Campbell Soup’s CTO Julia Anderson on upskilling talent

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Maryfran Johnson 0:06
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to CIO leadership live. I'm your host for today's episode. I'm Maryfran Johnson, CEO of Maryfran Johnson Media. We're streaming live to you right now on LinkedIn and on CIOs YouTube channel. And we welcome any of our viewers who have tuned in today and have questions of your own to type them right into the chat window and we'll do our best to pass them along to my guests. Today's episode is sponsored by top desk, which is a leading provider of IT service management software. It is flexible, affordable service desk software that's designed to grow with its customers and in their, their approach in life is to help you simplify, scale and integrate multiple departments in one place. So now on to today's episode, I'm really pleased to have a special doubleheader program of sorts. I'm here with Julia Anderson, who is the Chief Technology and Information Officer for Campbell's Soup Company, and also joined by Kristin Lamoreaux, who is the CEO of Lamoreaux search and the founder of the SIM women networking group. I'll give you a little bit of bio on both of them, and then we will dive into all of our questions for today. Julia joined Campbell's in January of 2022. And she was taking on her latest very high profile role in an IT leadership career that has spanned several iconic global brands. She has been CIO at smithfield foods. She's worked at PepsiCo, J. H, Heinz and Kraft Foods. Her impressive history of success in technology and business transformations, has been honored with multiple awards throughout her career. I know we've been privileged at CIO to have her on stage a couple of times ourselves. And she has a wonderful reputation as well for being a real champion for diverse teams of leaders and in introducing diversity into the cultures where she has worked. Julia's enterprise wide responsibilities at Campbell's today run the gamut from digital workplace services, IT platforms and architecture to cybersecurity oversight, business analytics, and transformation projects and programs. In fact, if if there's one word that describes what Julia always seems to be doing as a CIO, its transformation. Now Kristen, Kristen Lamoreaux leads a national it recruitment firm that strongly echoes her long held personal and professional beliefs that every organization benefits from having more diverse and inclusive leadership teams. She is the founder of the SIM women networking organization, which she started 16 years ago. And she's grown that from a handful of pioneering women leaders in tech to a thriving program inside of the Society of information management. Sim women today has more than 1100 Female CIOs and their direct reports as members, and they are now in 38 chapters across the US. Christians talents as a writer have also been on display. They were featured regularly in CIO magazine some years ago when she wrote the hiring manager columns, and I had the pleasure of being her editor for a while there. And more recently, her thought leadership has been on display as a speaker at national industry conferences. In fact, that is the idea for today's show, started out last month at a panel session that I moderated at Kristen's big national event, which is the sim women National Summit, which was held in Chicago, I was lucky enough to have Julia Anderson on my panel at that event, where we talked about, among other things, how to keep talent development, alive and thriving, and well in a very challenging and increasingly not quite post pandemic economy. Today, we're going to expand on those conversations in much greater depth with these two women leaders. They're going to share their ideas and their expertise on how to stay competitive in today's tech market, along with some innovative ways to rescale upskill. and retain all your best tech tech people once you have them. And no matter what your budget situation. Julia Kristen, welcome. So nice to have you both here today.
Kristen Lamoreaux 4:30
Thank you so much.
Maryfran Johnson 4:32
Okay, thank you. Let's launch right into some big picture perspectives on the tech talent market. And some of those practical training and development challenges that Julia is living through. And also Kristin is dealing with every day in her own executive search business. Kristin, I want you to start and talk about from a Talent Recruitment point of view. What kind of challenges are your clients facing in the market now? And is that anything that we haven't seen before?
Kristen Lamoreaux 5:05
There are almost too many challenges to cite them all, quite honestly, oh, no need a list. During the pandemic, we often heard unprecedented rise over and over and over again. Once again, we're in unprecedented times. Because while the phrases what's old is new, again, there's so much new occurring now that it's new and new, and new and new. So the challenge, probably the overarching one is the pace at which everything is shifting happening is so fast, that those organizations that are perhaps a bit more thoughtful, and we're going to devise an approach to navigate this market, you're already left behind. So the roller coaster of compensation has been an incredible challenge in recent years. And it was a candidate market. So salaries were meteoric, yeah, truly one of my favorite salary tools is Economic Research Institute. They used to update their salary numbers quarterly, they shifted to monthly because things were changing that fast. So the pace of change the compensation structures, the remote work, right, it is a blessing and a curse simultaneously for those organizations that can't bend, but either truly can't. Because of the nature of their work. Yeah, or chant because of their traditional culture. So while some may say, Oh, the pace of change has always been a challenge, and finding talent has always been a challenge comp has always been a challenge. Yeah. Welcome to today. This is truly unprecedented. Yeah, it makes for a fun day for me, though.
Maryfran Johnson 7:12
I'll bet I'll bet and I'm gonna make some fun day for you too, as well. Julia, you've been through this at several different businesses. As we mentioned, you know, town. I think in all the years I was an editor in chief at Computerworld, and then it CIO magazine, talent and all aspects of getting a hold of it and keeping it and keeping it happy and affording it. All of that was always in the top three. From what Kristin just had to say, Julia, what do you see it from? Is there anything different that you see from the CIO or the CTO CIOs perspective on that?
