The career journey of CIO Hall of Fame legend Adriana (Andi) Karaboutis spans multiple industries, geographies, and transformational moments. She honed her leadership and technical expertise at Ford and General Motors before moving to Dell, where she played a key role in shaping the company’s IT strategy during a pivotal time. At Biogen, she helped revolutionize the organization’s digital capabilities in the highly regulated biotech industry. She then took on the challenge of leading IT and digital transformation at National Grid, a $20 billion multinational power utility, where she drove strategic initiatives and innovation at the highest level.
Karaboutis continues to make her mark in a new chapter focused on corporate board service. She currently serves as a board director for four public companies.
On a recent episode of the Tech Whisperers podcast, Karaboutis reflected on her career journey and discussed some of the challenges she’s overcome, the groundbreaking initiatives she’s led, and the wisdom she’s gathered along the way. Afterward, we talked about the power of self-awareness, core skills every IT leader needs to master, and what it takes to be a successful CIO in the age of AI. What follows is that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Dan Roberts: You spent the first 21 years of your career in the automotive industry at a time when women were woefully underrepresented in leadership roles. What can you tell us about that time in your career and how it shaped the leader you’ve become?
Andi Karaboutis: Working in the auto industry was challenging, rewarding, and often tough but a fantastic learning ground for manufacturing, technology, and leadership. At that time, it was male-dominated, but I never found it unfair or rude. I always looked at people’s intentions both in words and actions. I remember going into a factory floor at one in the morning because I needed to test a program off shift. A maintenance person saw me working in low lights and said to me, ‘Sugar, what are you doing here? Don’t you know that there’s rats bigger than you down here?’ By today’s standards, ‘sugar’ probably wouldn’t be a term used, but his intentions and concern were genuine. I explained what I was doing and he proceeded to help. This was a regular experience working across the globe for both Ford and GM.
I learned that if you meet people where their intent is versus focusing on specific words, you win them over and work better together. Fortunately, the auto industry realized early on that diversity of thought, experiences, geography, ethnicity, etc., all contribute to high-performing teams and good results. The industry embraced diversity very early on.
My outlook at the time was to work hard and deliver on expectations. I focused less on what I wanted to do and more on what needed to be done. The rewards came in the form of opportunity, recognition, and promotions. I remember my first promotion. My father, a proud immigrant from Greece, asked me why they promoted me. At first, I thought he was being funny, but then I realized it was a great question. On reflection, I created my ‘recipe’ for promotion: Solve problems, deliver what’s needed, solicit help, and work fearlessly. When kids play, they don’t fear danger; they’re willing to try new things. Early in my career, I did the same. I ran toward the challenges, not away from them.
One of your leadership superpowers is your self-awareness. Can you talk about how you built this muscle and the importance of ‘knowing your core’ as a leader?
I knew that I developed through feedback and achieving positive results, and that staying focused and driving for results was a strength. So I indexed on that: How do I get to success? What did I do that drove results? Where did I have failures, where I either drove for results too hard or didn’t get the feedback and was, potentially, tone deaf on some things? Both are important and are part of self-awareness. It’s taking the parts where you did well and the parts that you didn’t, and then you internalize it.
There was a cartoon years ago that showed two people putting on their trousers, and the trousers were too tight. One of them said, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to go on a diet.’ The other said, ‘Who shrunk my trousers?’ I’m always the one that says, ‘I have to go on a diet.’ And that’s where those self-awareness questions come in. That’s why during the podcast I said feedback is so important, because all of a sudden, if I should have been wearing a skirt and not trousers, I wouldn’t have even known. Why didn’t you tell me? That happened to me in my career, and there were some tough lessons from that. You need feedback, and you need to listen to it. But you also need that self-awareness of, what am I doing for my trousers to be too tight?
I also realized — and this is important — that I wanted to win with people. My teams will tell you, I never went on stage alone. They were on stage with me, presenting to the rest of the organization. Because everybody in the audience wants to see their boss. They don’t want to just see me four or five levels up. They want to see their leader.
In a presentation you delivered to IT leaders in Greece recently, you talked about the core skills IT leaders need to be successful today: strategic communication, emotional intelligence, collaboration, visionary leadership, change management, and agility. Could you drill down into those?
All of them are important, but the two that really jump out for me right now are agility and strategic communication. Because good things will happen, and bad things will happen, agility means you are pivoting, and you need to be able to pivot, especially in this day and age, where technology is ubiquitous, and it’s changing by the day. Agility — to change strategies, to change course, to change approach — is so important, and that goes along with resilience.
