my own teams we have a policy where um it's two days in the office and three days from home so you're no longer in the position where you're seeing them on a regular basis five days a week understanding you know how the effort is so there's this massive trust expectation on us to go Yep they're at home and they're still doing a great job and and turning things out and I think that's you know that's a big shift it's actually a really big shift because you know physically seeing something versus kind of going oh yeah I can imagine that's going on a vastly different so you know I personally have seen a lot of change in me and going yep okay great they're doing what they've got to do and if I'm seeing the output I'm happy I think that's one thing and then the other part is you know and I touched on it before is well-being is huge it's absolutely huge because it's no longer nine to five and it's actually okay not to be nine to five but then that does have impacts on people's lives and their well-being because obviously they're at home and so there's a lot of other things going on so being aware of that and being able to respond and have those support mechanisms in place as well so it's quite interesting I kind of feel as a CTO it's not so much about hey we've got the right tools and you've got learning opportunities it's like actually I'm looking after you in a how's your health and are you taking time out so a lot more of that softer side and that empathy coming out um is more more important or just as important this day and age with the pandemic and it'll be interesting to see if it changes with companies with people swinging back into the office more um watching that space that's for sure yeah yeah it's changing all the time isn't that so just expanding a bit further on that and you know you mentioned that empathy piece and really you know caring for your team are there any other kind of key attributes that you think are you know really key for a successful modern day CIO or CTO when it comes to leadership I think it's probably any sort of leader not necessarily just the cios and cpos is that self-awareness you know it's constantly being as authentic as you can you know you want to drive a passion you want to drive an excitement you want to remain positive at the end of the day I'm also working from home and I don't get you know the teams don't get to see me on certain days you know there's a lot going on in everyone's world it's kind of like actually everyone's well you know at times people can be a lot more stressed there's a lot more deadlines all happening at once so for me it's just making sure that I still remain aware even though I'm physically removed I'm still aware that you know that may be going on so it's really important they I stay close to my leadership team and that they're keeping me in the loop and they're feeling comfortable and con you know confident that they can speak to me about that I think the other thing is you know around promoting that inclusion so again physically not seeing them but when opportunities come up don't forget them and continue to promote inclusion with any new initiatives that may come my way I mean in my job in particular there's always change there's always new initiatives um Coming there's a lot of unplanned work so um you know remembering that I've got a wider team I've got teams not only just based in New Zealand they're around the globe so making sure that inclusion is consistent and making sure I'm timing those catch-ups you know where it's obviously going to be you know as much as possible suitable for everybody to dial in so yeah I think it's definitely around that self-awareness promoting that inclusion and maintaining that passion are really key attributes of a modern day CIO and like I said any leader actually yeah absolutely and look you've touched on some of this already but you know when it comes to that internal culture what kind of things are you doing you know to help people feel like they really belong at THL and you know that they are achieving those personal and professional goals no matter what their role is so this year I um purposely put in budgets for training so we have um you know with with the pandemic obviously a lot of it was was cost cutting but there's just so many advancements in technology and also in regards to my teams I want them to cross learn and under and have opportunities to learn maybe other areas that they would consider moving into um you know one of the things the pandemic did was we lost a lot of our staff and as a consequence of that everyone's replaced now but I'm like okay I want to make sure that you're feeling that you're getting growth and you're getting opportunities and that doesn't always just mean you're going to be a junior developer an intermediate intermediate developer a senior developer it's like you might want to go into data and insights you might want to look at architecture you might want to look at project management you know the roles are extremely wide so I've provided the training opportunities as someone in my position I get invited to a lot of seminars and opportunities you know in the last year there's been heaps so if these tickets I'll always say does anyone in the team want to go here's a good opportunity to get out and meet some new people hear from different perspectives and then with the restructure so after covert when we lost a lot of our team and when we built them up it gave me the opportunity to have more of a even spread of capability so we were very top heavy very top heavy and there's not a lot of room for everyone to go you know you can't all be CIO so it gave me a great opportunity to bring in you know grads and juniors and intermediates so we've got a really balanced team now of capability which is great because you're all learning from each other there's different perspectives and that's been super helpful for for their personal growth from kpi point of view we always make sure we have your personal growth opportunities as well as the business driven ones as well so you know a massive focus on that and as an organization you know it's a really important important part for us so not only just in technology but for all roles throughout throughout DHL so I get a lot of that support from the rest of my executive team and obviously those those initiatives that they run now Joe you're one of very few female ctOS and cios that um I've had the opportunity to to speak with and you know I really enjoy listening to the perspective of women in senior leadership team in senior leadership roles sorry so can you tell us a bit more about what attracted you to technology and what kind of practical things do you think can be done to attract more women and people from other diverse backgrounds you know whether it be neurodiversity or you know different ethnicities how do we get a better reflection of the New Zealand that we live in in roles in it great question um my career funnily enough started when I moved into a flat in the UK and it was full of databased analysts and accountants and my mum was an accountant so I'm like no I definitely don't want to go down that route I've seen what she does so um they encouraged me to take my skills and so I had been working in marketing before I left New Zealand and part of marketing is a lot of people will know is