Lisa Schlosser VP and CTO, Westlaw Business

How long at current company: 21 years

Career accomplishment I'm most proud of: I've been able to build a technology team and culture through acquisition and new growth, extending the team to three times its size in less than a year. From day one, I've had a seat at the business table with first-time views into sales and marketing. Our team was also the winner of the company's prestigious Presidential Award in 2007.

Most important career influencer: Mr. Heise was my mathematics teacher in high school. I thank him for making sure our class knew how to solve story problems. To this day, no matter what the problem, I write down everything I know about the situation and draw lots of diagrams.

Decision I wish I could do over: There were definitely a few "do-overs," but never a regret. As in college exams, it's the wrong answers that stay with you the longest and bring you out of your comfort zone, serving as learning experiences in the next relevant situation.

Advice for future CIOs: Nothing will advance progress better than a good relationship with business partners. Our best collaboration occurs when technology and product designers discuss those features that are expensive to implement as well as options to accommodate similar or improved functionality. It lets us hit our milestones with delivery of compelling products.

The next big thing for my industry: Our company builds products for the legal community, which tends to be a rather conservative market. With the wave of new legal pros coming in who will have never known a time without texting and social networking, it will be an exciting challenge to understand how these Web 2.0 technologies can provide productivity gains to the legal business community.

Would you steer your kids toward a technology career? Most definitely. The analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills acquired through math and science courses are invaluable no matter what their final choice of career may be. Kids are fearless with new technology. I hand my son my digital camera or iPod, and he shows me 10 new features I didn't know I had. I can't wait to see what innovations they'll help drive 10 to 15 years from now.

Size of IT team: More than 60 people across five locations

Top initiatives:

--Platform globalization: Extending our software platform intelligently to accomodate global business requirements.

--Efficiencies of scale: Meeting the challenges of process and software development methodologies that worked in a smaller environment but now must adjust to extended business partners, increasing capacity demands, and reduced spending.

--Strengthen customer focus: Institutionalize our Customer 360 process through extended customer analytics and improved customer experience.

Colleges/degrees: St. Mary's University in Winona, Minn., with BA degrees in mathematics and computer science

Leisure activities: College basketball, March Madness (go Gophers!), and running

Best book read recently: Information Architecture by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova... what is it about vampires these days?

Smartphone of choice: I like the BlackBerry Storm's visual voicE-mail feature and Web surfing, but the verdict's still out on the touch-screen typing

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be... a starving artist