Paul Vall CIO, Papa Gino's Pizzeria

How long at current company: Almost two years

Most important career influencer: The president of a former employer, Charlie Way. His integrity, business savvy, and even temperament defined the model within which I work.

Decision I wish I could do over: I've never been so happy in a position as I am at Papa Gino's. Anything positive or negative throughout my career has defined the path leading me to where I am today. I can honestly say I wouldn't change anything.

Best advice for future CIOs: Be open to change. Be engaged in the business every day. Don't work in isolation from the management team. Understand the value the organization provides to customers. Understand the strategic priorities of the business.

The next big thing for my business will be ... leveraging IT through performance systems. Without that, companies will never fully understand how they're doing, what has happened to create a certain business challenge, and what steps they can take to quickly address challenges.

How I measure IT effectiveness: By putting the right infrastructure in place to distill consistent financial and operational information that increases efficiencies and provides management with improved visibility into daily performance.

IT budget (approximate): $4 million

Size of IT team: 15

Top three initiatives:

• An online ordering system that will integrate with our existing point-of-sale system to make online orders show up in the restaurants as if they were placed in-person at the front counter.
• Evolving our operational business intelligence deployment. We're in the implementation phase of "management by exception," which is a best-in-class approach to information management. To improve the satisfaction of our guests, the goal is to take the key metrics that matter to the business and report only those that fall outside acceptable thresholds, incorporating positive and negative parameters so we can capitalize on success and quickly address any challenges.
• Replacing our home-grown point-of-sale system, which feeds financial and operational data back to corporate systems, over the next year or two.

Colleges/degrees: Furman University, bachelor of arts in classical Greek

Smartphone of choice: BlackBerry Curve

Best book read recently: The Stand, by Stephen King

Leisure activity: Volleyball

Last trip: Costa Rica

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be a chef living in Italy.