Greg Blair

The role of the modern CIO is no longer defined by managing infrastructure and systems. A successful CIO must now be the champion of data as a foundational business asset. Data quality, data governance, and data accessibility are the core pillars of technology integration. The CIO's ability to unlock the value hidden within an organization's data directly impacts its capacity for innovation, agility, and a true understanding of the customer. It's a fundamental mindset shift, moving from a focus on technology to a focus on data and its potential. What is the single most important strategic skill for a CIO today? #CIO #Data #CIOLeadership #DataAccessibility

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AI gets the ideas moving. It can’t replace being in the room. Tim Baier on how we blend AI with real experience in the creative process. Read the full Charlotte Business Journal Table of Experts piece: https://lnkd.in/eqS77Mrm #ThoughtLeadership #AI #CreativeProcess #Marketing #VideoProduction #VideoStorytelling #Storytelling

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💡 What if enterprise architects could be profiled by how they assign value—not just what they deliver? Robert S. Hartman’s Value Profile offers a fresh lens into how architects think, decide, and lead. From empathy to execution, it connects cognitive patterns with strategic impact. 🔍 Explore how this framework enhances EA maturity and team development. https://lnkd.in/dDazE4-g #EnterpriseArchitecture #LeadershipThinking #HartmanValueProfile #EAExcellence #FormalAxiology Hans Nouwens Kasper van Wersch Jasper Scholten Peter 🎸 Rombouts

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The city of Raleigh’s IT team has adopted a "crawl, walk, run" strategy for implementing AI, beginning with internal automation before expanding to public services. Key initiatives include: - Utilizing generative AI to streamline workflows and enhance help desk efficiency. - Applying AI to city infrastructure, such as water systems and pothole repairs. Currently, the city is exploring agentic AI for transportation safety through its Vision Zero initiative, which aims to reduce traffic fatalities by analyzing intersection data and suggesting improvements. https://lnkd.in/efM6CKdE

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First day with Kyndryl and kicked off with a great start: Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission - study commissioned to look at how Virginia colleges are meeting the changing needs of students particularly with the enrollment cliff looming Fascinating to learn about how demand is being met at the local level across the Commonwealth by the VA community college system (23 colleges across 40 campuses) as they are able to meet students where they live and work, and provide more cost effective and flexible learning opportunities (certificates, technical and vocational training). While traditional enrollment in VCCS is down 27% vs a decade ago - dual enrollment (online and hybrid) is significantly up. What does this mean for higher ed broadly? To the shock of no one - student experience will continue to dominate buying behaviors of students. Meeting students where they are - helping them understand and advance career prospects will be at the heart of the discussion (ROI and value based decisioning) And for the universities themselves - now is the time reexamine the cost to serve and operational budgets to offset the revenue impacts of the enrollment cliff. An area of focus for university leadership should be the IT ecosystem and modernizing legacy digital systems. This will not only allow universities to meet the changing needs of students faster and at lower cost point, but also unlock dollars for innovation and eliminate technical debt. Kyndryl can help.

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What’s harder about AI adoption than people outside your organization realize? As part of a leadership program at Georgia Tech, I’m speaking with senior leaders (CLO, CIO, CTO, HR, Transformation) in short 15-minute conversations to understand what’s really happening inside organizations right now. No pitch. Just perspective. If you’d be open to sharing your experience, I’d appreciate the conversation.

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#ExecutiveSpotlight Podcast | 2026 Denodo Data Predictions (Part 2): AI is leaving the lab — and entering regulated, geopolitical, and physical reality. In this new Executive Spotlight episode, Ravi Shankar, SVP & CMO, and Alberto Pan, EVP & CTO at Denodo, break down what’s next as enterprises move from AI experimentation to governed execution. In this episode, they explore: 🔹 Why geopolitics and regulation are forcing a Sovereign #DataFabric 🔹 How Physical AI (robots, manufacturing, real-world systems) changes data requirements 🔹 Why domain-specific models + semantic #DataProducts are key to safe, accurate AI 🔹 How #LogicalDataManagement enables real-time, compliant, production-ready AI If #AI is becoming autonomous, regulated, and mission-critical — your #DataArchitecture can’t stay experimental. 🎧 Listen to the #podcast here 👉 https://okt.to/le0xDB #DenodoDataBites #DenodoPredicts #DenodoPredictions #DataPredictions #TechPodcast #DataForALL #NoDataLeftBehind #NoAIWithoutData

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Most CIOs leave after three to five years. The role stops expanding and they need to find growth elsewhere. I sat down with Nicole Coughlin, CIO at the Town of Cary, NC, who has been in the same seat for over a decade. Her explanation for staying is worth sitting with. Cary runs a centralized IT organization. That means her team owns public safety CAD, ERP, public works, traffic systems, permitting, and more. The scope is wide enough that the job has never stopped changing, even without a title change. She came from private sector. Eight years at Fidelity before deliberately pivoting to government in 2007. She's thought carefully about what innovation actually looks like when procurement takes longer and the risk tolerance is lower. Her current answer on AI is a three-part framework: generative tools for knowledge workers, workflow automation for bottlenecks, and an internal AI infrastructure she calls a "cognitive city" model. She could have handed everyone Copilot and checked the box. She didn't. "The goal is that that model allows for something for everyone. They can choose something, nothing, or all of them." On developing her team, she's sent groups through startup accelerator programs, not to build companies, but to shift how they think. She wanted them to stop seeing themselves as implementers. She's an introvert who forced herself to network, and always brought someone from her team with her. People she invested in have since moved into CIO and CSO roles. When I asked about AI and workload, she didn't predict relief. She predicted more work, not less. "We're never going to outrun capacity. It just gets faster and faster, and there'll just be more of it." https://lnkd.in/g25GQny7

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