In this Acceleration Economy Digital CIO Summit Moment, excerpted from the “Modernizing With Cloud ERP” session on Day 2 hosted by Aaron Back, SAXX CEO Wendy Bennison explains why IT leaders — in this case, fellow speaker SAXX Senior Director of Information Systems Christine Livingstone — need a seat at the executive table to make digital transformation and growth more seamless and successful.
Highlights
00:05 — Wendy says that what’s most important when you’re trying to scale a business is to make sure that you fill your executive chairs with not only the right skill sets but the right humans inside of those chairs.
00:17 — When the men’s underwear manufacturer hit a certain point, they needed to put a more senior person in the head of IT role, which ensures that anyone in the role — in this case, Christine — has a seat at the C-suite table.
00:50 — Because if she’s not at the table learning and asking questions about the business — what it is today and what it’s trying to be, across all functions of the organization — and deeply understanding it, then she’s not going to be as enabled to bring SAXX to technology solutions to be able to make the modernization journey more efficient along the way.
01:06 — This setup recognizes the importance of technology as a critical element of the business. It’s also critical to ensure that Christine has the support and backup she needs, both with the executive team and the board to ensure “across-the-finish-line approval for investments that we know we need to make,” Wendy says.
