Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)

Latest Episodes:

Why CIOs Make Great CEOs: Saul Van Beurden’s Leadership Playbook Nov 03, 2025

Show notes

1025: What does it take to go from CIO to CEO? For Saul Van Beurden, tech leadership was the ideal proving ground.

Now CEO of Consumer, Small, and Business Banking at Wells Fargo, Saul shares how his background in IT helped him lead at enterprise scale. In this episode, he speaks with Peter High about the strategic, operational, and cultural mindset shifts that enabled his rise—and why CIOs are uniquely positioned to lead beyond technology.

Key topics explored:

Translating technology leadership into enterprise-wide strategy
Lessons from operating at scale in risk-heavy environments
Building customer-centric AI and data foundations
Driving channel parity across digital, branch, and contact center
Creating pathways for talent through neurodiversity hiring

How Norfolk Southern Measures Real Impact from AI and Data Oct 30, 2025

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Where is AI actually moving the needle in industrial operations?

In this episode, Anil Bhatt, Chief Information and Digital Officer of Norfolk Southern, shares how the $12B freight rail company is turning AI into measurable value without overhyping its potential.

Topics include:

A disciplined approach to AI deployment with measurable ROI
Norfolk Southern’s “3 As” framework for enterprise data strategy
Copilot adoption to augment associate workflows
Lessons from customer-centric redesign of freight experiences
The role of AI in enabling safety, resilience, and transformation

Balancing Innovation and Risk: AI Leadership at T. Rowe Price Oct 27, 2025

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What does it really take to scale AI responsibly across a global enterprise?

In this episode, Ramon Richards, Chief Technology Officer at T. Rowe Price, shares how his team is advancing AI capabilities with discipline and speed—balancing innovation with the need for risk controls, data readiness, and workforce enablement.

Ramon unpacks T. Rowe Price’s multi-pronged approach to artificial intelligence, from founding an AI Labs function to piloting autonomous agents, all while modernizing infrastructure and investing in talent development.

Key topics include:

Building an enterprise AI strategy with embedded risk and legal oversight
Launching “ChatTRP” to enable AI access across the organization
Preparing data and cloud architecture for scaled GenAI use cases
Developing human-in-the-loop frameworks and change management tactics
Piloting agentic AI to explore the future of autonomous workflows

Barry Eggers on How Lightspeed Uses Learning Investments to Find the Next Big Thing Oct 24, 2025

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How can venture investors consistently identify the next breakout market?

Barry Eggers, Founding Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, reveals the firm’s thesis-driven approach to venture capital of using early “learning investments” to test conviction, then scaling fast into emerging markets before the crowd arrives.

In this episode, Barry shares insights from Lightspeed’s foundational bets in enterprise tech, Snap’s billion-dollar rise, and how the firm built multi-company portfolios around early themes like flash storage and analytics.

Key highlights include:

Lightspeed’s strategy for placing early bets to gain market insight
The story behind the firm’s $500K Snap investment and $1B+ return
Why EQ matters more than technical depth in founder partnerships
How globalization and secondaries have reshaped venture economics
What it takes to defend against competition in the AI era

The CIO as Matchmaker: How América Móvil Finds and Scales External Innovation Oct 23, 2025

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What if your innovation team operated more like a venture fund than a lab?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Andres Vazquez, Chief Digital Intelligence Officer of América Móvil, about how he leads open innovation at scale, evaluating thousands of companies a year to drive customer value, operational efficiency, and revenue.

Key topics explored include:

How Andrés acts as a “VC without capital” inside a $46B telecom
Why América Móvil avoids trendy tech experiments without clear ROI
Three strategic filters for external innovation: revenue, efficiency, and CX
The company’s infrastructure advantage in the AI age
Lessons from building a telco empire alongside Carlos Slim

Turning Buildings into Energy Assets: Manish Kumar on AI-Powered Infrastructure Oct 20, 2025

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Is your infrastructure ready to flex?

In this episode of Technovation, Manish Kumar, EVP of Digital Energy at Schneider Electric, explains how buildings can become interactive energy assets with the help of AI, real-time data, and distributed energy systems. He shares the strategy behind Schneider’s Energy Command Center model, which reduced energy use by 25 GWh across 23 buildings, and outlines how AI can be deployed both locally and enterprise-wide to drive sustainability and efficiency.

Key highlights from this conversation:

Why net-zero infrastructure is already feasible today
How buildings can interface directly with the grid
The role of AI in building comfort, performance, and resiliency
Examples of command centers transforming energy operations
Public-private collaboration opportunities through transparency

AI Needs Power: Duke Energy CIO on Fueling the Future of Data Centers Oct 16, 2025

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What happens when the CIO responsible for powering AI also has to manage its energy demands?

Richard Donaldson, SVP & CIO of Duke Energy, joins Technovation to discuss the unique position utilities now face: supporting exponential growth in data center power needs while simultaneously using AI to optimize grid performance, customer experience, and internal operations.

In this episode, Richard and Peter explore:

The intersection of AI and national energy infrastructure
How one data center can require as much power as a nuclear reactor
Strategies for responsible AI rollout and internal enablement
Customer journey innovation in a highly regulated industry
Why the utility CIO role is now central to digital transformation

Building a Scalable Tech Org at Worldpay: Kirk Ball’s Carve-Out Playbook Oct 13, 2025

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What does it take to build a high-performing IT organization from scratch while navigating a carve-out, preparing for IPO, and pivoting into acquisition?

In this episode of Technovation, Kirk Ball, Chief Information Officer at Worldpay, shares his 15-month journey leading digital transformation, tech modernization, and cultural reinvention at a global payments company doing business in 135+ countries.

Ball reflects on the leadership decisions, cloud strategies, and AI integration efforts that helped stand up a scalable, resilient tech function, even as plans shifted from IPO to M&A.

Key Highlights:

How Kirk tripled Worldpay’s IT team post-spinout from FIS
Where AI is driving internal productivity and enterprise search
What it takes to build tech culture through transparency and inclusion
How to lead through uncertainty—while keeping operations stable
The CIO’s role in M&A readiness, from day one to long-term integration

John Chambers: Former Cisco CEO on Why AI Will Move 5x Faster Than the Internet Oct 10, 2025

Show notes

Former Cisco CEO John Chambers returns to discuss why AI is scaling faster than any tech wave before it, including the internet. Now the CEO of JC2 Ventures, Chambers shares lessons from advising 24 AI-native startups and offers a strategic lens on how leaders, companies, and countries can win or be left behind.

In this episode:

AI’s “5x speed” vs. the internet
How La Poste retrained 220K workers on AI
Why 60–70% of Fortune 500 firms may disappear
Chambers’ M&A playbook from 180+ acquisitions
The U.S.-India innovation corridor
Risk, reinvention, and why CEOs must lead from the front

Inside Experian’s Innovation Labs: Agentic AI, Fraud Defense, and the Road to Quantum Oct 09, 2025

Show notes

How is Experian transforming from a data company into a technology-first innovator?

In this episode, Kathleen Peters, Chief Innovation Officer at Experian, joins Peter High to reveal how her team is scaling Generative AI, agentic AI, and behavioral analytics to fight fraud, streamline decisioning, and make advanced modeling accessible to everyone.

Kathleen shares how Experian’s global Innovation Labs evolved from blue-sky R&D to delivering real-world impact, from the Experian Assistant, a natural-language AI that can build models in minutes, to cutting-edge behavioral analytics that distinguish humans, bots, and AI agents in real time.

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