Atolio Conversations

Gareth Watts (Atolio CTO) interviews Jon Mort (CTO at The Adaptavist Group) about his career, the future of tech, and their partnership with Atolio.Curiosity & breaking things (01:00)Is the internet moving towards or away from standardization? (15:45)Tough lessons from a failed startup (18:35)How The Adaptavist Group is building better businesses (22:12)Growing from 12 employees to over 1,000 (28:13)Moving from engineering to managing (31:17)The future of AI and LLM's in engineering (34:42)Why The Adaptavist Group partners with Atolio (38:15)The importance of connecting collaborators (41:45)What's next for The Adaptavist Group? (44:48)

Andrea Gallego (Global CTO at BCG GAMMA) has taken her career from large financial institutions, to rapidly growing NGOs, and ultimately to this intersection of consulting and tech. Listen in to hear her thoughts on the value of mentorships between women, how she became interested in startup culture, possible new ways to leverage information at consulting groups, and more.Mentoring other women & the role of male allies (1:07)Seeing where ideas are born (7:10)Why startup culture encourages innovation (11:04)Green computing (14:02)Unlocking data at consulting firms (16:56)Innovation in the consulting industry (23:27)

Paolo Negri, Co-founder & CTO at Contentful, walks us through his early career at startups across Europe, how he built a company solving a problem he faced at those very startups, why he encourages a culture based on experimentation at Contentful, and much more.Working across industries & countries (0:54)Lessons from working at startups (12:40)Why he encourages experimentation (15:31)Managing knowledge while scaling up (18:16)A better way to frame your experiences (29:57)

Aaron Rankin, Co-founder and CTO at Sprout Social, shares an open and honest reflection on how growing up in humble circumstances shaped him into the person he is today.Growing up & struggles with money (1:41)How Aaron's childhood informs his parenting (9:26)First jobs & early drive to hustle (13:18)Falling in love with computers (16:35)Some influential professional figures (25:34)Changes in how he tells his own story (29:36)Finding intrinsic motivation as CTO (45:33)Becoming an investor (54:53)

Zane Lackey is a Co-founder and the Chief Security Officer at Signal Sciences, a web-application security company acquired by Fastly. Zane shares what his career has taught him about security, founding teams, and what the future holds for digital transformations. The time Zane was hacked in 30 seconds (1:07)Moving from @Etsy to founding Signal Sciences (5:57)What to look for in founding teams (8:50)Biggest lessons learned from co-founding (10:28)Zane's advice on learning from others (18:37)

Chris Pesola is CIO at Plex Systems, a Rockwell Automation company. Chris talks with us about the ways his diverse career informs how and why he loves to mentor people. Topics include:Change, risk, and leaving your comfort zone (1:33)Learning from mentoring (23:40)How to listen and give perspective (32:50)Chris' first mentor (40:50)

Innovation has been a central focus in Shivani Govil's career, including during her time at Silicon Valley Startups, SAP, and in her current role as Chief Product Officer at CCC Intelligent Solutions, a modern insurance solutions company. We dove into how she thinks innovation works at different scales, business units, industries, and more. Shivani's background (1:18)How do you choose which startups to partner with? (3:28)How has your idea of innovation changed? (7:10)Innovating at different scales (11:05)Competing for experiences (17:30)Which new tech is the most exciting? (18:14)Fostering a culture of innovation (21:26)

Atolio's co-founder Mark Matta interviews Greg Tacchetti, CIO at State Auto Insurance. Greg shares his story, what he learned from his previous experience as a co-founder, which tech he's most excited about these days, and more. Topics include: Greg's early career and co-founding AssureStart (1:40)Advice from Ali Tarhouni (18:10)Working with serial entrepreneurs (22:50)Insurance innovation (28:35)Advice to other CIO's (45:09)

It's hard to know what to prioritize at a startup. Alex Solomon (CTO & Co-founder at PagerDuty) joins us to talk about the early days at PD and some critical decisions about transparency, documentation, employee experience, and more.The story behind PagerDuty (1:15)Launching product before feeling ready (8:00)Employee experience in the early days (13:07)Dutonium: building PD's internal directory (15:48)Transparency and being “open by default” (23:15)SaaS Sprawl (24:37)Alex's advice to founders (26:44)The future of PD (30:45)

