Kristie Grinnell is an award-winning senior transformation executive with extensive experience driving change and elevating IT’s role in delivering business value. She leads business transformation including defining IT strategy for new digital capabilities, streamlining operations, improving overall efficiencies, and enabling an IT environment which produces innovative offerings to customers on a worldwide scale. She has driven strategic differentiation in cyber risk, AI implementation, data governance, IT operations, supply chain, and mergers and acquisitions. She also has redefined IT as an influencer in the business and serves as strategic partner to deliver value for customer engagement.
In addition to her current role, Kristie is a Member of the Board of Directors for The Cyber Guild (chairs its premier event, Uniting Women in Cyber), Chair Emeritus of the Capital CIO Advisory Board (National Chair for Inspiring Women, a special program of the Inspire Leadership Network), Member of the Advisory Council for STEM for Her, and Member of Women Leaders in Data and AI (WLDA) (Talent & Leadership Development Council).
Some of her recent awards include CIO to Watch in the U.S. 2024 (AIM Research), Top 100 Women in Tech (Technology Magazine), Top 25 Women Leaders in Consulting (The Consulting Report), Top 100 CIO in the US (Wire19), 100 Executive Women in Tech to Watch in 2023 (Womentech Network), 2023 Cyber “Warrior” Award (Cyber Guild), 2023 Sustainable IT Impact Award: Social Impact (SustainableIT.org), National CIO of the Year ORBIE 2021 (Inspire Leadership Network), and Capital CIO of the Year ORBIE Award in 2020.
In an exclusive interview with the CIO Magazine, Kristie shared her professional trajectory, insights on the importance of diversity and inclusion in tech, personal sources of inspiration, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Kristie. How did you first become interested in technology and what propelled you into it?
I’m an engineer by degree. Early in my career, technology with IT as we know it was just becoming a big thing. Email was just coming out when I came into the workforce, and as I graduated Business School, the concept of B-to-B and B-to-C portals became a part of our working world. And I just happened to have a business partner at PWC who said, “Kristie, you have an engineering background, and you have all this business training. Will you help us start our portal strategy and methodology?” So, I just jumped right in.
Throughout my career I have chosen roles where I know my role and the technology I enable drive value for people, customers, and my business. I have been at DXC since 2021. We are passionate about how technology and people come together, and bringing innovation into peoples’ everyday lives, whether it’s working with transportation companies to keep passengers moving; working with health care providers to enhance patient care; or even helping financial services companies to innovate and improve the customer experience. Among the talent of 130,000 globally and consultants with deep industry expertise, we drive the value of technology in shaping our customers’ digital transformation journey, especially now in the evolving era of AI.
What is your favorite part about working at DXC Technology?
My favorite part is our people. We have 130,000 amazing people across more than 60 countries, focused on simplifying complexity for the mission-critical work for our customers.
Having colleagues that bring a diverse perspective — from the number of years they’ve worked to the countries they come from — is a real asset and strength and we harness that power of diversity to deliver for our customer solutions. We deliver innovation, engineering talent, and unmatched industry knowledge to customers, with operational excellence at scale and with the highest level of security, reliability, performance, and compliance across four key focus industries: Financial Services, Public Sector, Automotive & Manufacturing, Healthcare & Life Sciences and Airlines.
How have you seen the role of the CIO change in the last 5-10 years, and what changes do you see on the horizon in the years ahead?
The CIO used to be the person who was keeping the lights green in the back closet, and you just needed the stuff to work. I think we saw, especially with COVID, how important technology was; that it’s not just there to keep the lights green, but it’s there to run your business, and can really become the key enabler of your business.
So, the CIO role has changed from being this really technical person who could follow all the cables and wires, to this strategic business leader who’s really thinking about how we can bring technology as a solution to solving key business problems.
And that’s what’s so exciting to me, and especially now, when you think about the onset of Generative AI. Let’s be real, AI has been around for decades, and we are now seeing what we can do to leverage its possibilities. AI innovation is the golden thread in everything we do for customers on their transformation journey.
We now have Generative AI, which has fast-forwarded so many things that we’ve all been trying to do and that’s just going to continue to change. We are in the infancy of this technology, and we are going to see it just explode ahead.
When you think about that, on the foundation we’ve all been building with data and automation and now with Generative AI… really, the sky is the limit. Especially at DXC, because we have these 130,000 brilliant people who can really think about how to bring that technology to life. It’s really going to be exciting to see the different solutions that we put in front of our customers regardless of the industry. We are working within those industries to deliver customized solutions to solve their unique challenges on the transformation landscape.
With AI, we are leading into an uncharted chapter of data that will require proper governance, data protection and integrity.
What do you think are the new technologies and cultures/methodologies which will define the future workplace, and what do you think is the role of the CIO in helping design and deliver these?
Definitely Generative AI, but truly it’s anything that’s going to continue to help us become this more data-driven organization. And what I mean by that is, we have automated ability to see insights and foresights from our data into the future through automated process and technologies. So, bringing Generative AI across all of that is going to be key.
We see ourselves doing that, as well as many of our customers, and the role of the CIO is helping to see the art of the possible in using those technologies to solve real business problems; to think about how we might solve problems or provide insight and foresight into our business landscape using these technologies; thinking about how data works for the business; and how we can become a more efficient organization for our business partners. In the unique position we have at DXC, running the world’s most innovative businesses transformation and innovation journey, bringing together the art of the possible with secure multi-cloud environments, driving efficiency with AI and delivering value with their data. This is a launching point for our customers. Speed and knowledge will matter for how you bring this all together.
