Business transformation, AI, and being agile and strategic w/ Anita Zielina & David Judge

How do companies adapt and utilize new technologies to move business models forward? Are companies adopting technology for tech sake instead of for strategic goals? How can we cut through the noise to determine what new technologies are aligned with your company?

In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Anita Zielina (Director of News Innovation and Leadership at Craig Newmark J-School at CUNY) and David Judge (Vice President, SAP Intelligent Enterprise Solutions). We talk to Anita and David about the role of leadership in business transformation, proof of concept fatigue, and how organizations can be more agile. We also get into incorporating diverse voices in tech, navigating a future where a company’s focus is constantly shifting, and whether the Net Promoter Score (NPS) is at all worthwhile.

“Being in a decision-maker role...doesn't mean you have to understand every technological development in detail because no one can know. It's not your role as a CEO, or as a COO to understand every detail in depth, but it's your role to be able to make educated assessments of what to invest in, what not to invest in, and how to change your organizational culture.” -Anita Zielina, Director of News Innovation and Leadership at Craig Newmark J-School at CUNY

“You can put a hammer in somebody's hand if they don't know how to use it, they're not going to accomplish anything much less build a house.”-David Judge, Vice President, SAP Intelligent Enterprise Solutions

Connect with us:
@IBMthinkLeaders
@Zielina
@DHJudge

BIOS

Anita Zielina is the Director of News Innovation and Leadership at Craig Newmark J-School at CUNY. In that role, she is responsible for all executive education at the school, training media leaders of the future in business model innovation, change management and product thinking. She is an experienced digital media executive with a focus on digital transformation, change processes and innovation management. Before that, she was Chief Product Officer and member of the management board at Neue Zuercher Zeitung Media Group in Zurich, Switzerland, where she was responsible for all digital products. She held leadership roles as digital editor and deputy Editor-in-Chief at STERN, the German weekly news magazine published by Gruner+Jahr in Hamburg, Germany, and worked as a reporter and editor at the newspaper DER STANDARD and its digital platform derStandard.at in Vienna, Austria.

In 2012, Anita was the first Austrian journalist selected for the fully funded one-year Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, dedicated to entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership in journalism. There, she did research on innovation management in media and user engagement. In 2018, Anita was a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, focusing on issues around leadership in media. Anita holds an Executive MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and a Master in Law from Vienna University. She lives in NYC with her husband Klaus.

David Judge is VP of Intelligent Enterprise Solutions at SAP, and drives solution strategy for SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation. As an executive focused on innovation technologies, David guides product strategy and market awareness for multiple topics including machine learning, automation, and conversational AI. Prior to joining SAP, David was Practice Leader for Artificial Intelligence in the Emerging Business Accelerator with Cognizant, and Executive Director for Artificial Intelligence market development at IPsoft.