Gainsight is building innovative customer-centric technology, so we sat down with their CIO, Karl Mosgofian, to hear about how he understands and supports the internal customer. Topics include: CX & EX (0:55) Getting the most out of a survey (4:37) When to consolidate around a tool (10:42) Advice for improving employee experience (15:13)

What are the parallels between ceramics and IT system architecture? Andrew Sopko, Head of IT at Twitter, shares his experience translating the artistic process into IT. Andrew's art (0:40) Translating the creative process to IT (3:10) Adding value in business partnerships (7:00) Why IT departments need to be empathetic (12:45) Hiring the right people (14:29)

Fortune 500 CIO Steve Zerby talks with us about the “culture of urgency” he's helping foster at Owens Corning and how it relates to ego, transparency, service, and more. A common mistake in technology leadership (1:07) What is OC's “culture of urgency?” (3:31) Urgency vs. Panic (8:40) Building a low-ego / no-ego organization (10:20) Having a “flattened” hierarchy: challenges and benefits (19:46) The necessity for skill (23:12)

Brad Pollard (Tenable CIO) thrived in the punk-rock atmosphere of startups. Check out the full interview to hear some of the highlights (and struggles) from his exciting career. Topics: Punk rock & startups (1:06) Innovation vs. Shadow IT (6:41) The time Brad was the source of a DNS attack (9:46) Advice from Tom Ashoff (11:09) Interviewing with Martin Roesch (13:23) Startup culture: 90's vs. now (15:46) Advice from Larry Abernathy & John Burris (20:51)

Jim Chilton (Cengage CIO, former Dassault Systemes CIO) shares stories about going from night-school student to five-time CIO, updating a 150 year-old data model, what technologies he thinks need to exist, and more. Jim's personal investment in non-traditional learning (0:55) Apprenti and the value of mentorship (2:27) How many is too many vendors? (11:07) To rationalize, or not to rationalize? (14:00) Updating a 150 year old data model (21:22) What goes into a strong founding team? (24:02) What's the most needed technology? (26:18)

While talking about leadership and startups, Dan Krantz and I also manage to talk about nuclear launch codes, 6G, and much more. Topics include: From Los Alamos National Laboratory to HP (0:51) Lessons from serving as CISO (4:21) Generating leads with IT (8:58) Why CISO’s should “stay in the pack” (13:06) Changes Keysight made to better work with startups (15:34) What comes after being CIO? (20:35)

Andrew Campbell, CIO at Terex, talks with us about a number of topics, including Terex’s concept of “purposeful innovation,” the drawbacks to single-vendor environments, his reasons for being a servant leader, and more. Topics include: Working in IT at Xerox & GE (1:00) "Your job is everyone's hobby" (2:17) The drawbacks of single vendor environments (6:50) Terex's Innovation Council (9:17) Servant leadership (12:25) Hunter Muller & HMG Strategy (15:57) Advice from John Repko (17:50) What drives you? (18:39)

Julie Cullivan (Board Director at Axon, HeartFlow, and AaDya) joins us to share how she handled leading both technology & people at Forescout, why she took the leap to become a first-time CIO at FireEye, what she learned from her go-to-market roles at McAfee & Autodesk, and more. Topics: Transitioning to CIO (1:12) What could CIO’s learn from Sales? (3:10) Lessons from being CTPO at Forescout (4:56) Working with startups and Cobalt.io (8:29)

Ramin Beheshti is the Chief Product & Technology Officer at Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, and more. He talks leadership lessons, the value of curiosity, his approach to working with startups, and more. From CIO to CPTO (1:32) Lessons from Paul Cheesbrough (2:35) How can leaders shape their company’s culture? (4:38) Connecting with audiences (7:30) The value of curiosity (11:19) Ramin’s work with Dropbox, Slack, and New Relic (12:30) Your customer’s wants vs. needs (15:00)

Our first guest is Yousuf Khan, who discusses what he learned on his journey from “accidental CIO” at companies like Automation Anywhere, Moveworks, and Pure Storage to “unconventional VC” at Ridge Ventures. Going from CIO to VC (2:22) Would you have hired your younger self? (4:03) The value of candid conversations (7:10) Good vs. Bad relationships with startups (9:10) Working with companies like Slack, Smartsheet, & Oomnitza (12:17) How do you decide which startups to bet on? (14:33) Mentions: Brendan Baker, Alex Rosen, Arthur Lozinski

Welcome to Atolio's new podcast, featuring conversations world-class IT executives.