Interview Questions, and a few answers..

Please explain how we will benefit if we were to hire you in this position as (VP IT, Director, Divisional CIO, Consultant). Leadership and a spirit of innovation are only a means to an end. By hiring me into your organization, you will see immediate positive results in your vendor relationships, your staff’s morale, and in the systems reliability for which I am responsible. My commitment to mission and continual excellence creates and sustains a culture of flexibility and change rooted in a proactive approach to risk management and delivery excellence. My teams and I will get the job done as assigned, and in many cases we will exceed your expectations thus enabling your business to embrace opportunities which would be lost under others’ leadership.


How has your education, past work experience, and/or other life experience prepared you for your career? Diversity, discipline and delivery are all hallmarks of my background. From my childhood and formative early years in rural Southwestern VA to the concert halls and streets of NY and Europe, to the classrooms of the Darden School at UVA, I was taught and embraced the concepts of accountability, decisions, and preparation for constant change. Understanding that change is constant, yet finding creative ways to get the job done, I have consistently delivered on a track record of successes. I attribute my successes to my work ethic, my people based approach to leadership, and to continually raising the bar on results. Every day becomes an opportunity to experience, lead and grow as a person, thereby contributing to my community, my company, and my world.

What do you believe are your strengths? My strengths are my intense passion and my acute awareness of my environment coupled directly with my dedication to disciplined decision making and transparent leadership. I bring people together and we move ahead because we understand our shared purpose, and how each will contribute to the final product. Energizing and encouraging my staff/team makes the difference when we have to deal with the storms and problems.

What do you believe are your weaknesses? What have you undertaken to address these weaknesses? My strengths double as weaknesses and my trust and reliance on people first sometimes creates exposures for delivering results. I do trust my instincts and my gut and I rely heavily on people to do the right thing and continually pursue excellence. My trust but verify model has matured greatly over the years but leading and trusting is an ongoing art as much as it is a science. I am committed to continual feedback from my staff, from coaches, and from my colleagues. I take action on suggestions, keeping what delivers results and discarding what does not work for me.

What do you consider to be the single most important idea you have implemented in your current position? How did you advance this idea so that it would be accepted? At (Fortune 200 Corporation) I was given leadership of a reactive, project based organization which was constantly reeling from one project to another. I refocused the staff and delivery partners on a proactive approach to balancing value and stability with single point accountability for results at the project manager and program manager levels. By using a subtle combination of process maturity, personnel changes, and compliance audits I was able to quickly gain support of both the delivery staff, the LOB leadership and the key executives who recognized the perspective change. We moved from an issue a day, to a model of identifying what might happen and then communicating and solving for problems before they occurred. The adoption of the proactive mindset and its adoption by the project managers changed everything about HR IT systems from reputation, to confidence, to efficiency. The perspective change laid the foundation for every successful release, and every successful transaction that occurs even today as we are transitioning to a service based operation/application manager model and away from project delivery as our core competency.

Describe your decision-making process in important matters? Decisions and strategy revolve around total cost of ownership balanced with function and future demand. I gather information via repeating rounds of questions which my staff answers in briefs and presentations. I utilize an analysis model which requires objective analytics and metrics but accounts for the subjective assessments of my staff with weightings and balanced scorecard approaches. I prefer to make decisions with consensus of my staff, but I am willing to set goals forward and lead even when everyone doesn’t agree on the direction.


What are your short-term and long-term goals? I am motivated to make a difference and deliver results wherever, and however I work. I am a social entrepreneur who is passionate about changing the world, particularly the musical world through business and innovative approaches to education and the arts. I seek stability and a platform from which I can lead others while participating in a technology aware leadership team which values innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.

Describe the most recent and successful system integration effort that you were required to lead. In 2009, (my Fortune 200 Corporation) acquired (a subsidiary)and HRIT was asked to lead the way in the systems integration on an intense and extremely aggressive timeline. We successfully integrated the 5000+ new associates into the platforms and processes and decommissioned the ancillary systems on-time and under budget. We experienced the normal issues with connectivity, access controls, data migration and policy consolidation but in nearly every instance we were able to utilize my teams’ playbooks from previous acquisitions and quickly remediate issues. This success was due in large part to mature relationships with business partners and the experience and professionalism of the HR IT analysts, and program leads.