Julia Anderson 7:50
So I actually see it as I have a lot more options. So when I come into an organization, you know, I have the options like working with Kristin, to find really critical roles that I need to fill that that bring in specific talent. But I also now have, if you look at the overall ecosystem of the workforce, and you look at who we hire, and how we hire, who we partner with, and how we partner, I have options to bring in consultants, contractors, partners, and fill different roles. And in some cases, while I'm building out my own team's capability, I can use these other options in the interim. Yeah, so I look at the the talent, as now, you know, remote work has become much more acceptable. I think hybrid is really the right answer in this moment for us at Campbell, because there are days for in the office, and we're together, and it's very helpful to be together. Yeah. And then there's, in those remote days, that work out really well for people to be able to catch up and get their work done and collaborate externally. And so really, options are the words I would use, I have different ways to fill roles and different ways to develop people. And people, you know, when you come into an organization, and you're doing a transformation, you're growing, you have skill sets, and they're hidden. They're deep in the organization. People have functional knowledge, they have technical capability, but because of different roles and different organizational operating models, you may have to weed them out. And so being able to understand who our real leaders who are really our technical people that can learn that the new platforms and technologies that we're going to be bringing in, and who are the people who really understand personally or know how to get things done, right, you find these people that are really great at project management, but maybe they haven't been trained in it. Right. So training becomes a big piece of it, too.
Maryfran Johnson 9:45
Right? Well, I was thinking to that company cultures that encourage that sort of fluidity across job roles and a willingness to speak up and say, I'm kind of interested in that. You know, what, what would I do to become I'm one of those. I know from what you've told me, Julia, you have a lot of attention that you paid to that. Doing things with training and development, like having people shadow someone, or even assigning someone as kind of a liaison for another part of the business. Talk a little bit about that.
Julia Anderson 10:22
Yeah, so we call it your aspirational capabilities versus your, you know, capabilities that you would say, Oh, I'm really good at this, or I've had the experience or opportunity to do it. So talking to people about what are the aspirational capabilities that they want to develop? And really focusing on, on the job opportunities, opportunities to become part of a pod or a project, you know, we're also looking at, how do we structure the team, so that we're really engaged with the various partners for whatever technology we're trying to bring data we're trying to govern, or manage. So we very much in our transformation, we have data and information at the core. So we're saying we've been we're committed to our organization's data, the governance of it, but how do we get that out to people, and so building pods and teams, and really giving people you know, things to go after and solve our way to really motivate people and if they need training, we have consulting coaches, we have lunch and learns. We have LinkedIn learning we have Gartner. I mean, we have all sorts of I'm all for and I know I talked about this all the time, throwing people into the deep end of the pool, but making sure that they have the right floats and lifeguards around them. Because I think we learn by experiencing and doing and having that culture of, you know, being curious, but being, you know, caring for each other, but also letting people grow, letting people really get opportunities, and don't think of as a failure, think of it as learning if something doesn't come out perfect. Yeah.
Kristen Lamoreaux 11:54
And that is an exact strategy that anyone can echo regardless of the size of their organization. Right? Because when someone expresses an interest in something, whether it is emerging tech or a new process, and you say, Great, show me what you know, do a lunch and learn for the team in a month. Right? And it's not make or break their job. It is, are they stepping up? Do they know what they claim to know? Right? And you're at the end? Truly, are they excited about sharing that? And if you see that passion from that person, pick them up and put them where they want to be, and you'll have such greater morale engagement. It really is something that any organization can do. They just have to make the space for it.
Maryfran Johnson 12:51
Now, Kristen, how are you seeing that play out now as opposed to say, three or four years ago? Because you have been in the executive search business for a long time, and you have ways that you prepare candidates to go and talk to companies? What has changed on your end? What are what are some of the things that you recommend that people bring up now that maybe you would have told them to avoid in the past?
Kristen Lamoreaux 13:15
Well, there's still always some topics to avoid, but the list has gotten shorter. Oh, quite honestly. But the most important thing is always be authentic. And some people feel that that means tact and diplomacy go out the window, because they're being authentic. Oh, no, no, at the executive level, presence still matters. tact and diplomacy still matters, which some people may say is kind of funny coming from me. But it is something where the most of my favorite questions is what have you done to improve yourself lately? Yeah. And Benny C suite leaders in particular, they're like, Well, I've made it. Yeah, I've only got, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Like, I'm, I'm good. I've arrived to any more. True. The, the phrase of I'm a lifelong learner is more critical now than ever. Because as we've seen all three of us over the years the pendulum of I'm a leader, so I don't have to be technical. Versus leaders have to be extremely technical, has swung over the decades. Kids, it's swinging back. It is. Leaders need to either be fused right in that middle of they have enough curiosity about emerging technology that they are they having a passion for it, that they cared their learning enough to be able to coach counsel and develop the people underneath them and make business decisions in real time versus let me go consult Have people about that write something with people is great. But the decision still lives with you. So you don't have a lot of time again, that pace is challenging. Yeah. So truly being that lifelong learner, demonstrating, even if you don't have a passion for demonstrating your curiosity for emerging tech, showing how you've improved yourself, LinkedIn learning makes it really easy to say, Oh, I just took a class. I just got a cert. Yeah. And the expectation is that the leaders are doing it, because leaders are having those expectations of their directs, as well, as
Maryfran Johnson 15:38
Julia, I see you nodding your head there. I think you've done a little bit of that too, haven't you?
