Textron

Todd Kackley is currently the vice president and chief information officer at Textron, where he leads Textron’s Information Management Council which is responsible for developing and executing a high-performance information technology (IT) and digital strategy. He also participates as a member of the Textron executive leadership team. Prior to this role, he served as a divisional CIO for Bell and Textron Systems, where he led the development of digital strategies aligned to the business needs and goals.

What are your daily roles and responsibilities you handle in your organization?

My first and foremost responsibility lies in overseeing an information management council encompassing all our divisional CIOs, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, and supporting functional resources that participate in this council. We are responsible for implementing strategies and facilitating decision-making around technology, while ensuring adherence to policy, standards and controls. Although our business units generally operate with some local autonomy, the information management council seeks opportunities to leverage the function of IT across the enterprise level. This drives us to focus on shared infrastructure, shared security standards, shared talent and shared service providers.

Another important role I am focused on is developing future leaders by focusing on our talent acquisition and management strategy. This starts with opportunities for interns across our businesses during the summer and a goal of converting these interns into full time employees after graduation. Our aim is to promote from within, providing opportunities to grow in the function and across our businesses. This requires an intentional focus on talent potential, career goals and readiness across all levels of the function. 

 One of the most crucial responsibilities of my role as global CIO is to cultivate a strong talent pipeline of future leaders and technical architects. The focus on talent, skills and capabilities must address current needs as well as evolving talent to take on emerging skills and technologies. Investing in our talent to learn and enable new technologies not only prepares us to meet the demands of the future but also enhances employee attraction and retention. 

How is your organization impacted by the emerging trends or the evolving technologies in the industry?

We have a diverse portfolio of businesses with a deep focus on engineering and manufacturing, and the skills developed in IT are transferable across our businesses. The rapid evolution of industry trends and technologies creates an opportunity for IT professionals to collaborate across our businesses to share best practices on evolving technologies like Generative AI and smart manufacturing. This collaboration allows us to innovate at one business then replicate at another with the goal of advancing innovation versus rediscovering. As new trends emerge, we identify opportunities for technology-driven changes that align to achieve the outcome of our company’s strategy. The adoption of emerging technologies drives us to continuously prioritize internal talent development and provide growth opportunities, while fostering employee engagement.

What would be your piece of advice for your fellow peers and aspiring professionals on creating a talent focused organizational strategy? What can they learn from your journey?

As a functional leader of a global organization, it is important to lead the team with their success in mind. This requires an understanding and connection with all layers of the organization and a recommendation toward servant leadership. Encourage open communication across all layers of the organization through skip level discussions or mentoring assignments and provide frequent opportunities for the team to ask questions. As a leader, if you foster an environment where talent is allowed to grow and provide opportunities to learn and develop, the responsibility then sits with everyone on the team to own their individual career. Leaders that put high expectations on themselves first when it comes to high-performing teams tend to best demonstrate the qualities and behaviors you want others to see and emulate in the organization.