Join us as we we discuss the importance of knowing your purpose and following your passion. Our guest shares his personal journey as a CIO, the importance of understanding and supporting individual team members in their career and work-life balance, and the value of business acumen and the benefits of getting out of your comfort zone to learn about the organizations you support. Tune in for valuable advice and inspiration on building a successful and fulfilling career.
Guest: Chris Caruso, Former VP and CIO for PPG (retired), Advisor, University of Pittsburgh [@PittTweet], Advisor, Carnegie Mellon University [@CarnegieMellon]
On LinkedIn | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-caruso
Host: Dr. Rebecca Wynn
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/rebecca-wynn
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Episode Description
In this episode of the Soulful CXO, Dr. Rebecca Wynn welcomes Chris Caruso, retired VP and CIO of PPG, after almost 24 and a half years of service. He shares insights on his successful career in IT, including national and international recognition for his IT organization. He discusses his transition to a distinguished advisor role, where he mentors students and researches the future of IT leadership.
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Resources
Christian Family Care Agency: https://cfcare.org/foster-care/
The Children's Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center: https://www.childrenshomepgh.org/
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Dr. Rebecca Wynn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Soulful CXO. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Wynn. We are pleased to have this today, Chris Caruso. Chris is the recently retired former VP and Chief Information Officer for PPG. For almost 24 and a half years, he was with them, where he was the leader of the IT organization, which received national and international recognition, including CIO 100 Award for Information Technology Innovation and Foundry's Computer World. Best places to work in IT. He is a co inventor on five patents for the use of digital technologies to assist consumers in the digital paint color selection and purchasing process. Today, he is distinguished advisor to companies, CIOs, and IT professionals. He has established a mentoring program for students and alumni at the University of Pittsburgh school of Computing and Information.
He also advises students in the Information Systems Program at Carnegie Mellon University. And he conducts research on the [00:01:00] future of information technology leadership. Chris, it's great to see you again. Welcome to the show.
Chris Caruso: Thank you so much, Rebecca. Thank you for asking me to join your audience and share my story.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Can you tell us a little bit about your career? How that went? And how's the transition and going to your new chapter?
Chris Caruso: Yeah, it is. It is a transition. As you listed a lot of accomplishments there those all came. Through a lot of a lot of other people, as you can imagine. I I entered university very, really quickly.
I entered university back in 1977. I went to the University of Pittsburgh and my goal was to major in political science, become a lawyer of all things. And I learned very quickly. Probably my first month that was not what I really wanted to do. And someone tapped me on the shoulder and said you have to check out these computer [00:02:00] classes that they have over at the computer science department.
And as they say, the rest is history. So I Graduated in 1981 really just the 4th class out of PIT in Computer Science and went to work for a company in Indianapolis and worked in Connecticut, get back to Pittsburgh and work for Westinghouse Electric for 14 years before I joined PPG in 1996, and I would tell you throughout that career, I always had people tapping me on the shoulder and suggesting to me the next assignment to take right. The here's an opportunity that you may not be thinking about, but it probably would be good for you to have that experience and there's even up to the very last rule that I had before I became the VP of IT and CIO at PPG, I had that kind of guidance in my career, which [00:03:00] in turn will be forever grateful for. And when I retired one of the things that I decided to do is I needed to pay that back there were a lot of people that helped me throughout my career.
And as a result for the last couple of years, I've been focused on those things that you just listed doing a lot of mentoring, doing a lot of advising speaking and writing to help share as much as I can with others, regardless of where they are in their journey, whether they're thinking about entering the computing field, whether they're in university and working through what kind of area they want to focus on, Or they're actually a professional in our field and need help as they grow through their specific career area.
That's where I'm focused right now in all my energy.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Do you find that there's been a huge difference [00:04:00] over the years on people looking at their journey? A lot of times now people are looking at can I even stay in a job for 18 months or 24 months anymore? Just because it seems to be a high turnover, not only with the person, not feeling maybe that the job is allowing them to grow into the person they want to be, but also those companies maybe just not having the dedication anymore. So I find, I see that there seems to be a lot of unrest in individuals. Are you, do you see that too, when you mentor?
Chris Caruso: Yeah, I, working for a company like I did for 24 years is rare. And I think we're going to see less and less of that. I always joke, our oldest son is in the family business.
He's a, an IT consultant and I can see his journey is a lot different. Than what mine was. And you're right. It's the incentives to stay are different than today than they were when I was growing up in the field. But I've talked to a lot of [00:05:00] CEOs. You don't have those issues.
And that's because these are some of the leaders who know how to have a great workplace, right? Who know what it is to, motivate their specific employees and they understand. And this is something I found is different today, where as a leader, you need to understand what motivates your team, not just from a professional standpoint.
