Facebook’s Tim Campos on the next generation CIO

He says there will be far more information captured and produced than has ever been possible in human history. “All that information is a gold mine of potential for companies to build products and services that are going to have a tremendous amount of value to the bottom line,” says Campos, who is in Auckland this week as a keynote speaker at the CIO Summit which starts today.

He says the one role in the organisation that knows how to take advantage of that data is the CIO, the head of ICT. “There is going to be a resurgence of business oriented technology leaders in the CIO role because of these trends,” says Campos, in an interview with CIO New Zealand on the eve of the conference.

As to how CIOs can prepare for this world of analytics, he advises “learning about what it is, understanding the role of data and how does that apply in their own [organisation’s] context.

“See what other companies are doing and then take those learnings and apply them into their own context,” says Campos.

He relates how two years ago, he met the CIO of a ski resort in a conference. The CIO told him how the resort uses RFID tags embedded into ski passes and how it uses the information gathered to tailor its services. “It was an awesome example of not only innovation, [but also] big data how you use that information to drive more value for the ski resort and the customers,” says Campos.

“There is so much to learn by looking at what other companies are doing, what other industries are doing,” says Campos. “Even if it is not exactly relevant to you, it gives you ideas."

He says the opportunity to share insights with a range of CIOs from other companies in another part of the world is one of the reasons he is speaking at the conference. “New Zealand is an interesting place in the world because it is somewhat isolated, not totally isolated, but it is a very modern, developed nation and trades with countries across the world.

“I am really interested in how NZ approaches collaboration,” he says. “I am looking forward to meeting people and learning and seeing how things are different and contrast with my experience in the United States.”

A key message for his ICT colleagues? “Keep innovating,” he says. (Read related article: Facebook's CIO shares IT innovation successes and failures)

“This is what drives more value for our businesses every day; that we come up with new ways to solve existing problems or the problems that we don’t yet know about. Those are the best days of my job.”

Campos will also be joined by international keynote speakers IDC chief analyst Frank Gens, FX Alliance CIO Steve Rubinow, VMware CTO Paul Strong and Denise McDonagh, director of IT at the UK Home Office.
Now in its sixth year, the CIO Summit is the largest independent gathering of its kind in the Asia Pacific region, attended by more than 550 ICT professionals. It is organised by CIO New Zealand, analyst firm IDC and Conferenz.

Click here for the agenda of the CIO Summit.

The theme for this year’s CIO Summit is “The leadership imperative: Agility, Collaboration and Business Growth.”
The conference also includes the CIO Awards for three categories, CIO of the Year, Executive Team of the Year and Emerging ICT Leader of the Year.

The finalists are:
CIO of the Year
Allan Lightbourne, head of technology and innovation, Mercury Energy
Thomas Salmen, chief technology officer, Orcon
David Scott, head of business technology and transformation, Z Energy

Executive Team of the Year
Air New Zealand
Auckland Transport
Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation
healthAlliance

Emerging ICT Leader of the Year -
Paul Alexander, general manager, Lexel Project Services
Bruce Aylward, CEO, Psoda Ltd
Steven Pyne, chief information officer, Ministry of Science and Innovation
Peter Yates, IS infrastructure manager, Auckland Council

Divina Paredes (@divinap) is editor of CIO New Zealand.

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