Early on in her profession, Kathleen Kay by no means pictured herself within the C-suite. She went to a public highschool in Detroit and initially began on a pre-med observe in her ungraduated research. However she found laptop science as a substitute. She began her profession at Basic Motors, the place a mentor acknowledged her potential. In the present day, she is government vice chairman and CIO of Principal Financial Group, an funding administration and insurance coverage firm.
In a dialog with InformationWeek, Kay traces her profession trajectory, sharing how she grew into CTO and CIO management roles at a number of firms.
The Path to the C-Suite
Kay has come a good distance since her highschool days. “It could by no means have occurred to me I might be ready like this,” she shares.
She wasn’t even positive if she was going to go to school, however a corporation that labored with youngsters at her highschool helped her acknowledge that chance. She bought a scholarship and initially determined to pursue a pre-med observe, solely to find she hated biology.
“In Detroit … we have been at all times searching for good, steady, well-paying careers. Laptop science was paying properly. So I believed, ‘I’ll take a pc science class and see if I prefer it,’” she shares. “And I ended up loving it.”
Like a lot of her friends in Detroit on the time, Kay bought her begin within the automotive business. Her first job was in a analysis laboratory at GM. She labored alongside numerous researchers in specialties like social sciences, anthropology, psychology, and operations science. The function afforded her an excessive amount of flexibility to discover her pursuits, and there she was drawn to studying methods.
Kay then labored with Chevrolet division of the corporate, the place she caught the attention of an inner management program that chosen high-potential workers.
“For me, simply getting by means of school and into an organization like Basic Motors was the dream,” Kay remembers. “I turned part of that group and that is after I began realizing I might be in management positions, that I may do greater issues.”
GM employed Ralph Szygenda, its first CIO, within the Nineties.
“That is after I thought, ‘Wow, I might like to be in a job like that,’ as a result of it is a mixture of getting to grasp enterprise in addition to know-how. And it was what I actually favored doing,” says Kay.
Management in Completely different Industries
Kay labored with Maryann Goebel, who was the CIO at GM North America between 2003 and 2006. And Goebel turned a lifetime mentor and the primary particular person to suggest Kay for roles exterior of GM.
Kay’s first function exterior of GM and the automotive business was as senior vice chairman and CTO at Comerica Financial institution. The subsequent steppingstone in her profession was as enterprise CTO at SunTrust Financial institution. From there, she moved to Pacific Gasoline and Electrical Firm, the place she labored her means as much as senior vice chairman and CIO.
In every successive function, Kay’s duties grew and broadened. As her profession unfolded, she discovered learn how to be a very good technologist and enterprise chief.
“I believe [for] many people, and I did it early in my profession, we get enamored with a know-how after which attempt to hunt for a spot to place it,” says Kay. “What would typically occur is you’d have this mismatch of know-how that would not actually remedy the enterprise drawback at hand.”
In every of her completely different roles, Kay discovered that she wanted the power to empower individuals and take away blockers with know-how, however she wanted a eager understanding of the enterprise and its particular business to perform that. “Being a very good technologist is de facto understanding the enterprise drawback at hand,” she explains.
The CIO Position at Principal Monetary Group
Principal Monetary Group approached Kay throughout its hunt for a brand new CIO.
“This firm on the time … had acknowledged that what bought them right here to 140 years wasn’t going to be what will get them to a different 140 years. So, having this humility to acknowledge that and willingness to handle it and pivot was actually interesting to me,” Kay shares.
She accepted the job and began in Could 2020, just some months into the worldwide COVID pandemic. Kay aspires to be an accessible chief, a administration model challenged by a 100% distant workforce. Stopping by somebody’s desk or leaving her door open wasn’t an choice. Even casual conferences would have to be scheduled by way of a digital assembly platform.
She began internet hosting a weekly, open digital assembly, Espresso with Kathy, as an experiment. Anyone in her group may be part of for an unstructured dialog about work or the rest taking place within the wider world. That assembly drew a whole bunch of members, and it has outlived the pandemic. In the present day, it’s a month-to-month assembly that is still digital so staff members working remotely and in different workplaces can nonetheless be part of.
“It is actually damaged down limitations. I’ve so many individuals on my staff who say, ‘I might have by no means thought I might be speaking immediately with the CIO of an organization. I by no means thought I might really feel comfy sending a message or getting time on the calendar,’” says Kay.
In the present day, this assembly is one amongst many in Kay’s busy schedule.
“Within the CIO function, I’m entrance and middle dealing with off with my enterprise colleagues actually understanding technique, serving to outline it, difficult methods of doing issues,” she says.
On any given day, she might be having monetary discussions, checking on the progress of various initiatives, and spending time mentoring individuals on her staff.
Kay notes her delight in how well-aligned know-how and technique have change into at Principal Monetary Group. When she first began, every of the corporate’s traces of enterprise had a technique and associated know-how plans. However there have been lots of shared applied sciences that weren’t essentially coordinated throughout these completely different traces of enterprise.
Kay and her staff took a step again to search for methods to combine know-how into methods throughout the whole enterprise. “Consequently, there are capabilities that we’re delivering way more shortly and iteratively than we may up to now due to how we have designed this. So, we have constructed issues which have actually improved the client expertise,” Kay explains.
Over the course of her profession, Kay has discovered that know-how management can transcend business traces.
“Being a technologist provides you a chance to actually go throughout completely different industries,” says Kay. “I’ve had that luxurious. You will typically discover that what you discovered in a single business might be leveraged in one other business. And then you definately study even new issues. You convey new concepts, and I believe having this background and the power to maneuver to completely different industries has been tremendous gratifying.”