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

Latest Episodes:

Valeriya Ionan on Ukraine’s Digital State Vision, Diia, and Innovation During War Sep 08, 2025

Show notes

Ukraine’s Digital Revolution: From Warzone to Innovation Hub

In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High speaks with Valeriya Ionan, Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine on Innovation, Digitalization, and Global Partnerships. Previously Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Valeriya played a pivotal role in launching Ukraine’s groundbreaking Diia ecosystem and driving the nation’s goal of becoming the world’s most convenient digital state.

She shares how digital public services, AI-driven education, and defense-tech innovation are reshaping Ukraine’s future, even in the face of war. With partnerships spanning global governments and tech giants, Valeriya offers a masterclass in crisis-driven transformation, digital infrastructure, and building agile government at scale.

Key insights include:

The evolution of Diia: from IDPs to e-marriage to war bonds
Scaling drone production from 7 to 500+ in three years
Ukraine’s “Win-Win” Innovation Strategy and defense tech surge
The rise of the CDTO and building a digital-first public sector

Baxter CIO Rusty Patel on Connected Care, Resilience, and AI Value Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

Resilience is earned, not given. In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High speaks with Rusty Patel, Chief Information Officer at Baxter, about leading IT through one of the most consequential 13-month periods in the company’s history.

Rusty reflects on Baxter’s mission to save and sustain lives, the resilience required to restore operations after natural disasters, and the CIO’s role in both enabling innovation and enforcing enterprise discipline. He shares insights into simplifying a complex IT ecosystem, building financial acumen across the org, and advancing connected care and AI across Baxter’s portfolio of 1.5 million devices and 350 million patients served annually.

Key topics include:

How Baxter IT responded to floods and cyber incidents without a playbook
Rationalizing thousands of systems to reduce IT cost-to-serve
Creating segment-aligned tech leadership and shared services
Applying AI to connected care and enterprise transformation

JLL CTO Yao Morin on AI, Data Strategy, and the Future of Real Estate Sep 01, 2025

Show notes

Can AI transform a 200-year-old commercial real estate company?

In this episode, Peter High speaks with Yao Morin, Chief Technology Officer of JLL, a $24B global commercial real estate leader. Yao shares how she is leading JLL’s AI and data transformation which is reshaping how buildings are operated, how software is developed, and how employees work.

Yao details how JLL is building customer-facing AI products like the JLL Property Assistant, driving cultural change through AI literacy programs, and launching internal tools like JLL GPT that already see 17,000 daily users. She also explains why she believes Scrum teams will shrink, engineers will code less, and AI adoption will soon be table stakes across industries.

Key topics include:

AI strategy across internal and external JLL platforms
The APEX program for AI-driven software engineering
Metrics for measuring AI impact beyond efficiency gains
Ethical AI design, data privacy, and client trust

Greylock Partners’ Asheem Chandna on First-Check Investing, Founders, and the Age of AI Aug 29, 2025

Show notes

Where is software value heading in the age of AI?

In the premiere episode of Technoventure, host Peter High speaks with Asheem Chandna, General Partner at Greylock Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s most storied venture firms. Asheem has led early investments in industry-defining companies such as Palo Alto Networks, AppDynamics, Rubrik, and Abnormal Security.

With over 20 years at Greylock and a background in product management and cybersecurity, Asheem offers a masterclass on how he assesses founders, identifies breakout potential, and mitigates risk—often before a single line of code is written. He also explores the evolving dynamics of enterprise software, the impact of agentic AI, and how cybersecurity must adapt to combat both bad and good AI.

Key themes include:

Assessing founders in a world of younger AI entrepreneurs
The changing nature of enterprise software and data platforms
The immigrant’s mindset and risk tolerance in venture
The venture capitalist’s evolving toolkit in the AI era

Learn more about Greylock’s AI-native security investments, including Abnormal Security, a leader in protecting enterprises from modern email and collaboration attacks.

Apple in China: Financial Times’ Patrick McGee on Tim Cook, Scale, and Risk Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Apple’s success in China is more complicated—and consequential—than most realize.
In this episode, Peter High speaks with Financial Times journalist and author Patrick McGee, who covered Apple for years and recently published Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company. Patrick’s reporting reveals how Apple became deeply intertwined with China’s manufacturing and political landscape, why the company’s investment strategy mirrors the scale of the Marshall Plan, and what it means for America’s technological and geopolitical future.

Patrick explains how Apple trained tens of millions of Chinese workers, enabled critical industrial know-how, and inadvertently supported the rise of China’s tech and military capabilities. He also discusses the internal tensions between product design and supply chain mastery, Tim Cook’s evolution as a CEO, and the risks of Apple’s continued dependence on a single nation for its most critical operations.

