Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)
Subscribed: 397Played: 21,818
Subscribe
Description
Twice-weekly conversations with top executives and thought leaders at the intersection of business, technology, and innovation. Each episode of Technovation explores the technology trends that are transforming business, and the leaders driving digital change inside their organizations. Produced by Metis Strategy and hosted by firm President Peter High, Technovation is the premier podcast for IT and technology professionals with the largest collection of interviews with elite CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs.
888 Episodes
Reverse
Is AI evolving beyond software into a new form of digital labor?
In this episode of Technoventure, Peter High speaks with Sandhya Venkatachalam, Co-Founder and General Partner at Axiom Partners, about the next phase of artificial intelligence.
Sandhya argues that AI is moving from a tool that assists humans to systems capable of performing entire jobs, from data science to network engineering. This shift could expand AI’s economic impact far beyond traditional software markets.
Key topics include:
Why AI is transitioning from software tools to digital workers
How Axiom Partners is building an AI-native venture capital firm
Opportunities for AI in industries like construction, legal, and infrastructure
The importance of creating insanely useful and usable products
How founders can build companies serving billions of people globally
Enterprise leaders are investing heavily in AI, but many struggle to generate measurable business value.
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Kellie Romack of ServiceNow about how the company is scaling AI across its operations to produce real, quantifiable results.
ServiceNow has already generated $355 million in AI-driven value internally, with automation resolving many service requests instantly and improving operational efficiency across the enterprise.
Key topics include:
How ServiceNow runs its own platform internally as Customer Zero
Examples of AI resolving 90% of some IT service requests on first touch
Why AI governance and oversight are essential at enterprise scale
How automation transforms the workforce rather than replacing it
Lessons for CIOs seeking real ROI from AI investments
Healthcare systems have traditionally been designed around individual encounters, not the patient journey.
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Rajan Mohan, Chief Marketing and Digital Experience Officer at Ascension Health, about how digital platforms, marketing strategy, and AI are reshaping how healthcare organizations engage patients.
Drawing from leadership roles at Marriott International and Qatar Airways, Rajan explains how consumer-grade experience design can transform healthcare delivery.
Key highlights include:
Why healthcare must shift from encounters to coordinated patient journeys
How marketing and digital teams can align around shared growth outcomes
The role of AI in expanding healthcare capacity
How personalization removes barriers to accessing care
Why pricing transparency matters more than faster appointments
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Stephen Witt, award-winning journalist and author of The Thinking Machine, which has been named Business Book of the Year by Financial Times. Witt writes about Jensen Huang’s improbable journey from near-bankruptcy in the 1990s GPU wars to leading NVIDIA at the center of the AI revolution. Witt unpacks how NVIDIA defeated nearly 70 competitors, why Huang began targeting “zero-billion-dollar markets,” and how CUDA became the backbone of modern AI.
Key highlights from the episode:
How investing in zero-billion-dollar markets created durable platform advantage
The emerging bull and bear cases for NVIDIA in robotics, edge computing, and global competition
The strategic lessons NVIDIA extracted from surviving a 70-competitor GPU market
Why operating with a constant “near-death” mindset shaped long-term execution discipline
What happens when you put revenue and technology under one executive leader?
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Drew Pinto, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue and Technology Officer at Marriott International, a $26 billion hospitality leader approaching its 100-year anniversary. Pinto shares how Marriott is transforming technology from a support function into a strategic growth engine — tightly integrated with capital allocation, AI experimentation, and commercial outcomes.
Key highlights include:
Why Marriott merged revenue and IT under a single executive mandate
How disciplined capital allocation is shaping AI investments
The shift from “tech for tech’s sake” to measurable business impact
Why most “technology problems” are actually data problems
How a new product operating model is breaking down silos
🎧 Listen to learn how modern CIOs can align IT strategy directly to top-line growth.
Is AI just another tech bubble or the defining platform shift of this era?
Duncan Davidson, Co-Founder and General Partner at Bullpen Capital, argues that the answer lies in one critical distinction: Is the technology being used for its core purpose? In this episode of Technoventure, Duncan draws on his experience across the PC boom, dot-com era, mobile, and now AI to explain why real adoption signals durability.
He also explores why CIOs can’t afford to sit out a boom, how AI agents may disrupt the SaaS model, and why history suggests productivity revolutions create more opportunity than they destroy. For technology leaders navigating board-level AI pressure, this conversation reframes the question from timing the bubble to strategically participating in the inflection.