Julia Anderson 15:44
Well, I very much, you know, Kristen, and I are very like minded it is walk the walk, talk the talk, I won't ask anyone to do anything that I'm not willing to do or haven't done. And mostly, leaders have to have a clear strategy and a clear vision. So we're, we're working right now, you know, digital transformation. What does that mean? You know, for us, it's very clear what that means we have a foundational program, we're aligning ourselves around our data, we're pushing that data out in those analytics and capabilities to access it out. But that means we have to teach people how to use data products, we have to help them understand the lineage of the data, what it means it's not, here's your custom report, it's we're all in there, running that business together, whether it's the business of it, the business of supply chain, the business of the commercial teams, we're all in there together, ensuring that we're aligned on what that information is. And so having that clear strategy, and bring everybody along me change management's just a huge piece of a digital transformation. It's one thing for me to go in and evaluate how I'm operating my structure. We were very services organization, right? But we needed to be more value driven, meaning we're bringing the core tenants of a digital transformation live. And that includes, you know, the data that I talked about the analytics platforms, the API and integration platforms, the cloud capability, understanding, giving people the skills, that we want to have cloud sprawl, and costs and, you know, really giving people those skills they need to be successful and owning their platform. And everything's a platform, right? We're building out platform technologies, we're partnering where we can, it's about speed, and it's mostly about people, the technology works, we can put it in, we can find partners, but it's about people being able and confident and comfortable, you know, using these technologies
Kristen Lamoreaux 17:48
will and I'm sorry, I'm gonna jump in real quick. One of the aspects of democratizing data, democratizing access terrifies a lot of leaders, because they're like, we can't just give everybody access. Of course, you're not giving everybody access. But you create those pathways where you can bring others in, because you never know where that next great ideas coming from. But again, making the space for the governance making sure people are understanding, you know, you're not going to let somebody jump into source code, or it's a matter of protecting what you can, and giving that access creating those ramps. Yeah.
Julia Anderson 18:40
And it gets better. It gets back to the workforce. We have bots and robots that are part of our workforce now, and they access data, right? So having that access, be planful having a security program around it rolled a security, all the modern tools available to do that within your ERP and in your platforms. That's part of the foundation. Yeah, I get that. Right.
Maryfran Johnson 19:02
Well, Julia, one of the points you made when we were talking last month at Christians, sim women summit event, that you said that it was always used to previous roles. And most CIOs had been through this, where you had to have business relationship managers, they were like the translators on the tech side who would go over and explain what was happening and maybe they were gathering requirements, you know, in the in the good slash bad old days. That's how it had to operate. When you said now there is more of an expectation that the business people are going to be learning some of these technology skills, and it even comes up as a question of well, who funds that inside of companies. So tell us a little bit more about the transformation work that is underway in it a Campbell's because I know when you arrived in January, about 18 months ago, a business transformation was already up and rolling and underway, and that your piece of it is following On with that, so talk about that give us an idea about what's involved.
Julia Anderson 20:05
Yes, well lucky me when different than other experiences. When I joined Campbell, they had structured to two divisions and central supply to very clear, for me areas to partner with. But we were not set up to partner, we were set up to be more of a services organization service requests would come in. And so prioritization was something you know, we talked about, at the leadership level, like we have to prioritize this work. And we have to be clear, we stopped a lot of work, we stopped a lot of projects that were happening that I would call discretionary, or even our partners working on things that were somewhat discretionary, including, you know, customizing and building a lot of reporting, right, because we want reusable, we want to build everything modern and reusable. And so that was intentional, right. And so I had to create an organization that had architecture, data and analytics spoke this, but also digital partners. So it's not this business relationship manager, nobody's manage it. We're partners, we sit together, we work together, we prioritize together, there are transformation leads across the business, you know, who've been making sure that the business is running it effectively, efficiently. And we're there now, you know, to deliver the data and the reusable technology together, it's not it over here something mystical we're doing, we're pawns, we're teams, you know. And we're, we're making that our culture right to to be together and to succeed together and to have quick wins. Right. So the business relationship manager, that's sort of the thing of the past, we moved on to the value or we're a digital partner. And we may know a little bit more about some of the technologies, but it's our job to understand the business. And it's their job to understand how to use the data and the technology. And that happens together. And that is a journey, it's a trip, some people, you know, don't want to learn something new, they liked the way they were doing it. So that's when you have to win the hearts and minds and, you know, bring them along. And that's on both sides. There's plenty of it. People who, you know, at times, are a little afraid of, well, what does it really mean, if we go to cloud? And will I be exposing my data? You know, we all live through that. Yeah. And when did we jump into the deep end of that hole? Right, so
Maryfran Johnson 22:19
well, because I noticed you have cybersecurity as part of your money responsibilities, enterprise wide, at Campbell's. And I know nobody ever comes on the show to talk about cyber in any kind of detail. But is there anything that you want to throw in about that about the sort of talent challenges? Are they? are they bigger talent challenges finding cyber, cyber talent? And how do you develop that internally, and Kristin, you should absolutely throw in on this one too, because you place a lot of people in those kinds of roles.