Now that's, given, but also from a personal standpoint I think there's a lot of need to understand time spent with family and other things other than work. And so having that balance, and I think we all know the pandemic really drew attention to that even more, but really understanding what is it that your team member wants to get out of this role working on your team.
And where do they want to grow their career knowing that and understanding that and supporting that I think [00:06:00] is really essential. When I mentor people, the 1st question I asked them to think about between the 1st session and the 2nd 1 is what do you want to be known for? And it's it's not what do you want to be famous for?
But what do you want to be known for? What is it that you're so passionate about? that it's obvious to everybody that you want to be a great leader, maybe great technically, a great communicator, or even personally, maybe you want to be known for someone who contributes to their community or to their church or your family is, a priority.
And for me, I want to make sure that whether I'm the leader of the organization or the mentor or that individual, that I'm doing whatever I can. To help them be successful at that, which they are so passionate about that they want to be known for.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: How do you balance that? I know at times when I should say a lot of times when I am running teams, I try to go ahead [00:07:00] and see what energize them as an individual.
A lot of times what they energize as an individual doesn't match up what their position is. And I've helped people transition. Out of their position and out of the organization to do their love. I think life is too short not to do what you're passionate about. That might not always go over really well with the companies I work with, but I think that's for the greater good.
So how do you usually manage that when you find out that they're not following their passion? They're not following what actually lights them up, what energizes them.
Chris Caruso: Yeah, and I've had actually that conversation with. Family members. And I think it's to your point. If you struggle getting out of bed in the morning.
To go to work because you aren't able to pursue your passion. That's not only not good for you. It's not good for the people that you work with. It's not good for the firm that pays you because your results are probably not going to be reflective of what the expectations are. I encourage people to think [00:08:00] about those things that you're passionate about.
And if your employer supports you In that great. If they, if you want to grow in your career and you want to get good in one particular area or another, maybe you want to be in a leadership position and they support you on that journey. That's great. But if they don't, then that's probably the fork in the road.
That's the opportunity. I think you need to really ask yourself, is there someplace that will in fact do that for me?
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: One of the challenges as well, too, is it's one of the few times I think that we've either had, 4, you want to count 5, different generational viewpoints that are in the workforce simultaneously.
And you can have all 5 of those on your team. How do you suggest that people manage that? Effectively, I find that sometimes generation Z, I think that's what they're called a lot of times they want that career progression and every 3 months they want that new promotion where a lot of times you might have people who've been [00:09:00] longer in their career and they realize that it takes time.
It takes time to really become an expert in the field. How do you manage those? How do you suggest people will try to manage that more effectively in the team? Because I know that's a big struggle right now.
Chris Caruso: Yeah it, I'm sure it is. And I think it really starts, there's two sides of it. First is it goes back to this idea that you have to treat everybody in your team as an individual.
That you can't apply the same rules across the entire group and expect that everybody wants the same thing in terms of their career or their work balance life. And so it starts with really understanding each individual. And I know for me it's. My I start by asking people more about their personal perspectives.
But the reality is for especially for workers that may have expectations that may not actually be good for themselves that they want to advance at a rate that is. Far [00:10:00] faster than as a leader is good for them that you need to have that honest, frank conversation that you really need to spend this much time or develop these skills and mastery of these particular skills before it really makes sense for you to move on and make sure that they understand that because too often we allow people to move up before they're ready.
And then they eventually top out because they weren't fully developed or fully baked as I like to say in their development of their skills and that's. Where it's not in their best interest to move at a rate that's, not good for them.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I think part of the thing coming from a governance risk compliance standpoint is, especially for me being like an a CISO in most cases, or data protection officer or something along those lines, maybe the trust officer, there's a lot of regulations. give you titles that you need a person to be versus the attributes that you need to have in that position. [00:11:00] You find that a little less in the CIO, but one of the things I see too right now, it seems like the CIO CTOs are converting to CIO.
Is a project manager converting to a CIO? Is a CISO converting to a CIO? As much angst we have with having CISO light, it seems like at times the CIO. Isn't well defined anymore either, maybe with the bigger companies, but not necessarily at the medium and the smaller companies. Do you see that as well?
Chris Caruso: Yeah, so I think what I've certainly seen in the past decade is that the role of the CIO has changed, I think, significantly from one that was more inwardly focused and technology focused inwardly, meaning inwardly focused on the IT organization and being much more business focused.
The assumption is that you understand everything there is to understand about the technology organization and what [00:12:00] you where you can provide the most value is in fact being a business person 1st, who happens to know technology. And I think that's been a significant change and the CIOs that I talked to who are really successful what they do, they are business first leaders, they're also people first leaders and technology seems to come somewhere later on on that list of priorities.
So I think those are the skills. That I think make a better CIO in the long run.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I know you just mentioned right there, but having business background, but what are, what aspects of a business background do you think is most beneficial for the people who are younger CIOs as in younger in their careers, CIO, or people who are aspiring to be a CIO what things should they be trying to learn?
