Matt Hough
VP & CIO
Cintas
As chief information officer, Matt Hough is charged with the creation and delivery of strategic IT initiatives that align with Cintas, Institutional culture and long-term goals. His career spans almost 30 years of various industry experience implementing SAP ERP for global companies and running large IT organizations.
When Matt is not working, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters, as well as bicycle racing and working on Porsches.
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I had the fortune to work through many job roles starting with development, to program management, strategic planning, and to management in a wide variety of industries that operated globally.
As I continued to gain more experience through the years, success was founded on IT's ability to align with our business partners to differentiate the company from our competitors. Taking that knowledge and creating an organization that has a single purpose built on communication and collaboration created a path to the CIO role.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
One of my guiding leadership principles is communication and collaboration. IT leaders should effectively communicate with stakeholders and foster a collaborative environment within the IT teams.
What is the greatest challenge CIOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
The speed and pace of new capabilities -- like Gen AI -- is a challenge CIOs are facing today. Understanding the use cases, aligning the infrastructure to support and balancing the risk to deploy are additional challenges.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CIO?
Listening to your stakeholders and understanding their needs while aligning your organization to meet the needs of not only today, but tomorrow, is the key to success.
How do you measure success as a leader?
I measure success by the capabilities and competencies my organization has demonstrated to help reach our business objectives.
What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?
The value of being a member of the Evanta community is access to their peer-to-peer connections. The exchange of information and experiences are invaluable. Evanta also provides a wealth of expert insights, as well as valuable local networking.
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