Julia Anderson 22:54
So when I started at Campbell, we also created the seaso position, and a new seaso started just shortly after me almost the same time. And so we've been building out that program together. One thing that I'm very proud of this, we have been able to develop internal talent. And we've been able to really work internally to ensure that we have people who are part of our overall cyber team, and that includes things that I was talking about earlier, like role based security. So there's people on the team that are in the foundational design of our digital transformation from the start. And there's people who are operational and are our CISO. Martin is, you know, extremely good at developing talent and attracting talent. And so, you know, we've we, we've been lucky there, we've also gained alignment on how do we modernize some of our programs? How do we reduce some of the complexity and, you know, so there's a really good strategy story there. But, you know, it's, it's, as you said, it's hard to find different skill sets and the skill set I have a hard time finding really, is architects who understand supply chain because guess what, everybody's trying to, you know, automate their supply chain. And that is a real tough commodity to find. Lots of people are going into cyber and, you know, in but people who really understand resiliency and supply chain and some of those tools that you have that you have to modernize, that's a tougher commodity to find.
Kristen Lamoreaux 24:33
I'm really gonna talk about supply chain architects in a moment, but circling back to security. A lot of what Julia said is true. Being able to be that business partner is table stakes these days whether or not you are talking about an IT developer or whether you're talking about as a security leader, where a more recent couple of years on development is with BSOs business information security officers. Because as we're talking about, you need to protect your data. And GDPR is going to make sure you're protecting everybody's data. So when you are a global organization or, you know, potentially going to hire someone from the UK, you need to have someone who understands the legalities beyond your privacy people. Because your security people and that's where BSOs come in. They are the ones at the table external facing, saying, So, okay, whose data? Where's it stored? What are we doing? How are we doing it? Is it you know, anonymized? Is it this is it that and they're spending 40% of their time on contracts with third parties or with direct finance. And so the focus of yes, they're security people, but they're not your see CERT team lead, you know, they're the sitting there from the business perspective, being that first line of defense, then things get handed off, you know, to legal organizations that are leveraging leveraging BSOs. They're having a great time. They are cultivating internally many of their positions that are filling, but when they go outside, there are a few organizations that are be so machines, and they just steal directly from them.
Maryfran Johnson 26:40
And this is this is not just a new rev on a Chief Privacy Officer role. This is actually doing wrong.
Kristen Lamoreaux 26:47
Oh, no. And very different. Very different. Yeah. They understand the aspects of data protection. And you know, what a Data Protection Officer do? Yeah, but they're not within legal, some may have a JD, that's a little extra bonus. But these are security professionals. But they understand data and data governance. Good.
Maryfran Johnson 27:11
All right. Well, I just checked to see how we were doing for questions from our audience. And we have a couple of them queued up. And I think one of them this one will be especially interesting for you both because of your longtime interest in women, women leadership, women's leadership and diversity on leadership teams. And it's basically whether the hybrid model that we've been working under in this almost post pandemic world, whether that has helped women or hurt women in the workforce, and the preface to that was pointing out that America is rank something like 43rd, in terms of gender equality in the workforce. Now, I that probably I don't know if that's specific to information technology. But it's, that's not something we've ever been able to brag much about in it, that we have more women in it. So speak to that about what you have seen in this hybrid hiring model, the fact that people can work remotely that can come into the office, there's a whole mixture of new options, is it helping or hurting women? And I'll have you start with that one, Julia.
Julia Anderson 28:20
So we know that during the pandemic, it hurt women, because they took on the majority of the home responsibilities, and sometimes even had to opt out of working by because, you know, kids couldn't go to school. And so we know that's true. And we know we lost some people that could have been theater to the leadership level. I see. And I focus on the up and coming leaders and the leaders, because that's where, you know, we're losing women, we're losing diversity. As people are coming up to that leadership level, then some of the same old things are true, like, women will check every box, they won't apply. They don't have the confidence. So doing much more coaching, mentoring, having more programs, like some women, encouraging people to go, you know, it's really important, it's important that people understand their capabilities and their opportunities and what they can do. And your direct manager, who is, you know, potentially your advocate, is not your coach and mentor. Right, and you need someone who looks like you who spend through that or who can really connect with you. So I think that's a really important aspect that you know, relationships, seeing people like yourself, who have the roles and seeing them enjoying the roles and commanding the roles not being stressed out. And, you know, and not enjoying it, right? Because being a CIO or recruiter, it's a fun job. It's a people job. Yeah. I mean, we get to engage with a lot of people, but we have you know, I think having a diverse leadership team is table stakes anymore. You have to look at you have you have to look at your data, you have to make sure there's equity. And, you know, I've worked for great companies that really invest in training and leadership. So that's, that's great. But still, you know, making sure as you build out the team, internally and externally, that you have that diversity, it's really critical. And I think now for me, as I said, it's options. I can't attract more talent across the United States, North America of the globe, I can't depending on what the job is, we've been working, you know, globally, forever, without sourcing and partnerships. So we maybe have a little jump, and being effective working remote. But I think it has helped in terms of being able for me to get a more diverse leadership team, because I do have people that don't, you know, live in Camden, New Jersey, but a lot to compensate. Yeah.