Whether they can learn directly in their company or get a mentor or something like that to actually learn those skills that can help them be a better CIO in the future. What would you suggest that they do? [00:13:00]
Chris Caruso: Yeah, so I think from a business acumen standpoint, you certainly need to understand the financial aspect of what it is that you do and how you make money if you're in a, an organ, a money making organization, not a nonprofit, but you really need to know what sort of makes the the company run so that you can figure out ways in which the technology organization can help make that happen. One of the things that we like to do it and I certainly encourage people is to get up out of their cubicle, their home, whatever it is, and go to where others in the, in your respective organization work. So if you travel with a salesperson, you go to a warehouse, you go to a plant, you understand how that works.
If you are in the retail industry, you spend time. Working at the store. It doesn't mean [00:14:00] that, you have to stay within a particular segment, like the paint industry your entire career, like I came out of but it just means you need to learn the business and you need to take every opportunity you can to get out of your organization outside of your cubicle, your office, and learn what it is the business is, that you are supporting.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: One of the things I've done as a CISO and, great CIOs that I've had out there, we've been, wanted to roll up their sleeves. I've had times where it's been call center operations that I went for three days in the call center operations. This is what's happening with the calls taken in.
This is a script. This is the technology that's working. Here's the technology that's not working. and going through that process step by step. Not from a judgmental standpoint, but literally almost like you're an intern or something like that, or a new person on the day in the job by doing that. I think it helps if you do that with a variety [00:15:00] of positions.
Did you do that as well when you first start out your career? I find that's missing a lot of times. A lot of times companies want you to start and want you to solve all the problems like today. And you're like, I don't know the business yet.
Chris Caruso: Yeah. And yeah, and I, Absolutely did do that in my career.
My 1st few roles, I actually worked at a plant. So I got to see close up how we made product and what it took to do that. When I was in a, role that had a big sales focus, I spent a lot of time not only traveling with sales peoples are going out for the day, seeing how they call on customers, meeting the customers we sold a lot of our coatings and paints through distribution.
Not directly to a body shop, but to a distributor, then went sold it to a body shop. So I would go to the distributor here. They're pain and angst that they go through both terms of running their business, but also maybe [00:16:00] even dealing with my company. And then I would go to the body shop to understand what their challenges were, what their pains were in trying to get their job done, and maybe even using our products.
And that's what helped me to better understand, how we could bring technology to bear. And I oftentimes talk about innovation and some of the skills that you need to do that. And, this idea of, what, what's called observing is absolutely essential to do that. So whether you're doing that for an end customer or somebody in a warehouse within your company you need to, go see that and experience it and understand their pain.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Obviously, you're on another portion of your career now, but how were you able to keep your health and your wellness and your resiliency up? Because that's always a challenge, right? People don't want to burn out and you've had career that's been able to weather that, which not everybody can do that.
So how [00:17:00] did you do that so successfully?
Chris Caruso: I don't know how successful, cause my number one priority, Rebecca, when I retired was my health. My family and my faith and focusing on those 3 before anything else, because these jobs do take a toll on you and you do be able to reflect and have some other perspective.
I'm very fortunate. I have a a wonderful wife who is still mentors me today as well as throughout our 35 years of marriage. But I also had a really good. network of friends at work, as Gallup likes to call it. If you ever take the Gallup engagement survey they ask the question, I have a.
Do you have a friend at work? And I had quite a few of those that when times got really hard I needed to vent or check to [00:18:00] see whether or not I was looking at the right way. And I had somebody could tell me, if I was wrong, that was very helpful. I also had a great network of other CIOs.
That I could call upon and that so from a mental health standpoint, that's I believe is absolutely essential because these jobs are always very challenging, both mentally and physically, I think you've got to have the discipline from a physical standpoint, health standpoint, you to, actually keep up after it.
And I have people in my life who encouraged me to do that.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Do you have outside interests as well when you're a CIO that you're able to do? I know that was a 24 seven, but one of the things that I do is I play trombone and I continue to try and play trombone is one of my outlets. Did you have any outlets along those lines that you try to keep your life as balanced as possible.
Chris Caruso: Yeah we like [00:19:00] being busy and in our family. I have a, my personal hobby is bread baking. And so I've been baking bread for 40 years now. And but you can't do that all day long, every day, especially in retirement. But the other big part of our lives that, my wife and I, participated is we, actually just concluded 14 years.
Of being foster parents for newborn babies. So while I was in my, in the midst of my career we were taking in newborn babies, 15 babies to be exact over those 14 years. And I like to say next to raising our own sons, it was probably the most important thing that we did. Together in our married life together.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: That is amazing. I don't foster kids. I do have a dog that I adopted. But I do go ahead in the Christian Foster Care. I do go ahead [00:20:00] and support them regularly. Do you have any great stories that stick out to you? Is you ever, a lot of times you do as individuals, we give. But we don't always hear back how impactful that is have you been fortunate to go ahead and see a positive ripple effect from all the foster care that you've done?
