CIO Job Moves During The Pandemic | AI And Quantum Tech | Twilio CIO Michelle Grover

Plus: Apple Becomes The First U.S. Public Company Worth More Than $2 Trillion

Hello, and welcome to this week’s newsletter.

I’d like to kick off with a question. What do Noelle Eder, global CIO of insurer Cigna, Susan Doniz, CIO and senior vice president of IT and data analytics at Boeing, Adrian Butler, CIO of Casey’s General Stores, and Mark Rohrwasser, CIO of Silicon Valley Bank, have in common apart from the fact they all hold the top tech role at their respective companies?

The answer is that the four executives are among the ranks of CIOs who have joined their new employers or are about to join them—Eder takes over her new role at Cigna next month—in the midst of the pandemic. Michelle Grover of cloud communications platform provider Twilio, who's the subject of this week’s CIO Profile, is also a fresh arrival. Plenty of other top IT executives have switched jobs since the global health crisis began and more will be on the move in the months ahead.

Turning a transition into a success requires significant preparation and management at the best of times; against the backdrop of Covid-19, it’s even more of a challenge. Teams are operating remotely, making it harder for CIOs to strike up personal relationships and to get a good sense of the informal networks that make organizations tick. Priorities change fast because of the uncertain outlook for businesses and most executives are under intense pressure to contain costs.

In his debut post for the Forbes CIO Network, contributor Tony Gerth argues these conditions make it all the more important for tech leaders changing roles to take several steps to ensure their transitions are a success. The willingness to pivot from a pre-agreed mandate is essential. Gerth cites the example of Gerry Mecca, who in February took over the CIO role at Datascan, which provides inventory-control solutions. Although Mecca’s incoming brief was to implement a wide-ranging digital transformation strategy, he quickly shifted to focusing on core areas to help the company weather the economic storm caused by Covid-19’s spread.

Gerth, who teaches university courses on IT leadership, also recommends incoming CIOs devote considerably more hours to coaching teams they inherit and sharing information with them than they would have done in a pre-pandemic world. Twilio’s Grover, for instance, has spent time helping employees work out how to be most productive while operating from their homes. If you’re a CIO who’s thinking of changing jobs or you’ve recently made the leap to a new role, be sure to check out Gerth’s post.

Thanks for reading and do please send me your tips, thoughts, questions and ideas for future issues at mgiles@forbes.com. You can also follow me on Twitter and on LinkedIn. And if you enjoy reading this newsletter please recommend it to others who may find it useful.

Technology & Innovation

Quantum computing: Amazon said its Braket quantum cloud service is now open for business; Microsoft is encouraging companies to run “quantum-inspired” algorithms on classical computers to get a better idea of how quantum machines can be helpful to organizations; and Intel hopes we’ll get some really useful quantum computers by the end of the decade.

Contactless tech: IT budgets are under pressure because of the pandemic, but a recent survey shows that tech leaders expect to boost spending in areas that can help support contactless experiences. These include 5G, AI and edge computing. Gartner’s 2020 Hype Cycle report shows “formative” AI, which dynamically adapts to changing situations, becoming more widespread.

Leadership & Strategy

Benchmarking: The use of benchmarking in business to help justify decisions and identify areas for operational improvement is widespread. But an industry specialist argues some benchmarks aren’t useful because they rely on old datasets, and recommendations for action based on them don’t take account of companies’ specific circumstances.

Managing quality: Here’s what Space X’s experience shows about the vital importance of delivering quality consistently. The lessons from the company, which just raised an additional $1.9 billion of funding, matter just as much for delivering small software projects as they do for delivering hyper-ambitious space ones.

Talent & Careers

Office work: WFH, for “work from home”, has become a widely recognized acronym thanks to the pandemic, but WFO—work from office—isn’t dead and buried. Amazon just announced plans to add 3,500 new technology and corporate jobs across the U.S. and to invest over $1.4 billion in tech hubs and offices to support its expansion.

Talent management: Dealing with a multigenerational workforce poses plenty of challenges for CIOs and other executives. Here are some useful tips for making the most of the richness of experiences, insights and skill sets offered by young and old alike.

"What you need is not just the IT version of a CIO. You need someone who’s a builder, who understands what engineers and customers need."

Michelle Grover

CIO Twilio

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