Shopping Centers Today

SEP 2017

Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)

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34 S C T / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7 was far more basic. "The IT guy used to be the nerd with the pocket protector and locked in a closet somewhere," said Adam Stanley, global chief information officer at Cushman & Wakefield. "I would fight like crazy to avoid technology proj- ects early in my career, because I did not want to be labeled a technology guy. Fast-forward 20 years and it's totally dif- ferent: Today the assumption is that the guy that walks in the room with the cool jeans and the blazer is the technology guy. Who'd have thought that 20 years ago?" Today's information officers have attained something akin to rock-star status in part by speaking the language of business — value-building, return on investment and similar terms — rather than merely adhering to a focus on tech wid- gets. "We don't do technology projects, we do business proj- ects," said Ken Sayward, vice president and chief information officer at Marcus & Millichap. "It's business first, so my CIO position is driven from that, and then the technology com- ponent is underneath it." No longer just some obscure silo, the tech division is now typically viewed across the company as an equal partner to every other department. "A big part of my job is working collaboratively with people who have spent a lot of time in this industry, and I often tell my colleagues that magic hap- pens when they can bring their commercial real estate exper- tise, and I can bring our nerd and geek hats to the table, and then we can create magic," said Chandra Dhandapani, CBRE's chief digital and technology officer, who serves on the firm's global operating committee. Shaun Smith, senior vice president and chief information officer at Phillips Edison & Co., which has some 340 gro- cery-anchored shopping centers, agrees. "The role inherently becomes more strategic within our company, because we are asked to be involved with every department to learn their business processes and how they can make them better," said Smith. "This has turned the technology department into more of an asset, instead of just being that necessary evil that rolls out security patches." We don't do technology projects, we do business projects. It's business first, so my CIO position is driven from that ... VEREIT Chief Information Officer Jim McCarthy

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