Vish Narendra, CIO at Graphic Packaging Int'l, shares the story of his job interviews, the transition and his first year in a new IT leadership role.

Vish Narendra is the latest subject in our series, “How I Landed my New CIO Job.” Narendra was appointed Vice President and CIO at Graphic Packaging International in May 2015.

Heller Search: How did the CIO opportunity arise at Graphic Packaging International (GPI)?

Vish Narendra: I was not actively looking, but like most executives, I have always kept my ear to the ground about the job market and built relationships with several recruiters over time. One day I happened to get a call from one of those recruiters about the opportunity at GPI.

What about your professional background was attractive to GPI?

For a long time, GPI had been a predominantly US-based company. From 2012 to 2014 they did several acquisitions in Europe, followed by deals in Canada and Mexico. The company leadership realized that they needed to be able to scale the organization because they planned even more acquisitions, both domestic and international, in addition to organic growth.

So they wanted someone for this CIO role from a large company with significant global experience. I had spent almost 14 years at GE in various IT leadership roles, much of it global. I had worked in multiple cultures, across multiple time zones; I knew the nuances of operating in a global, matrixed environment.

Additionally, I think they valued my experience with IT integration after GE acquired the French power company Alstom. I served as IT integration leader for the Power and Water segment of the deal, which was very large and extremely complex. GE was in the process of adding 40,000 employees to GE Power and Water, along with the complexity of Alstom’s very large and heavily insourced IT operation, into our primarily outsourced IT operation and their application footprint. I commuted to Europe almost every week for an extended period of time while on this assignment.

What are your favorite international destinations?

I love Paris and Budapest.

What else did they like about you as a candidate?

GPI has been around awhile and the company has a big presence in this region. They were looking for someone with ties to the community. I am deeply involved in the Atlanta area – I sit on the Board of TechBridge, which is a non-profit that provides technology services to other non-profits. Prior to that, I was on the advisory board of Good Shepherd Services of Atlanta, another non-profit. I think that they found this community commitment to be appealing.

What piqued your interest in CIO opportunity at GPI?

There were four things that stood out as extremely positive early on. First, it was a totally different industry for me, so I would be learning new things, something for which I was eager. Second, the GPI leadership team had a clear view of the future, as well as a roadmap and a path to get to that vision state, which was important to me if I was to leave a good job at GE. Third, as VP and CIO I would have end-to-end control of IT. I’d own all of it, including strategic decisions, something I didn’t experience at GE. Lastly, the job was in Atlanta where I had been living and working for a long time. I have put down roots here and I am very involved in this community.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I am blessed to have a network of folks who I consider to be my own professional “brain trust.” This includes among others, an ex-boss, a former colleague from GE, a friend who is also a coach and advisor, and an HR professional. I activated that network before I started the interview process. They gave me advice about the things to highlight in terms of my experiences and skills and which aspects of my story to emphasize. I realize now that that was invaluable.

Did you have an interview strategy?

My strategy, after all my preparation and input from my network, was actually just to be my authentic self.

I don’t think it is good to try to game the conversation or to be someone that you are not when you are interviewing. Most people running big companies are able to spot that. They can tell what is genuine and what is not.

Was there a particularly memorable question or exchange that took place during your interviews?

When I was interviewing with the CEO, many of the things he said were quite unexpected and struck me in a positive way. He was very clear on where they wanted to go, the path to get there and a clear set of priorities for the company. That demonstrated to me that this organization and this leadership team were smart and decisive, a team I wanted to be part of.

Who do you report to at GPI?

The CFO.

How did you prepare to start your new role?

Actually I took a few weeks off work. I had a few more conversations with my brain trust, but mostly I focused on resting up and clearing my head.

From day one, what are some of the concrete steps you took to learn the business and build relationships across the enterprise?

Just as I got in the door, I got some help from Gartner and one of the Big Four firms who has a First 90 Days playbook.

It basically came down to a lot of listening. I held one-on-ones with everyone on my team to get to know the people. Then I held roundtable discussions in groups to talk about the work and to establish some goals. I also met with all of our key stakeholders

I traveled around a lot in the first 90 days to get to know the business. I visited many different sites, both domestic and international, talked to our customers, and learned how our products get made.

If you were granted a ‘redo’ on your first 90 days, what would you do differently?

I would go deeper in my initial meetings with my business stakeholders, reaching down another level in the organization to learn even more about the business and the culture here faster.

You have been GPI’s CIO for almost one year now. What have you been focusing on?

When I joined I knew that we needed a bit of an IT reboot and a cultural transformation. In the past, IT here had been focused on running operations, which it did well. But IT was not part of a business conversation or part of any transformation efforts. There was no belief here that technology could drive any competitive advantage.

This last year we have moved the ball forward on several different levels, but there were two priorities that I focused on. We needed, and now have, an IT steering and governance process for how we execute, which didn’t exist before. The second thing is a much bigger focus on architecture and the introduction of new technology.

I have been upgrading talent, repositioning people and creating partnerships and alignment with the business that didn’t exist before. We are starting to do things that the IT organization probably wouldn’t have thought possible a year ago, and the cool thing is that now the business is asking for more.

What other technical changes have you made or are in process?

We are in final negotiations for an enterprise collaboration tool that will transform how people communicate within the company. It is totally cloud based.

We are also in the process of upgrading some base capability on our core platforms, like supply chain, finance and marketing, which is allowing us to look at new features and functions that we couldn’t take advantage of before. IT is driving the conversations about new functionality and business capability.

How do you know when your IT organization is succeeding?

One of the IT team members just told me something that I find very heartening. When he heard that I will be speaking at a global meeting of one of our business groups, he said, “We’ve never been invited to these meetings in the past. The fact that you are standing up in front of business leadership of a P&L means we are starting to have a seat at the table.”

Success to me is when the company believes that IT is not just a function, but a true competitive advantage and a universal competency that everyone should possess, irrespective of their role.

What does digital transformation mean at this company?

A seamless end-to-end customer experience. It is early days for us in terms of a digital transformation, but I see it as a digital fabric tying the front end to the back end and providing a closed loop feedback cycle.

What advice do you have for sitting IT executives thinking about the move to a bigger role and a bigger challenge?

You have to be able to speak the language of business.

The first time I was going in front of the board and the audit committee, one of the presentations I was planning to use in the meeting was on security. One of my advisors told me it was the wrong document for this audience. Instead of a purely technical pitch, he told me to think about how I would explain security to my uncle at a picnic. That was a mini ‘Aha!’ moment for me.

What I learned is that if you speak in terms of technology you will only get so far. If you speak in terms of business and strategy and the ability to grow the business in a profitable way, you are going to be far more successful.

About Vish Narendra

Vish-Narendra-CIO-Graphic-PackagingVish M. Narendra is the Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Graphic Packaging Holding Company, a position he has held since May 1, 2015. Mr. Narendra joined Graphic Packaging from General Electric, where he held multiple IT executive roles between September 2001 and April 2015. Narendra was most recently CIO for the Alstom integration for the GE Power & Water business, and earlier he was the Asia Region CIO for the Energy and Aviation businesses. Narendra holds an undergraduate degree from Anna University, College of Engineering, Chennai, India in Electrical and  Electronics Engineering and an MBA from the Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

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