that constant change and so I would be testing all the systems to make sure that all the changes had gone through onto the systems and and I'd be signing them off so unbeknown to me they're like well that's what a tester does so my career started by moving into this flat and then then you know recognizing that actually I've had some experience with testing writing a CV and you know away I went um being in the UK at the time of Y2K also helped because there was just jobs everywhere um you know you recall it was just Panic stations all around the world so I was very fortunate and the first job that I got was testing and then it kind of evolved from that to an I.T help desk and then it went from that to business analyst and came back to New Zealand and studied and did development and networking and web design and and pretty much tried every role that I possibly could along the way um and so and I loved it and when I was at University there was only me and one other female and a lot of my IT classes and I remember at the time loving that fact oh this is great you know I'm different and but I absolutely enjoy it and I think I learned it is not always coding you know the one thing that university did for me and all that all that job experience was there's just so many different jobs and it's funny because even this day and age you know I'll talk to my friends and they say I'll say that on an I.T and they just think oh you do everything no I don't do everything most of them think I can fix the Broadband but it's like no I don't do everything um I've tried a lot of things but it doesn't mean I'm good at them and I think this is the key and I think the key when I think about my daughters who are at school is school it's absolutely got to start at school and as and I mean primary school and I don't mean High School I mean primary school because technology is absolutely necessary and it's not hard it's got a lot easier and there's a lot more variety and opportunities for children with different capabilities strengths and personalities and I don't think they know that enough and there's still this fear that oh you've got to be an absolute Wizard or this you know the smartest person in the world and that's the only way that you can get into it and don't get me wrong there's lots of smart people and wizards but actually there's lots of creative and Arty people and just people that love to deliver or people that just are curious that also would do well in I.T and so I truly believe if the school curriculum made it as normal as possible and educated us or the children more on the opportunities we would not lose a lot of the opportunities that we don't get through through New Zealand because you know by the time you get to high school you might get the token class that you can attend otherwise you're really reliant on having money to go to a university or a Polytech to learn the skill which is a shame and not everyone can afford that so I truly believe if schools in the early years put more emphasis on the curriculum and made it as normal as possible we'd have a lot better chance of improving that diversity and having you know greater sense of even females or whatever you are you know in it but without that I still believe it's it's deemed too hard you need to be super super intelligent when the reality is no you just need to have a passion for it and an interest and here's all the opportunities does any of this you know look attractive in one way or another you know my daughter I've got a daughter who's year 12 and she's got a fabulous opportunity to come and have some cyber security experience for term two as part of a work experience program and her teacher said to her oh I didn't think that would be your thing and my response was based on what you know so there's still a lot of that faculty out there and it's really disappointing because I absolutely absolutely love working in it I you know like you said it's been 20 plus years we'll just call it there and you know the variety and the diversity of the people that I get to meet you know the just the general passion and abilities and capabilities it's it's it's a fantastic environment and you know like I said I've been very fortunate to work in many many different roles and it's been fantastic and I wish everybody else got to see that and and and not turn a blind eye you know prematurely because they just haven't really been given the opportunity or the guidance about you know from people around them to take it to that next level absolutely yeah gosh what disappointing uh feedback from from your children's teacher um hopefully we can change that so you know for for people who are already in I.T and you know do aspire to be a CIO or a CTO what advice would you give them
thank you time um you know a lot of the grads and a lot of the new entrants into it all want to be a CIO and I'm like I get that completely great you know you're driven but look around like get to know where it exists um you know in like I mentioned earlier my team I've got Data Insights architecture digital delivery I've got Enterprise I've already said Enterprise architecture I've got so many opportunities business analysts project managers take your time and try the other areas you know get a rounded holistic View and experience in it don't just focus on that one area because it's fascinating you know cyber security no one thought they'd want a job in that you know 10 12 years ago can't get into it fast enough it's just amazing how it's also growing and enhancing and so for me the advice would be don't go on a straight line don't have a career in a straight line where you think it's just straight to the CIO try and explore and experience would be my my advice great advice and so you know you've you've had quite a busy time with the merger and you know we're facing some some pretty hefty economic headwinds this year so can you tell us what's important to you in the months ahead yeah so um with the merger so with the Apollo teams we've brought them in we've all combined as one company bringing systems together as one which is keeping us all very busy and new transformation opportunities so for me it's really going to be learning how two companies operate better as one and how those ways of working can improve so I'm a massive believer of continually improving the way that we operate within my own teams so as I mentioned with all of those different roles it's kind of like it can get noisy and complex and who's doing what so I'm going to be focusing on the teams and how we can improve and you know provide a lot more to obviously the bigger company that we have now and and globally reaching um as one company and I'm quite excited so we've got a lot of planning that's about to kick off and deciding what our strategy is going to be from a technology point of view for the new Financial year and then what those priorities are also going to be so AI is definitely on near automation but um you know just able to nail that down and learn a lot more about the new team that have that's joined us and yeah keep us busy and no doubt the 12 months will fly by absolutely and hopefully you'll have time for an old campervan trip along the way definitely your health and chief technology officer at tourism Holdings Limited thank you so much for your time today thanks Kathy
2023-05-01 04:33
