"Build the best plan and commit, but don’t be afraid to implement new ideas and innovate quickly. Also understand when to jump ship when things are not working is a critical key to success"

DEBRA C. ROBINSON
Senior VP & CTO,
Hearst Magazines

Debra C. Robinson is senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer for Hearst Magazines. Robinson is responsible for leading and coordinating IT initiatives and operations across all Hearst Magazines business units. Prior to being appointed CTO, Robinson was Vice President, technology and production, digital media for Hearst Magazines. She was also interim chief information officer of CDS Global. She also held executive positions at CVS Pharmacy, CMP Media, Delaware North Companies and Aramark. Mason now powers the Web infrastructure for a wide variety of sites, including Amazon.com, Salon.com, Ducatiworld.com, IEEE.Germany, National Basketball Players Association and Stamp.com.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations
As more and more companies adopt private and public cloud computing we are finding that there is a shortage of skilled people ready to take on new responsibilities. Our solution is continuous new technology training and development for senior staff and then to push the new technology through the rest of the organization.

Wish List For 2013
The ability to turn and learn on a dime is important and so it requires our providers to move quickly, grow with us and provide value added services and open solutions and platforms that meet our business needs.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier
Consumers are now accessing content in many places. No longer are the desktop and laptop king when it comes to content consumption. We have had to rapidly adapt to smaller screen sizes and multiple operating systems. We recently adopted responsive design, which provides an optimal viewing experience - easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling - across a wide range of devices. We have also started taking a closer look at the structure of our content and are working to create open APIs so that both internal and external developers can access our depth and breadth of content and work to create new products. Hearst hosted its first hackathon where programmers from around the world converged to create some innovative projects around fashion using various APIs. Our competitive set is evolving – in addition to other national or world level publishers who are all looking for more effective ways to develop and maintain a direct relationship with their customers. We also have to stay ahead of consumer preferences regarding how they spend their time, in particular with new technologies. We have to be ready for the challenges of cutting through the multimedia overload with communication products that are relevant, informative and entertaining.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment
The move to public and private clouds is so important in our industry. It is allowing us to eliminate hardware and data centers and move away from investing in expensive capital equipment. This shared model is allowing us to operate more affordably and efficiently and also spin up or spin down resources as needed.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO
What I find fascinating is that while understanding and being versed on technology is important, what matters more is my ability to align people, process and finance back to the overall corporate strategy and objectives.

Lessons learned as a CIO
• Have strong alignment with your business and understanding of the overall corporate strategy.
• Having a strong understanding of the organizational culture and people that you are working with, along with their priorities.
• Build the best plan and commit, but don’t be afraid to implement new ideas and innovate quickly. Also understand when to jump ship when things are not working is a critical key to success.