With respect to cultures and methodologies, this is where that diversity really means something, because if you had 10 Kristies around the table, you’re still going to get Kristie’s answer. But if you have a Kristie and other people at the table, you’re going to start with one answer to a problem, and then we’re going to continue to build on it, and we’re going to get to the best answer for that problem. We build that by creating a culture where we invite diverse voices and perspectives, and we listen to those voices at the table. We’re really going to get to the best solution, and not just a solution.
Is there a particular person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are?
I would say it’s the mentors, which I refer to as my Board of Directors that I have in my life. I’ve always had amazing mentors who don’t give me the answers, but who challenge me in very different ways to think about what’s next in my career, and what I need to think of next. It’s a Board of Directors who acts as my sounding board when I need one, be it a technical issue, a business issue, a career issue, or whatever the case may be. Having that circle of people around you who help lift you up and be the best you, you can be, really can help you to do anything.
What does the term “authentic leadership” mean to you?
Being yourself, but also being vulnerable. You know, I am Kristie. I am a mother of three college kids, the wife of an amazing husband. I have two dogs and I have parents who are aging and all of that comes to work with me, and sometimes I need to be vulnerable and say this is who I am, and what I am. But in doing so, it allows my team to open up to me and help understand them, and then we can come together and do anything.
What are your thoughts on diversity and inclusion in tech? How important is it to have authentic conversations with leaders, professionals, and changemakers to create more acceptance across the globe?
This is my passion. I believe that it takes everyone – everyone’s voice matters; everybody’s opinion matters; the characteristics we see on their face, but also the characteristics internal to them– are the things that help us get to the best solution.
I’ve seen it over and over again. For example, we had a cyber intern who came in and helped us to solve a problem we’d been looking at for over a year, just because she asked why in a different way and it brought a new direction to light. That fresh perspective, those fresh eyes, that different point of view makes a difference around the table. By encouraging us all to listen to those voices, we are always going to be better off for it, in getting to a better answer.
And it’s my job as a leader to make sure that we’re empowering all those voices to be heard and that their voices matter and that we take that into consideration as we’re building a team; as we’re hiring for a new role; as we’re thinking about that next solution that we bring together.
For example, our DXC Dandelion Program to support neurodivergent individuals; that’s where everybody’s abilities contribute to a successful outcome and help us to do great things. We have a lot of roles that go unfilled because we just don’t have the traditional talent that we think fills that, so we need to start getting creative and thinking out of the box. That includes thinking about neurodivergent people; that’s thinking about different genders. That’s thinking about how to bring as an example, women back into the workforce.
We always talk about bringing women up through the pipeline, but how do we bring them back into the workforce once they left to go have a family and you know their career stalled or technology surpassed them? It’s our job to do that.
The same is true with veterans. In the work that they did, how do we transition them from working in that space to coming into the civilian space? It’s our job to make sure that we think about how to make those transitions happen; to embrace a workforce and a workplace that finds the value in doing that and making it easy for them rather than everybody else having to fight their way in.
We are proud of our approach to diversity and have received industry recognition for it, including receiving the 2024 Autism Inclusion Company of the Year award by Disability:IN, and we have been named one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for 2024 by Newsweek.
What are some of your passions outside of work? What do you like to do in your time off?
It’s really changed over the last year with my kids going away to college. I’m an empty nester, so I had to rethink what am I passionate about outside of work. Besides really thinking about women in STEM and bringing that workforce together, I like to golf, kayak, play pickleball and hike. I love to stay active and be outdoors.
In addition, I sit on an advisory council called STEM For Her, which is all about bringing girls who are under resourced to the STEM field, helping them learn what the career possibilities are. I sit on the board for Cyber Guild, which is all about building cyber into everyday life for national security, and I serve on the Uniting Women in Cyber to help to educate and bring more women into the cyber field. These are just things that I do because I know they’re important.
Which technology are you investing in now to prepare for the future?
AI, AI, AI. AI. We know that embracing AI is at the heart of our own enterprise and our customers’ strategy. There is tremendous appetite for innovation in the market, as clients are looking to transform in the era of AI. Yet, they are grappling with questions of AI know-how — data governance, security, regulations, and more. They need a partner they can trust who can take them on this journey securely – we have been on that innovation journey with nearly half the Fortune 500 as clients and our commitment is centered at trust and innovation, together.
What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?
At DXC, we are driving this digital transformation with deep engineering and industry expertise.
My personal career goal is to be sitting on a Board so I can bring a new perspective from another company, and also bring my perspective from working at a large global company like DXC, to the benefit of others in various industries.
At DXC, we help drive mission-critical operational excellence at scale with security, reliability, performance, and compliance. We help our customers to transform their business and maximize efficiency through innovation, automation and AI capabilities. This is valuable perspective for another company to learn from as well.
Given your experiences and achievements, what advice would you give to aspiring technology leaders who aim to make a positive impact in their organizations and the industry as a whole?
Be curious. Technology has never moved faster than it is now. Gen AI is showing us that. We’ve seen how many iterations of ChatGPT come out in such a short amount of time, and it’s changing the way we work.
The second piece of advice is to take a risk. You need to manage this business and that means you need to weigh the pros and cons of doing things and be willing to take some risks and look at what you can do. That’s risks in yourself as well as for your corporation. Sometimes you must make big bets in order to continue moving forward.
And then the last thing is just to be yourself. We need all people to come and be themselves so that we can learn from one another and that we can leverage those best talents so that we can continue to drive a great organization.