Kristie Grinnell
SVP & CIO
DXC Technology Company
Kristie Grinnell is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at DXC Technology and a Governing Body Member of the Global CIO Community.
Kristie is an award-winning senior transformation executive with over 25 years of experience driving change in public and privately held professional services companies. Her career reflects a demonstrated track record in leading successful large-scale IT, supply chain, and managed shared service transformation impacting front line revenue, back-office earnings, and cash. She has driven strategic differentiation in cyber risk, IT operations, supply chain and M&A activity in both domestic and global roles. As a steadfast leader in crisis, she has demonstrated calm, focused direction during the COVID pandemic and Ukraine/Russia war. She also brings an inspirational energy and passion for diversity and inclusion to every organization.
A fun fact about Kristie, she has played Monopoly with real $$$.
Learn more about the Global CIO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
CIO roles did not even exist when I graduated from undergrad and grad school. Leveraging mentors to help me hone where I excel and where I needed to improve helped me to be open to new opportunities that were presented to me. Moving laterally, moving up, putting myself in the uncomfortable position of taking on a role I didn't really know much about – and didn't necessarily know if I was capable, I was always willing to try and it eventually landed me in my role as CIO of a fortune 250 company.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Listen! You are never the smartest person in the room.
I try to surround myself with diverse teams and groups so I can learn from them. By listening more than talking, I can learn from their experiences to be the best leader and move my team in the right direction.
What is the greatest challenge CIOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
Managing the pace of new technology (skills on the team, gaining value from the tech) while keeping the old running (technical debt and resources) while balancing the need to solve real business problems. This is what makes being a CIO so much fun! It is a constant balancing act (priorities, people, business investment) and doing what you believe is right for your business (grow, grow, grow!)
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CIO?
Always look to solve business problems, not technology solutions, for technology sake.
How do you measure success as a leader?
My team's success!
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