Three top information technology experts – all Olin alumni – recently hosted more than 30 CEOs and CFOs at the Knight Center to discuss the future of IT and break down some of its mysteries for non-tech executives.
The expert alumni-in-residence for the day included:
- Joe Blomker, EMBA’90, CEO & President, Maryville Technologies
- Jerry Kent, BSBA’78 & MBA 1979, Chairman & CEO, TierPoint
- Don Imholz, MS IT’79 & EMBA’91, retired EVP & CIO, Centene Corporation; currently leading Don Imholz and Associates
All three alumni shared their insights on how to prepare for the future.
“Technology legacy is sunk costs,” according to Blomker. “Legacy is currently consuming approximately 70% of IT resources to maintain functionality vs. investing in innovation and the future.”
Imholz remarked that organizations today need to be more flexible and ready to adapt to the changing landscape of both the future of IT in their organization as well as the talent that is providing the support for the newer technologies.
Afterward, John Herber, Chairman, Rubin Brown, who was in attendance, said it was great to get this group together to engage in this kind of dialogue. It is so important, he said, that we think about costs and its impact related to IT needs in the future.
This was the first in a series of conversations that Blomker, Kent, and Imholz plan to hold with executives interested in the role of information technology in business today.