Kristen Lamoreaux 30:50
And that's just that you can bring the jobs to where the diversity is, okay. There are, if you check any of the major city papers, they will once a year publish the diversity of the geographic area? Well, if your corporate headquarters just happens to be in a geographic area, that's 97%. White. Okay, it's gonna be a little harder to achieve natural organic diversity. So you'll have to put effort behind it. But now, as we look at roles that truly can be remote, and again, with Campbell's Soup, some things on the manufacturing line simply cannot be right. But when you look at those leadership roles that can be and then go out and say, Okay, I want the best person for the role. Just that simple intention, I want the best person for the role. It doesn't mean that you're automatically going to hire somebody diverse. No. But you're giving yourself the space to hire the best person, not the best person within a 30 minute commute.
Maryfran Johnson 32:11
Yeah, well, I know you have
Kristen Lamoreaux 32:13
it no remote work will help diversify leadership teams. I think, given some women started 16 years ago, said women held 7% of the CIO roles in the US. Here we are 16 years later, women hold 19.2 person. regrets, right, snail's pace progress. Yeah. But we have, again, greater opportunity for those organizations that have said, Hey, Ben, our CIO could be anywhere I was gonna find the right person. Well,
Julia Anderson 32:53
go ahead. Oh, I would love to just add, I also like to hire at the lowest possible entry leadership level, so I can get that diversity for my team, and then promote from within promote, you know, as we grow together, because I think sometimes the pickings are slim, even globally, if you're looking for someone is a certain level, like a certain Enterprise Architect, position, seaso position, you know, these are predominantly male. I hired a female Enterprise Architect, I'm very excited about that. But it's hard to find. Yeah, right. Well, because there's not as many people picked to go to that role. Now we're getting more people into the roles we're getting people more exposure, but we have a little bit of a gap. And maybe that's just my experience in my perception, but
Kristen Lamoreaux 33:49
no spot on. But there is a fantastic organization called Women in architecture that is global. And Wendy Kuhn is the founder of it or co founder of it, and she's doing an amazing job. It is growing like wildfire as
Maryfran Johnson 34:08
well and Kristen I know you personally have gone out to a lot of different organizations. Black IT professionals have Hispanic it but Kristen, you have all kinds of amusing stories of basically being the only white girl in the room. And and good, good for you. And then it must everybody comes up and says, What are you doing here? And you're looking for talent?
Kristen Lamoreaux 34:31
One know one of my favorite stories. I was at the Silicon Valley Latino leadership summit. And one person turned to me and said, I'll have a vodka tonic. Oh, like waitstaff, waitstaff all right. But that other than that one person? Know I love immersing myself in getting to know equal, right? And part of what I do inside Lamoreaux search is we generate diverse slates for every single search we do. And in order for me to do that, I need to have an extremely diverse network. And I mean diversity in all its forms. Yes. So, yes, I have a lot of fun going out and building relationships with people that don't look like me. And that are fascinating. And it's incredibly rewarding. And you mentioned, for black IT professionals, information technology, senior management forum, it headed to gun ITSMF, which their moniker their tagline is, it's my family is one of the most beautiful networking organizations, they are focused on cultivating black excellence and leadership levels in tech. Like, there's nothing bad about that.
Maryfran Johnson 36:04
And, and for decades, too, this is not these are not new organizations. This is
Kristen Lamoreaux 36:09
not new, this is not flash in the pan responsive to, you know, the social justice unrest. And this is decades in experience, gross relationships, and they're doing amazing things. Similarly, BDPA, black data processing association with us, they're amazing. High tech, Hispanic Information Technology Executive Council, high tech is fantastic for Latino leaders. And they two decades, they actually stemmed from ITSMF. But so there's very close partnership there. But it's difficult for many organizations, short of throwing money around to gain access and build relationships with these different organizations. So I encourage every individual leader to select a handful, right? You can't be everything to everyone everywhere, right? But be deliberate. Look at your organization, identify your gaps, and then build relationships. Don't just throw money, build relationships, to create pipelines for talent into your organization, just like Julie said, it doesn't have to be strictly at the leadership level. You can cultivate relationships at developer levels, goodness gracious at all of the organizations focused on girls. Who Code those who could please yeah, let's do this. Let's create a better world for the future generation. Let's do all of it.
Maryfran Johnson 38:01
Another question related to that, which I think will be great for you. What are the because it's very practical in nature? What are the best channels for employees to express their aspirations? Do they go to their direct supervisor to the very top people often discourage going to human resources, but maybe that is changing these days? What is your advice? And we'll give that one to Juliet, since you're actively doing this now a gamble?
Julia Anderson 38:30
Yeah. So my advice is tell everybody what you want to be in what you want to do and what you love when my kids used to take the train, you know, when they were in high school, thinking about getting internships, colleges, and like to turn to the person next to and tell them so I believe that if you are very comfortable in talking about what you want to do and what you want to achieve, people want to help. Yes, people want to help. I also have a very strong partnership with HR at Campbell, and I have HR communications, legal and procurement leaders who sit on my staff and support us, and really engage. I mean, they care about the team. They're part of the leadership team. And so a formal way that we're doing it is actually doing the traditional capabilities, modeling, you know, leadership, functional, technical and aspirational. So maybe use that in a service manager, and you've worked on a lot of service tickets, and you're really good at driving those numbers down and you're very analytical. But tomorrow, you know, we're going to be having a pod that's going to be developing out data products or managing cloud solutions, or integrations. So what what's that best match for you? And what which project do you aspire to be at? What part of the business do you want to learn more about, you know, going and doing videos and coming back lots of lunch and learns lots of experience sharing. So, yes to all of it, tell everybody tell HR tell your manager tell your managers manager Tell everybody. Well, it's
Maryfran Johnson 40:01
funny because we related to that when CIOs get interested later more mature in their careers, and they start thinking about getting a role on a board of directors, the exact same advice applies, you have to start telling everybody in your networking circles. Oh, this is one of the things I'm interested in, because that's actually the whole value, isn't it of networking organizations like sim women, of being on LinkedIn of doing all that sort of stuff? So follow up on your thought, Kristin, you were about to say something and I jumped in.
