When Jim Swanson rejoined Johnson & Johnson as chief information officer in 2019, after nearly 15 years away from the pharmaceuticals giant, he set three major goals.
Swanson sought to modernize J&J’s technology, ensuring the business had the right foundation of systems and data to propel a business worth over $375 billion today. He also wanted to “innovate for impact,” meaning he didn’t just want to invest in the latest buzzy technology, but instead focus on technologies that would ultimately support better health outcomes.
For his third goal, he found inspiration in his own education. At Drexel University, Swanson earned a bachelor’s degree in bioscience and biotechnology, as well as a master’s degree in computer science. He’s drawn to the combination of science and technology, and that’s led him to encourage J&J’s 130,000 workforce to add tech skills that are relevant to their area of focus.
“If you apply technology, coupled with people’s domain expertise, you can really reimagine and innovate versus just incrementally improve,” says Swanson, who was previously CIO at Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, and for J&J’s pharmaceuticals arm. “We’ve seen a lot of value in thinking about bilingual skills, even to the point that we build it into career paths and career journeys.”
To be bilingual, as Swanson defines it for the purposes of our conversation, is to have domain expertise as a scientist, or in departments from finance to marketing, and combine that knowledge with relevant tech insights. For such upskilling, employees can take interactive classes or watch videos that have been developed by J&J and external vendors.
Swanson shared a few examples of how bilingual employees are imperative to J&J’s success and the company’s mission. One is a research and development scientist who takes time to learn how to apply models that make it easier to identify molecules and can then accelerate research within a clinical setting. Another is a training specialist who adds augmented reality expertise and can therefore teach surgeons far faster than using traditional methods. Yet another is a finance employee who’s adept at using forecasting models and can leverage them to drive meaningful insights that can support J&J’s business goals.
With forecasting, a mere one to two percentage point improvement in accuracy can create as much as $1.5 billion of financial improvement to a $90 billion company like J&J, Swanson says. “That is material for the company,” he argues.
And while upskilling J&J’s workforce to better understand artificial intelligence is a priority, Swanson says adding tech skills is a lot broader than AI. Augmented reality and new technologies that help reimagine J&J’s manufacturing processes are important too.
As part of its tech education push last year, J&J hosted its first global “day of learning” for all employees. It’s also had success more broadly, getting nearly half of its workforce to use the company’s internal learning platform, J&J Learn. Meanwhile, employees using J&J’s digital boot camp—courses that explain the fundamentals of AI, automation, data, and more—have completed nearly 30,000 courses. And around 20,000 workers have taken a generative AI training course, which is required for those who want to leverage that technology.
To foster a culture of learning, Swanson partners closely with senior leaders across J&J, as well as human resources chief Peter Fasolo, to align on the training content and tech skills the company wants for its workforce. Swanson first tested his vision to connect tech know-how with domain expertise within his own department of around 4,000 employees, before expanding his learnings to other corners of J&J.
“We’re on a journey for sure and we’re not done,” says Swanson. “We have a lot more to do. And I wouldn’t say we have perfection, but it really has taken momentum.”
John Kell
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NEWS PACKETS
U.S. & U.K. Partner on AI. The two nations have signed a pact on AI, becoming the first countries to formally work together to assess and test the risks from emerging AI models, the Financial Times reports. The agreement will allow both countries to work together to evaluate private AI models built by the likes of OpenAI and Google and was modeled on past collaboration on matters related to intelligence and security.
Executives are planning ahead on AI anyway. Amid an uncertain global regulatory landscape on AI, companies are moving forward with their plans to build and deploy AI, and CIOs have been combining their best practices around customer data with a bit of guesswork to make AI applications regulatory friendly, reports the Wall Street Journal. Executives are preparing for regulations that could vary by nation—and even state to state. In the U.S. Alone, over 500 different pieces of AI-related legislation have been proposed.
Microsoft’s Teams and Office gets unbundled. The tech giant said that customers who buy an Office subscription beginning this week won’t get the videoconferencing app Teams with the service. The Associated Press reports the decision to unbundle the two software tools came after an investigation triggered by a complaint filed in 2020 by Slack Technologies, a rival to Teams that is now owned by Salesforce. Slack had alleged that Microsoft had been abusing its market dominance in violation of European Union laws by combining Teams with its Office suite.
ADOPTION CURVE
More than two-thirds of security professionals acknowledge they're at least partly reactive when it comes to security, with the main reason being that they are being pulled in too many conflicting directions (61%). Existing software being deemed "not good enough" was the second reason listed (29%).
The survey of 1,500 employees—including 500 IT security professionals—was conducted by 1Password, which, to be sure, has a financial incentive to sell password management tools to clients. But with data showing the average cost of a cybersecurity breach rising by 15% in 2023 from three years earlier, CIOs must work to prove the value of keeping security risks in check.
JOBS RADAR
- Sprinklr announced the appointment of Amitabh Misra as chief technology officer, effective April 1. Misra will lead all R&D teams globally, including product and engineering. He will report directly to Sprinklr founder and CEO Ragy Thomas.
- F5 Inc. Announced Kunal Anand as CTO and executive vice president, reporting to CEO and president François Locoh-Donou. Most recently, Anand held the dual roles of CTO and chief information security officer at Imperva.
- King has named Eric Bowman CTO, reporting to King president Tjodolf Sommestad. Previously CTO at TomTom, Bowman has 30 years of experience driving technology solutions, including roles at Glint Groupe, Zalando, and Electronic Arts.
- Qualtrics announced the appointment of Juan Rodriguez as CIO. He brings three decades of experience in engineering, systems, and process design, most recently as CIO at Cloudflare and EVP for product operations at Sage.
- Peraton has appointed Tom Terjesen as CIO. In his role, he will be responsible for leading Peraton's IT organization and its strategy.
- The city of Philadelphia has appointed Melissa Scott as CIO, where she will lead the city’s office of innovation and technology’s strategy and initiatives. Scott has served Philadelphia since 2015 as an IT director and IT project manager.
- Versapay announced that Gaby Kozakov has been appointed as CTO. Kozakov previously served as VP of research and development at Revuze and has deep expertise in AI and machine learning.