In terms of strategic communication, people need to know where you’re going, why you’re going there, and how you’re going to get there. What happens is, people set strategic goals, but they forget to set the strategy to get there. I will give you a great example. Someone said to me at National Grid, ‘We need to improve customer satisfaction.’ I said, ‘Okay, what’s our strategy for doing that? Because you can take multiple paths.’ And they said, ‘We just need to get there; all paths are open.’ So I said, ‘Cool, let’s just give them electricity and gas for free, and we’re going to get 100% customer satisfaction.’
That’s not a strategy we’re willing to pursue, right? So once again, it’s providing clarity on, where are we going, what’s acceptable to get there, and what isn’t? What are the paths?
How did you approach strategic communications with those large, globally dispersed organizations you led? Can you highlight some effective techniques during times of tremendous change and transformation?
Make it simple. Detail the steps, connect to the why, and constantly stay connected. A good example is one we talked about in the podcast, the Monday Minute that I started doing at National Grid. No matter where I was, every Monday I would pick up my phone and do a one- or two-minute video about what happened the previous week — where we are, congratulating any key launches, things like that. In my six years at National Grid, even when I was on safari in Africa, I missed only one or two weeks of doing the Monday Minute.
The goal was to stay connected and let people know that I’m there, that there are layers and geographies that separate us from a day-to-day relationship, but I want you to know what’s going on. Authenticity, transparency, and connecting, they’re all things I crave, and therefore, I try to give it as well. It’s a commitment, but people look forward to it. When I was leaving, they made a compilation of ‘Andi’s Monday Minutes, from Africa to Antarctica.’
Marv Adams, an early mentor from your days at Ford, was curious what advice you have for younger people as you look back over your career, both in business and technology. What would you tell them not to do, and what would you tell them to invest in so they can get the experiences and skills necessary to successful leaders?
My advice for young people is, don’t develop a map for yourself that’s so rigid that you can’t embrace experiences that come along that could be interesting or could open your aperture for what could be a great road less traveled for you. Don’t limit yourself by saying, ‘I like this. I don’t like that. I want this experience. I don’t want that.’ Look at the wide aperture of what comes your way.
The second is to seek wisdom. I define wisdom as learning plus experiences. You can learn from a degree, from reading, observing, traveling, etc. But also find those people that have had experiences, ask questions, seek wisdom. The third thing is, embrace technology. Understand both the benefits and the risks. In this world there are more and more risks, but embrace the risks as well as the benefits.
And last, don’t be consumed with instant gratification. Delayed gratification is not a bad thing. It’s how you build resilience.
Justin Mennen, who worked for you at Dell, commented on the impact you had in elevating and modernizing the CIO role. He was interested in your perspective on how expectations for CIOs and CTOs have evolved over the years.
It’s never been more of a business role than it is today. The CIO role, historically, when it started back in the eighties and nineties, was around technology. The CIO role today is the application on steroids of technology and the blurring of lines between tech and business, because they’re becoming one and the same in every business. The role has become a transformation role, a digitalization role, a process transformation role. It’s no longer a pure technology role, just as business roles have morphed closer into needing to understand tech.
I don’t think there’s a widespread understanding yet that the AI evolution is going to make the human side of the equation — those skills you talked about earlier — even more important.
People are worried about the human part of roles getting replaced, but it’s going to morph. It’s going to change them. And it’s going to allow humans to have an opportunity to be more creative and more innovative, as insights from AI take over some of the more cost-savings and predictable roles. It’s the fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s going to allow us to do more. We still are at 4% unemployment because new jobs are getting invented.
I think having experience across industries, from automotive to tech to biotech to utilities and now serving on boards, has given me an advantage. You start seeing all these opportunities and similarities and differences. How will AI impact all these industries? What will it do? It helps you be a bigger thinker.
In terms of the expectations of CIOs, the role has evolved over time, but this is the biggest stair step in the evolution of what it is. [Former IBM CEO] Ginni Rometty, who wrote the book Good Power, said there’s no room for comfort and growth in the same space. You’re going to get uncomfortable with the AI. Figure it out, understand it, and let’s work hard to see how it’s going to impact us and what we can do.
For more insights from Karaboutis’ career journey and her CIO-to-the-boardroom playbook, tune in to the Tech Whisperers podcast.
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