Key insights include:
Why core-use adoption determines whether AI is hype or a true platform shift
Why leaders must participate in tech booms rather than try to time the peak
How to distinguish defensible AI innovation from fragile “wrapper” plays
What historical signals indicate when a technology boom is nearing exhaustion
How do you scale AI in a regulated enterprise without risking trust, compliance, or credibility?
In this episode of Technovation, Nick Colisto, CIO of Avery Dennison, and Sathish Muthukrishnan, Chief Information, Data & Digital Officer at Ally Financial, share how they are moving from AI pilots to measurable enterprise impact.
From governance-first implementation inside a federally regulated bank to CFO-grade ROI tracking across a global manufacturing enterprise, this conversation focuses on the discipline required to operationalize AI at scale.
Key highlights include:
Why one AI misstep can set a regulated enterprise back years
How to win over risk, audit, and compliance before scaling
Embedding “human-in-the-loop” safeguards from day one
Measuring AI-enabled initiatives using EBIT and IRR
Taking credit for AI embedded in SaaS platforms
If you’re leading AI in a regulated or board-visible environment, this episode offers a pragmatic blueprint for scaling responsibly.
🎧 Listen to learn how CIOs are turning AI experimentation into enterprise value.
Can trust be engineered into digital systems or is it purely cultural?
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and author of The Seven Rules of Trust, about designing platforms that scale without sacrificing integrity. From neutrality policies to radical transparency and human-in-the-loop AI governance, Wales shares how trust must be built, not assumed.
Key highlights from the episode:
Why trust operates at a human scale, even inside global platforms
How incentives shape behavior, and why ad-driven models distort integrity
Lessons from Airbnb’s early trust crisis
Managing generative AI with human oversight
Neutrality as a strategic discipline in polarized times
Is AI really eliminating jobs, or is it redefining skills?
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Ehren Powell, Chief Digital Officer of Marathon Petroleum Corporation, about leading digital transformation at one of America’s largest and most complex industrial enterprises. Powell shares how he is building a skills-first organization—decomposing roles, augmenting capabilities with AI, and reassembling work around differentiated processes.
Key topics include:
Why AI should be treated as a value multiplier—not a strategy
How data contextualization unlocks massive sensor environments
The creation of data domain ownership across the enterprise
Applying edge technology and AI to improve safety and reliability
Why curiosity and reinvention define the future workforce
You can’t scale AI on fragmented data.
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Ogi Redzic, Chief Digital Officer of Caterpillar, about the foundational platform transformation that made rapid AI innovation possible across a $65B industrial enterprise.
Ogi shares how retiring legacy systems, consolidating data into the Helios cloud platform, and establishing trusted data pipelines enabled CAT Digital to launch an enterprise AI assistant in just 10 months.
Key topics include:
Building Helios to process millions of data pipelines daily
Turning unplanned downtime into predictive maintenance at scale
Scaling $5B in industrial e-commerce
Partnering with NVIDIA on edge AI and digital twins
Aligning digital teams to measurable business outcomes
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Saam Motamedi, General Partner at Greylock Partners, about the evolving role of artificial intelligence within the enterprise technology stack. They discuss how venture capital approaches enterprise AI companies at an early stage, how large enterprises are evaluating changes to their technology stacks, and what implications AI may have for workforce dynamics.
Saam shares perspectives on how AI may influence infrastructure decisions, application development, and software business models over time.
Key insights include:
Shifts in enterprise infrastructure strategy
Usage- and outcome-based software economics
The future of AI agents
What large enterprises should understand about emerging AI startups
Is your AI strategy ready for scale or headed for failure?
In this episode of Technovation, leaders from Norfolk Southern, McCormick & Company, and Vulcan Materials joined us at our Metis Strategy Summit to discuss what it really takes to move from AI pilots to enterprise impact. From AI factories and predictive transportation platforms to hybrid operating models and reward system redesign, this conversation dives into the operational and cultural realities of scaling AI in complex organizations.
Key highlights:
Why 2026 is shaping up as the “scale or fail” year for AI
How to industrialize AI with data platforms and governance
Embedding technologists in business functions for contextual impact
The critical role of AI literacy and trust
Aligning incentives to drive behavioral change
Innovation isn’t slowing down, but in many enterprises it’s becoming invisible.
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Sean Murphy, Founder and CEO of DemoHop, about why distributed work is trapping great ideas inside organizations and what CIOs can do to fix it. Sean explains how weak ties across enterprises have eroded, why peer-to-peer discovery beats status meetings, and how visibility is becoming the missing ingredient for scaling AI.
