Stories by Mary K. Pratt

CIOs must encourage data scientists to solve real business problems, not just play with data.

When Pradeep Mannakkara took the CIO position at Rosetta Stone, he encountered an IT infrastructure that was nearly the same age as the 21-year-old language-learning company. So Mannakkara established a plan to not only update, but also transform Rosetta Stone's technology stack and its 70-person IT department. Since starting in 2011, he has shifted much of the aging infrastructure to cloud-based platforms and added more mobile applications and state-of-the-art technologies. He says the changes achieved his goals of enabling a more efficient workflow and fostering innovation, while also increasing the strategic value of the IT organization.

IT job seekers embrace social media, video and graphics to enhance their resumes and set themselves apart from other job applicants.

Gino Pokluda had a problem: The database system at Presbyterian Health Plan in Albuquerque, N.M., where Pokluda serves as manager of service improvement and innovation, was becoming increasingly expensive and unwieldy, requiring about 80TB of storage for 13 database environments. To gain control, Pokluda implemented Delphix software to enable agile data management and eliminate redundant infrastructure. The 2012 project sliced his storage needs to 35TB, even though his team now maintains 23 environments. Here Pokluda, who manages all production, test and development environments for the company, discusses the database system overhaul and shares other IT management insights.

Lowe's knows a thing or two about buying and selling, so it means something that the Mooresville, N.C., home improvement retailer established a procurement department to help its various divisions make better deals.

When Ajay Waghray stepped into the job of CIO at the newly created Verizon Enterprise Solutions in January 2012, he encountered an array of systems that couldn't talk to each other or work together. Recognizing the disparate collection as a barrier to growth, Waghray focused his IT team on consolidating and updating the infrastructure and eliminating redundant systems to create the streamlined backbone that he wanted. His other duties include leading the global IT strategy and initiatives at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, which focuses on serving business and government agencies. Here he talks about some of his most recent work.

Every year, the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium names four finalists to its CIO Leadership Award. This year's list includes Cynthia Nustad, senior vice president and CIO at Health Management Systems, which provides government-funded, commercial and private entities with cost-containment services for their healthcare payments. Like all good leaders, Nustad credits her team for the recognition. "I have a true sense of team, and I love when accolades go out to my group," she says. But Nustad also brings to the job her talent, insights and strategies -- gained from 17 years of IT experience. Here, she shares some of her ideas on what works in IT.

Gone are the days of the clueless HR rep. These pros know and understand IT's needs, helping tech departments make better, faster hires.

Tim Ondrey has glimpsed the future of the job-search market, and it's going multimedia.

As an IT executive at a global company, Steve McManama says he's keenly aware of the need for an IT team that's not just talented, but diverse, too. McManama is vice president of global shared services and CIO at Covidien, a $10 billion global healthcare products maker. His tenure with the company dates back to 1981, and his other roles there include serving as the executive sponsor of Covidien's Women in Technology (WIT) program and sitting on the company's Executive Steering Committee of Diversity & Inclusion. Here McManama talks about the importance of diversity in IT and other topics crucial to CIOs today.

ollowing two security lapses several years ago, Intel executives pushed for an information security overhaul. But at a company with more than 100,000 employees in 63 countries, deploying a system capable of detecting, reporting and responding to suspicious activity meant gaining insight into a massive enterprise IT architecture -- and that was a big challenge.

LiveRail provides a single interface to publishers so they can manage direct advertising campaigns and monetize their video content. It also provides video ad networks with a platform to manage and buy video advertising campaigns. It delivers more than 3 billion impressions each month.

Harvard University professor Alan Aspuru-Guzik and his team are supporting the search for organic compounds that could be used in the next generation of solar power cells.

Executives at Vanguard Health Systems wanted the Nashville-based healthcare organization to grow -- but knew they didn't have the insight into current or potential customers to make it happen.

How many lines of code did you write this quarter? By how many hours (or days or weeks) were you behind in delivering your latest project? Was it over or under budget, and if so, by how much? How quickly were you able to get your last program to testing?