Key insights include:

The little-known “Gang of Eight” and Apple’s in-China-for-China strategy
Why Apple’s $275B China deal dwarfs U.S. tech investments like the CHIPS Act
How Apple’s success helped catalyze Huawei’s resurgence and HarmonyOS
The supply chain realities that make shifting manufacturing nearly impossible

How Shez Partovi Is Driving Patient-Centered Innovation and AI Strategy at Philips Aug 25, 2025

Show notes

“Great innovations are painkillers, not vitamins.”
In this episode, Peter High speaks with Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer and Chief Business Leader of Enterprise Informatics at Royal Philips, a €18B global health technology leader. Shez shares how Philips is building people- and patient-centric innovation by partnering with healthcare providers, co-creating solutions, and scaling software and AI-driven insights to meet the growing demands of modern care delivery.

A former AWS health exec and practicing neuroradiologist, Shez offers a unique lens on the convergence of tech and clinical practice. He outlines how Philips’ software-first strategy is accelerating productivity, reducing clinician burnout, and expanding access to care while also navigating AI trust gaps and reshaping internal engineering practices.

Key themes include:

The strategy behind Philips’ health tech transformation
AI’s role in automation, augmentation, and agility in care delivery
Co-creation with health systems to drive scalable impact
Philips’ dual-speed innovation model (80% business-led, 20% moonshots)

Vijay Sankaran on Digitizing Johnson Controls and the Future of Smart Buildings Aug 21, 2025

Show notes

How can AI, digitization, and data create smarter, healthier, and more sustainable buildings?

In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High welcomes Vijay Sankaran, Chief Digital and Information Officer of Johnson Controls, a global leader in smart building technologies. Vijay shares how he’s leading enterprise-wide digital transformation across a $23B company while scaling platforms like OpenBlue to optimize energy, equipment, and workplace performance.

He unpacks how traditional machine learning, generative AI, and agentic workflows are converging to deliver predictive insights, autonomous actions, and tailored digital experiences. Vijay also reflects on trends in hybrid work, his journey to board membership at Veralto, and why quantum computing is on his innovation radar.

Key topics include:

AI-driven optimization of HVAC, energy use, and building health
OpenBlue’s role in unifying smart building systems
Applying generative and agentic AI to customer and employee experiences
Trends in workplace utilization and digital transformation at scale

Chris Isaacson on Resilient Market Infrastructure and Tech Leadership at Cboe Aug 18, 2025

Show notes

“Resilience is a mindset.” Chris Isaacson, Chief Operating Officer of Cboe Global Markets, joins Technovation host Peter High to discuss how the global exchange operator delivers trusted, 24/7 markets through technology, operational excellence, and a deeply integrated data strategy. A founding employee of BATS Global Markets and former CIO of both BATS and Cboe, Chris reflects on his two-decade journey scaling from startup to enterprise. He shares insights on building fault-tolerant platforms, organizing global teams for growth, and navigating crises like the flash crash and COVID with calm, systems-level thinking. Chris also explores the future of exchange operations, from AI-powered security and timestamping services to data commercialization and agentic software development.

Key themes include:

Building hyper-resilient, globally consistent trading infrastructure
Lessons in leadership from startup growth to post-acquisition scale
Cboe’s unified data platform and timestamping innovations
The future of exchange technology with GenAI and software agents
Cybersecurity as the #1 enterprise risk, and how to lead accordingly

Executive Talent in the Age of Transformation | Summit May 2025 Aug 14, 2025

Show notes

How are companies redefining what it means to be a technology leader?

In this episode of Technovation, we feature a panel recorded at our most recent Metis Strategy Summit, where Steven Norton moderated a discussion on executive talent and leadership transformation. Panelists include Joon Yoon, Global Co-Head of the Tech Officers Practice at Egon Zehnder; Tony Leng, Managing Partner at H.I. Executive Consulting; and Eric Sigurdson, Head of the CIO Practice at Russell Reynolds Associates.

Together, they explore how evolving business needs, AI, and shifting workplace norms are reshaping the archetype of modern tech leaders and the boardroom roles they’re increasingly poised to step into.

Key insights include:

Three emerging archetypes of technology executives
Why self-awareness and “leading from the inside” matter more than ever
The growing boardroom presence of tech-savvy leaders
How AI is changing C-suite titles, expectations, and accountability
The shift from operational excellence to customer-facing innovation

How Breakthru Beverage’s CIO Is Building an AI-Ready, Data-Driven Sales Engine Aug 11, 2025

Show notes

How do you digitally transform a leading beverage distributor across 16 markets?
In this episode of Technovation, host Peter High speaks with Glenn Remoreras, Chief Information Officer of Breakthru Beverage Group, a family-owned company with $8.6B in annual revenue and operations across the US and Canada. Glenn shares how he is driving innovation, scaling AI adoption, and modernizing the company’s sales and operational processes.

From expanding a $500M+ B2B e-commerce platform to building data architecture that fuels AI innovation, Glenn outlines his strategy for becoming the distributor of choice in a competitive industry. He also reflects on lessons from global leadership roles and offers insights into fostering AI literacy across an organization’s executive ranks.

Key topics include:

Breakthru’s digital marketplace and AI-powered sales enablement
Cloud transformation and enterprise data strategy
Building a culture of AI literacy and scalable use cases
Innovation operating models and business-led technology partnerships
Leadership lessons from working in Asia, Europe, and North America

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