Key topics include:
Why innovation gets trapped in distributed organizations
How science fair–style demo days reduce duplication
The hidden role of weak ties in creativity and breakthrough
Making enterprise AI work visible and scalable
Building credibility for technology teams with business leaders
Innovation in healthcare doesn’t start with AI. It starts with operational stability.
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Chad Wasserman, CIO of HCA Healthcare, about leading technology at massive scale while keeping patient care at the center. Wasserman explains why “operational quiet” is the foundation that makes AI, data, and digital transformation possible and how HCA balances innovation with reliability across thousands of sites of care.
Key topics include:
Why stability is a prerequisite for innovation
Treating IT as an extension of the care team
Scaling AI responsibly in clinical and engineering domains
Building data platforms to support generational change
Developing technologists through deep business immersion
What if the real driver of digital disruption isn’t technology, but unit economics?
In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Dan Gill, Chief Product Officer of Carvana, about how disciplined unit economics power one of the most ambitious e-commerce models in retail. Rather than leading with engineering for its own sake, Carvana focuses relentlessly on eliminating friction, capturing profit pools, and reinvesting those economics back into customer value.
Key highlights from the episode:
Vertical integration and competitive advantage
Deterministic, self-service digital experiences
Proprietary platforms vs. off-the-shelf tools
AI-human collaboration at scale
How can early-stage investors deliver repeatable, outsized returns—without chasing hype?
In this episode of Techoventure, Mark Fernandes, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures, shares the disciplined model behind one of the industry’s most consistent early-stage venture firms. Sierra’s strategy is designed for repeatable 3–5x returns by focusing on founder-market fit, tight portfolio construction, and tech-savvy sectors like AI, cloud, and cybersecurity.
Key insights include:
The four-part rubric Sierra uses to vet early-stage founders
Why fund size discipline is critical to long-term VC performance
How Sierra balances seed and Series A checks with portfolio theory
The power of “AI enablers” in healthcare, legal, and vertical SaaS
The 20-year evolution of Sierra’s CXO Board and its enterprise value
Is AI coming for your job—or just changing how you work?
In this episode, Wall Street Journal technology columnist Christopher Mims shares a grounded, deeply informed perspective on how AI is reshaping productivity, creativity, jobs, and knowledge work. From the pitfalls of overhyping generative AI to the rise of agentic systems and the enduring role of classic AI, Christopher unpacks what leaders need to know now. He also highlights how experts benefit most from AI, what happens when organizations anchor too heavily on AI tools, and why handwritten notes, walking meetings, and skepticism are critical in the AI age.
Key highlights from the episode:
Why experts extract more value from generative AI
How CEOs are freezing junior hiring while boosting senior productivity
Mims’ concept of “work slop” and how to avoid it
Why hallucinations are structural in AI and require human oversight
Tips for AI adoption that preserve creativity and context
How does a 100-year-old manufacturing leader reinvent itself through autonomy and AI?
In this episode, Caterpillar CTO Jaime Mineart shares how her team is transforming industrial work sites using robotics, machine intelligence, and real-time data. From mining to construction, the company is applying decades of engineering expertise to modern digital challenges, partnering with customers to co-develop scalable automation solutions.
Key highlights from the episode:
How autonomy is expanding beyond mining into quarries and construction
What makes Caterpillar’s AI adoption strategy unique—and replicable
Inside the Helios platform and NVIDIA partnership powering data-driven insights
Why the company pledged $100M to upskill the workforce of the future
Lessons from scaling R&D with real-world customer involvement
1048: What if the hiring process wasn’t broken—but reimagined?
Anthony Moisant, Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer at Indeed, details how his teams are building trusted systems, tackling AI bias, and leveraging background agents and AI sourcing to solve the “black hole” of hiring. He also reflects on the importance of early-career talent, skill-based hiring, and the balance of self-learning and leadership-led growth.
The conversation covers:
Why trust is foundational to AI innovation at Indeed
How “invite to apply” transforms the candidate experience
The future of work through agentic systems and AI sourcing
Balancing self-driven learning with leadership-created space
1047: What does it take to lead tech—and the enterprise—in 2026?
In this episode of Technovation, we feature a panel from our October 2025 Metis Strategy Summit where Steven Norton speaks with three top executive recruiters: Craig Stephenson (Korn Ferry), Jamey Cummings (JM Search), and Scott Robbin (Heidrick & Struggles). Throughout the conversation, each recruiter gives their perspective on the evolving mandate of the CIO.
The conversation covers:
The convergence of data, security, digital, and operations under the CIO
How talent strategy and succession planning are changing
What makes a technology leader board-ready
The rise (and ambiguity) of the Chief AI Officer
Offshore workforce trends and leadership development
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States