Computerworld - February 27, 2012

CIo, u. S. department of
Commerce, washington
Gina
Tomlinson
Cto, City and County of
San Francisco
A recent
great deal
from a
vendor:
Your relationship with a
key business leader:
An example
of your
personal
leadership
style: I tend
to flourish
when my back is against
the wall. Negotiations to
implement email in the cloud
required a dogged determina-
tion to not give in to the over-
whelming pressure for the
culture to remain “as is.” I was
committed to uplifting the
technical footprint in the city.

Tim Theriault
Senior vice president
and CIo, walgreen,
deerfield, Ill.
Dan Traynor
A quICK FIx AddS loNG-term FuNCtIoNAlIt Y
Senior vice president, North
America pharmaceuticals,
It, GlaxoSmithKline,
philadelphia
the char-
acteristic
that’s most
important
to you in
an It hire:

How do
current It
projects
reflect your
Ceo’s top
priorities?
OverhaulinG an i T infrastructure is never easy, but winning over i T staff and business units with an am- bitious plan can be nearly impossible. Dan Traynor, 55, is accomplishing both of those feats as CIO at the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville, Tenn. When business units clamored for new systems, he posed questions like these to leaders: Does it make sense
to spend money on something that might be useful for only a year or
two? Or would it be better to solve a problem for the long term and in
the process get something that provides more functionality?
“Getting people to be rational about that is always a risky proposi-
tion,” Traynor explains. “It’s trying to get beyond the emotion of the
moment and think clearly.” Ultimately, he persuaded business lead-
ers to put some projects on hold and devised solutions for the most
critical problems. TVA officials approved the plan, along with a 10%
increase in IT staffing and a 40% increase in funding.
Russ Steward, vice president of supply chain, describes Traynor as
reflective, engaging and unrelenting. “Dan brought in an enterprise
view to get us all looking at it from a bigger lens,” Steward says. “The
biggest risk now is keeping up the energy that people feel. Some of
that comes from better communication and optimism that we have
a plan and people ‘get it.’ But a lot of it is also that TVA believes that
a healthy, high-performing IT organization is a requirement for us to
achieve our overall business objectives. That sells pretty well.” u