Chris Caruso: Yeah, I first of all I think when you, have these babies in your home, it helps keep everything else in perspective, right? Work, life, everything else, and you really focus on these individual children. One of the things that I would tell you, people would often ask us why do you do this?
What's your purpose for being foster parents? And I tell them, first of all, it was a calling for my wife for a long time. I actually I was the one who was hesitant to get started because I knew some of the challenges that we would [00:21:00] face with it. But we also do it for the mothers who are, I believe, incredibly brave to make the decision to have these babies, then even more courageous to make that difficult decision to put them up for adoption.
And then last but not least, we are there for those babies. We want to make sure there's absolutely no gap in their lives where there wasn't somebody there. Who love them. And, as much as you have that purpose, it's easy to forget, right? And the number one question we get asked isn't it hard when you have to hand the baby back over, whether to the the birth parents or to the adoptive family.
And I tell people it is absolutely excruciatingly difficult. It's really super hard. But the other thing that I would tell you that would make it hard to always remember your purpose of [00:22:00] why you wanted to be a foster parent is usually after several nights without sleep. And you have a crying baby who just won't go back to sleep and you're sitting there three o'clock in the morning wondering what was I thinking about when we decided to do this?
But I'll tell you a story of 1 of these 15 children. She came to us without a name. We named her Claire Marie. And when she was adopted, her parents named her Maddie. Maddie is now 12 years old, turned 12 in August. And when she first started school, her parents went to her open house and said we have to tell you this story when we went to her open house, her teacher pulled us aside.
And said I asked all the students to paint a picture of their family and Maddie painted this picture and I, knew she was the only child, but there are six adults in this painting and I asked her [00:23:00] to tell me who those adults were and she said, Oh, that's easy. That's the first two are my parents.
The next two are my birth parents, and the last two are Chris and Janice. We have that picture, and that will always and forever be my reminder of why we spent 14 years With these children in our home. And I think that's something we all need to do in our lives, whether it's personally or professionally, is remember why we chose to do what we did.
If we're leaders, if we're CIOs or CXOs, why did we wanna be that? What is it that, took us on that journey? And don't forget that. 'cause I think that's absolutely essential to help keep us focused.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: That's a great story and is great that she has such a great perspective that it's not just [00:24:00] her current mom or dad, but these other people who Are really part of her family and care about her.
I love that you don't always see that people have that perspective. And it's great that, that you're having that, that you've had that positive ripple effect. I think that's the one thing for me is I like to try and be a positive ripple effect in the world at all points in time and know that can be a generational ripple effect.
So definitely congratulations and kudos to you and your wife. And I know you guys have done that from a pure heart. It's amazing that you did that being a CIO as well, too, that’s awesome.
As we move forward and into this new year and the year going forward, what words of wisdom encouragement can you have for them about as they try to strategize their life?
And as they think now, after they've listened to us for the last 20 some odd minutes about being a positive ripple effect, not only for themselves, but for their family and those who touch, what would you [00:25:00] encourage them to do, or how do you encourage them maybe to look at things a little differently?
Chris Caruso: Yeah, I think I'll go back to my earlier point around knowing what it is that you're passionate about and knowing that what your purpose really is. And I think as, people are taking off, I think, around this time of year and gives you an opportunity to really reflect on what's really important.
And as you start the new year, I certainly Would encourage people to really think about that and how they want to have an impact whether it's in their personal life or in their career and how they can actually have that kind of ripple effect that you just described, I'll just add one thing in particular, because, when you retire, people say things that maybe you.
You didn't know got through to them. But [00:26:00] I because I retired during COVID, they had to produce a video of people saying goodbye to me, which was lovely because I get to have that forever, but it's. It was for me, incredibly rewarding to hear people say things that, helped me understand that I did have an impact while I did that.
And I think you don't always know that until it's later on. Maybe after the fact, but I think I would just encourage people to know that if you follow your passion and you do what you what we, refer to in our house doing the next right thing, you will have an impact, you will have, whether it's with the people that you work with, or the people in your community.
You will have an impact that somewhere down the line is going to impact other people and they'll pay it forward as well.[00:27:00]
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Well Chris, thank you so much for being on the show. We appreciate your perspectives, your insights, and your encouragement. Encourage everybody to go ahead and make sure you read through the description.
That's where you'll have Chris's contact information. Please remember to like subscribe and share the show. Make sure you go ahead and subscribe to the Soulful Insights Newsletter as well. And please give us your comments and your feedback. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or reach out to me through the show.
Again, Chris, thank you very much for being on the show.
Chris Caruso: Thank you so much, Rebecca, for having me.