Kristen Lamoreaux 40:30
And the brilliant thing I was going to say, just went out of my head,
Maryfran Johnson 40:35
okay, well
Kristen Lamoreaux 40:38
it is something where it is, I do believe in partnership to HR and not just because I'm married to one. It is something where it is very easy, in my opinion, for any HR leader from a performance review standpoint, to ask an employee, are you doing something you're passionate about? Right? Is there something you want to learn more about? You know, would you rather is a great fun game for kids? Would you rather grow more in your current role? Or explore another facet of the business? Ask, and you will be amazed at the data that you get from one well crafted question. And from there, you can create that talent bank that says, oh, Julia actually said she was really interested in mobile computing, you know, oh, hang on a minute, Julia. We are picking you up. And we're putting you right here. Yeah, let's go. It's It's easily done and accomplished. But I am also a big fan of demonstrating what you know. And so if you're passionate about something, you know, the universal knowledge behind it. Yeah, right. So microblog, go out on LinkedIn, find a thought leader that you enjoy. Create a comment can be 200 words, write something small, easy. Put it out to the world engage? Yes, engage? Young because when I as a recruiter, I'm out trolling through LinkedIn. I'm not just doing keyword searching. I'm exploring that same universe. Yeah. So make yourself visible. And I will be able to find you,
Maryfran Johnson 42:33
grand. Now related to that. We're just talking about lifelong learners. And this question is about we're getting such great questions today. I have to say thank you to our audience. When you're discussing the importance of lifelong learner, lifelong learners and tech, do you offer any structured internal upskilling reskilling programs for employees? And I think that's definitely directed at Julia. So I know you've got I Gosh, four or five of them that you've mentioned to me in the past. So tell us a little bit about some of your favorite programs inside of Campbell's. And are they things that you've started? Or were they there when you when you arrived?
Julia Anderson 43:11
Absolutely. So a lot of great leadership programs at Campbell's that existed and continued to be developed out, you know, by the HR team, they're always looking at restructuring and very focused on building leaders. And they don't, that's one of the very people in relationship organization. And its people are are wonderful. And as I said, everybody wants to help, right. So that exists in terms of the digital technology, and the transformation. So I have within it in my team, the opportunity. So we do some programs, you know, Arella for building leadership, I'm in the APC, the advanced practices Council, so bring all the research back, have the meetings that my team is all has access to Gartner for technical professionals, you know, pushing all of that down into the organization. So people had the opportunity to learn, but we have grow time and lunch and learns, as our knowledge is grow time where we actually won't schedule meetings. And people can either join together on an offered learning experience, whatever it might be, you know, talking to a coach talking to recruiters understanding how to put, you know, put your pitch together, or maybe something more specific that we're offering around, you know, doing a good financial forecasts, we can we could work on some of those things, you know, really solid work plan that you know, has the Agile aspects to it, which are a little different than our traditional waterfall, right? And so we offer actually training and then share that out. And then Lunch and Learn is more someone you know, sharing an experience. So we have a lot of different programs, some more formal, some less formal, but one of the things that we you know, we really We are focused on is making sure that people understand it's their responsibility to Biller, it's really on them to understand what they want to learn, and to get access to it. And if something's not there that they don't have access to, you know, they have the people they can talk to, so we can get it set up and get it published out. So there's so many materials out there, there's, there's so much opportunity to learn. And it's really saying, We're gonna give you the time. But you know, and we'll help you with your individual development plan and all that structure. But some of it is on the job, but some of it is also on you to learn,
Kristen Lamoreaux 45:31
yes, many organizations are doing the kind of no meeting Fridays, right then. And it's not about because we just want to get out of work and not work Friday. Yeah, it truly is the development, it is about, again, giving space for people to do what they need to do to be successful in their roles, whether that is, you know, further knowledge in their current space, or preparing themselves for what that next step looks like, and getting gearing up for that. But as we've talked about this whole session, it is about continuing to develop at every level. And I do not receive money from these folks. But if any leader, even if it's an IT leader, needs to brush up on data science, data. camp.com has data science for business leaders, Oh, no. And you can do the majority of the course for free, right? So it is about saying, I know what I need to learn, and making that space in your own calendar, go forth and learn it. And for your making that space for your teams so that they can go learn
Maryfran Johnson 46:51
and Kristen, are you seeing questions and more desire from your clients when they're looking for a new IT leader or for a CIO? Are they interested in what those candidates have done in terms of upskilling? The workforce rescaling? The people that are there, I you know, we all know the model in the past of CIOs who would come in and just clean house and get rid of a lot of people and then bring in new talent. As difficult as that is to do today. The idea of being able to grow your own or utilize the resources in house, how much of those skills are your clients looking for in those top notch CIO hires?
