Career Track

How long at current company? Six and a half years

Career accomplishment I'm most proud of: My tenure at Jackson Family Enterprises, home of Kendall Jackson Wine Estates. Before I came here, the average CIO tenure was 15 months to two years. I've been able to maintain consistency within the department, which gives us a high level of performance. Now we're able to establish an IT strategy that matches the business.

Most important career influencer: I had a boss, Ron Anderson, and we had a fun time consulting for city and county governments. He had a different style than mine--he was a jokester and really made customers feel at ease. He started meetings with stories and jokes, which made customers very comfortable.

Decision I wish I could do over: I would've liked to have gone back to New York after graduate school to work at a bank or investment firm instead of staying in San Francisco and going straight into IT consulting.

Vision

The next big thing for my business will be ... business analytics, enterprise geographic systems, and selling more wine directly over the Internet. We also will see more use of technology in the vineyards to track irrigation, sugar levels, field activities, etc.

Best advice for future CIOs: Be a businessperson first. You have to understand how to apply technology to business problems and apply solutions.

How I measure IT effectiveness: We measure our success on whether we hit particular project goals.

On The Job

IT budget: All told, including capital and operating budgets, about $20 million

Size of IT team: 50

Top three initiatives:

Personal

Colleges/degrees: Engineering/applied science from Harvard; MBA in finance from Stanford

Book read recently: Retire Retirement, by Tamara Erickson, which illustrates how you never actually retire and instead remain connected.

Leisure activity: Golf

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be ... general manager of a professional baseball or basketball team.