Pearl Zhu

Pearl Zhu

Business Management: CEO, COO, Chairman, President

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Sunnyvale, ca

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PaulM just commented on in IT Performance

As an aside, Fast Company just posted a great article about coding for non-coders and the unnecessarily opaque nature of programming languages http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665735/why-arent-computer-programming-langu...

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 03:24

PaulM just created content Big data, NoSQL and shared-nothing

“The good news is you’ve got the CEO’s attention, the bad news is that you’ve got the CEO’s attention”...

Resonate with you? If so, then I wouldn’t want to be a managing a team of DBAs unless they're prepared to break with the past and start with a clean sheet of paper and re-imagine how they think about data.

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 22:37

mdavis10 just rejected Pamela to network

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 21:55

jdobbs just created content Leading when you are not in control

“Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.” -John C. Maxwell

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 21:05

Jerry just accepted quoccuong to network

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 20:04

jdobbs just commented on Thanks Bill for a in IT Performance

Thanks Bill for a thought-provoking discussion.

I believe that the mistake we make is in framing the question as an either/or one. I would submit that in order for a CIO to be effective in today’s environment, they must demonstrate competence in three areas. These are technical savvy, business acumen and leadership ability.

All “C-level” executives with line responsibility are expected to be competent in their discipline. The CFO, for instance, is expected to know the laws and regulations that govern financial practices, to understand how to both interpret and explain financial reports, and is expected to assume overall responsibility for the integrity of the data that is reported to governing and regulatory authorities.

C-level executives are also, by definition, officers of the corporation and, as such, have shared responsibility for the overall management of the enterprise. In my last CIO role I served as a member of the executive committee which was chaired by the CEO and included the CFO, the Chief Commercial Officer, The Chief Compliance Officer, the General Counsel and the head of Human Resources. We, as a team, assumed collective responsibility for the overall management of the corporation. To be successful in that role requires business acumen. As you pointed out, one of the key roles of the CIO in this capacity is to serve as a “translator” of complex technological concepts into understandable and relevant information for other executives.

Finally, leadership ability is important because ultimately the successful CIO must coordinate the work of several complex disciplines ranging from security to operations and the various business and customer-facing components of the organization.

IT organizations, and the CIO role in particular, are facing a series of what Clayton Christensen calls “disruptive innovations” in the form of cloud computing, SaaS, smartphones and tablet computers, to name a few. A strong combination of technical leadership and business acumen will be required for CIOs to be successful in this new world. One of the challenges for CIOs in the future will be leading when they are not in control. That, coincidently, will be the subject of my blog post this week.

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 16:48

CIO as Chief Inspiration Officer: Ten “I”s Elevator Pitches

Tue, 03/26/2013 - 22:56

Too often the perception is that the CIO is a glorified geek. The reality is that the CIO is one of the most important executive roles in the organization. The person in that role must be business savvy and not only understand the vision of the company but also be able to help formulate it. Here are ten highlights on the “I” in CIO’s title:

CIO’s Journey: From Transaction to Transformation

Sat, 01/12/2013 - 18:20

Majority of businesses today are on the journey to digitalization and globalization. The reason is that the world is becoming smaller everyday and as a consequence every successful business has to sooner or later go beyond borders. At the same time the global business landscape is only becoming more complex due to varied factors. And it is in this context that Organizations build business verticals within to manage the complexity. So the logical concerns could be: What kind of IT leaders are on demand? Transformational or transactional? What’re differences between Transformation vs.

Three Perspectives for 2013 & Beyond: “SMAC”K the Old Business Mindset

Wed, 12/19/2012 - 18:26

It’s almost the end of year again, many business and technology predictions popped up, it seams 2013 is too close to read tea leaves again as we did last year, to evoke full picture of imagination, a few forward-looking organizations start contemplate what will be happening in 2020: How big is big Data; how “mega” the city would be, will talent mobility continue to dance cross the globe, or the cloud keeps flow through the digital universe., etc….

IT 2.0 & HR 2.0: From Transaction to Transformation

Sun, 11/25/2012 - 16:52

IT and HR have many things in common, HR is taking charge of the most valuable asset – people in organization; and IT is custodian of business’s life blood, the other crucial business asset – information; at digital era, both IT & HR functions are short of business’s high expectation, and not get well-respected in organization, since they have been perceived as cost center, rather than value center.

Five steps to prioritizing IT projects

Sat, 10/20/2012 - 16:49

IT project priority is critical for many organizations, as most of IT organizations are still at lower level of maturity, being perceived as cost center, slow response to business’s request, spend most of resources on “Keeping Light On”, it’s a department usually under-budget, overloaded with projects assignment, and with reputation on over-promise and under-delivery.