Kristen Lamoreaux 47:33
And that is if it's not question number two, after how are you? It's probably question number three, okay. upskilling and rescaling of talent is again one of those challenges that feels like it's been ever present. But now, with the pace of technology being so quickly, with so quick. The time that you have to upskill Your talent is greatly diminished, okay. There is an again, I get no money from them. I just am a big believer in giving tactical, practical resources. There's an organization, I apologize, I don't remember who they partnered with, but it is Burning Glass technologies. And they have pathways where you can take your financial analyst, and PS, there's typically greater diversity in finance than in tech. Take your finance analyst, and get them trained in cryptography and specific things for security. And in a matter of weeks to a couple of months, you've got your entry level cyber analyst, and you're paying them your life change money for them. And you're probably about 20% under market interest compared with other cyber analysts. So everyone is looking for the creative leaders who are like jeulia, looking for the person with the potential and ignoring what they used to be what their title was, you're looking at their potential, not their past. And with that, an intelligent person can learn anything, and you can't teach someone to be friendly, right? You can't teach someone to sit within your culture. So if you've had that person internally already, then jump all over them in getting advancing their career with them because they gotta want to do that work. They want to have to be the one to do that learning.
Maryfran Johnson 49:40
And have you worked in for Julia, in either previous organizations or currently at Campbell? Do you have that sort of structure set up? Or is that something you're looking to do in the future? Oh, yeah.
Julia Anderson 49:52
Cause attitude and aptitude and I eliminate roles, not people. Good. I eliminate roles what so what is work that's prioritize that we need to do. And what capabilities do we need to do that work and the other roles and the other work has to stop. And it's uncomfortable when you explain it to people, you know, your role of XYZ technology that we don't use anymore. That's not a title. That's not a role we're going to have going forward. But your skills, your capabilities, your passion, your attitude and your aptitude. And it'll be here.
Maryfran Johnson 50:25
Yeah. Well, in so many very big companies to have their own universities, you know, essentially internal users versus a lot of the big technology vendors do that as well. And you're not just getting training and how to use tools. In fact, we had a very interesting part of this conversation as we were preparing for Giulia where you were talking about what shadow IT and we used to obsess over that kind of thing at Computerworld. And at CIO magazine, like, how do you stop it? How do you draw it into it? You had a very refreshingly different viewpoint talk about your view of shadow IT.
Julia Anderson 51:03
So I actually love shadow IT or people in the business who are trying to solve problems with technology and data, okay, because they are my heroes. They are my easy wins. There's two pieces to it. One is they have to trust us that we can put in the capabilities, the tools, you know, the the process, the guardrail, so they can go off and have at it. Right. So I think you have to get ahead of it. I'm big into anticipation. I work for food companies, guess what people are going to ask me for ways to buy, make, sell and deliver food better, right? Faster, right and grow, right? So anticipating that we're going to make data available, or there's going to be a new SAS solution that someone's excited about, someone's going to want to use the tools that we have to write their own code or to do their own, you know, analytics or use chat GPT or conversational AI. We're all for that. But we put the structure in place, that if you jump into that pool, you're going to have the floats you need the lifeguards you need don't make it a barrier. Don't say stop, say that's awesome. Let's do that together. Here's the guardrails, one quick check, make sure the security is there, the data safe whatever it is, and have at it. So I believe that I don't think it's a shadow. I think it's a partner. And I think those people who are excited about technology, they can only drive Thrive our you know, our goals faster.
Kristen Lamoreaux 52:32
Okay. One of the key things in Julia has mentioned it a few times, she's used the word partner, because by definition, partners equally care about each other. Right? It is not it order taker, it is not it the office of No, it is a true business partner. And if both parties are operating from that space, anything is possible. Now, and an earlier comment Julie made about business relationship managers, you know, that function is gone. She has digital partners. Yeah. It's something as simple as the title of the role you're trying to find you're communicating your culture, you're communicating the mindset. If you are trying to hire, oh, we need somebody who's a transformation analyst. Well, okay, so I'm gonna look at other stuff that other people are doing to try to make something better. But I'm, I'm back here. No, I'm a digital partner. I'm right on the frontlines with everybody and we're gonna figure this out together. Who doesn't want that job? Right. So
Maryfran Johnson 53:56
what when you were saying transformation analyst, I was going to say, What the heck is that? Right? But digital
Kristen Lamoreaux 54:03
go supervisor, right? Supervisor? Well,
Maryfran Johnson 54:07
it's funny because digital partner is not all that much more clear than saying transformation analyst. But at least you've got everybody knows something about digital. Everybody understands a partnership. The minute you start, I'm course a lifelong editor and writer. So of course, I believe words are important. Let me pivot over to an A very interesting, and it's a very real problem for many people in it, and probably a bit controversial. So we'll put our seat belts on and try this one out. What are your thoughts about the aging workforce? That is not even a small part of being included in Dei, the conversation, the conversations about being excluded, because essentially, they are older white men who have maybe had a stellar career In IT service delivery excellence, but they get weeded out of the conversation across all those ethnicities, and due to the length of their career. And we've all you know, we all mentioned it. And we've acknowledged, in fact, I think most of us are probably, you know, have at home, our partner is a middle aged to older white male. And what essentially this is a What about us question, you know, and it's a fair question to ask because such a huge percentage of the IT workforce actually are our favorite guys, right? Are the older white males? How is there? How do we approach that? How do you make older, more established white IT professionals part of Diversity and Equity and Inclusion conversations and programs and ways to approach it? So?
Kristen Lamoreaux 55:53
Me? I figured
Maryfran Johnson 55:54
we'd start with you, Kristin, I know you I know. You've heard this question before. I think someone asked it at your summit last month, they said, What about us?
Kristen Lamoreaux 56:04
Right? Alright, so. Okay, let's get controversial for a few moments here in our remaining few minutes. Yes. So a the older white gentleman, were basically the rulers of the kingdom for generations. And let's be really transparent and say they still hold all the keys. So I do understand that there are senior White leaders who have been displaced. And they feel that they are not being afforded equitable opportunity to secure a new leadership position. They I hope they acknowledge that there have been many white people of color, LGBTQ plus, that have felt this way for generations that they aren't being given an equitable shot at a leadership position. That being said, I think, any healthy organization as a mix, and while ageism is alive and well. And it I've been saying that for the 26 years that I've been doing executive search, and I truly am empathetic to anyone have a certain age over 50 that all of a sudden people start counting, well, how much work am I gonna get out of this person before they buy a vacation home and leave and like, it is wrong? It we shouldn't organizations shouldn't be thinking that way. And I love the fact that inside of Sim, we have a program called sim silver, that is specifically for those leaders that they may not want a new CIO gig, but they still have so much to contribute like Yes, come in, contribute help grow lead. i As I've always said, I've been a big believer in diversity, I create diverse slates, that includes white men, and I don't care about your age, you know, diversity, this is really gonna get detailed. I don't center on whiteness, and say I generate diverse slates, meaning people of color, LGBTQ or women. I'm saying diverse slates.
Maryfran Johnson 58:48
A whole diversity, the whole mix.
Kristen Lamoreaux 58:51
And quite honestly, I still present or place. Am I looking at the last two years 40% older white guys? Oh,
Maryfran Johnson 59:02
so part of any part of it, then is speaking up and asking the questions about it. And let me pivot over to Julia and ask what your impression or your reaction to that question is.
Julia Anderson 59:16
So, you know, I value everybody, and the and what they can bring, and how much they're, you know, I have a very large network. Also, I have some people who've worked for me in the past, who've come back for the third time to be on my team because they know we're going to, you know, we're going to get a great team together. We're going to meet new people, we're going to have old friends and we're going to have a rockstar time. On one hand, I think we have to try to make sure that we don't dismiss anyone and all the skills and knowledge that they have. And in many cases, there's a lot of, you know, knowledge and capability and letting people come in and share their experience looking for opportunities for people Ball. But, you know, I think for me, it's really kind of what Kristin said, which is I'm looking for diverse teams across the board. And I'm really looking for the person that has the most capability. And that's why sometimes I'll help develop that capability because I think the slates not there. Nice. Yes. So I think we need to value everybody, but everybody, it's on them to stay current.
Maryfran Johnson 1:00:23
Well, and my, the way I would weigh into a question like that, I would say, keep avidly networking, keep in touch with your network can if you're considering other roles, think about maybe you're later in your career, and you're ready to start serving on boards of directors, and maybe you start with nonprofit organizations. I mean, it's just, it is a big world out there. And I don't, I don't think that the conversations we're trying to have in it about inclusion and equity and diversity are really meant to exclude anyone so but you know, it's just, that's easier to say, when you've been on the side where you're a woman who has been in it media, or you're a black person who's been, you know, as a supply chain architect, you know, that sort of thing. So, very good answers from you both. And thanks, especially to our audience. For all the great questions today. It has really been wonderful having you both on here. I feel like we could keep going for another hour, maybe two. But we'd probably get in like all kinds of trouble with my editors here. So we are going to have to wrap up. Thank you again, both for joining me on this conversation. It's been really wonderful having you here today. Thank you,
Julia Anderson 1:01:39
Thank you
Maryfran Johnson 1:01:39
truly, if you joined us late today, and don't don't despair, you can watch the full episode right here on LinkedIn for the rest of today but also on cio.com. And on CIOs YouTube channel, cio leadership live is also available as an audio podcast wherever you find your podcasts. And I hope you enjoyed and got as much out of today's conversation with Campbell Campbell Soup is Chief Information and Technology Officer Julia Anderson, and Kristen Lamoreaux, who is the president and CEO of Lamoreaux search and also the founder of Sim women. We'll be back again in another two weeks on Wednesday, July 12. With CIO Praveen Jonnala of CommScope. And thanks so much for joining us today and listening in and also for all of the folks who sent in such great questions. It has been quite a while since we've had so many really interesting and complex questions, and I keep encouraging the audience to do that. send in your questions. So special thanks to that. And a special thanks also to our sponsor for this episode, IT service management provider TOPdesk, please take a moment if you haven't, you can tell how tragically, you may be missing out to subscribe to CIOs YouTube channel where you can find more than 100 of these highly bingeable cio leadership, live interviews and shows. Stay well and take care out there and we'll see you back again next time.