24 minute read
TECHNOLOGY IN SERVICE OF PEOPLE
An Interview with Bill McDermott, President and Chief Executive Officer, ServiceNow
EDITORS’ NOTE Bill McDermott has been in his current role and has served as a Member of the Board of ServiceNow since 2019. Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Executive Board of SAP. Before joining SAP, he served in senior executive roles with Siebel Systems and Gartner, Inc. He launched his business career at Xerox Corporation, where he rose to become the company’s youngest corporate officer and division president. McDermott got his start as a young entrepreneur running a small delicatessen business on Long Island, New York, at age 17. He received his bachelor’s degree from Dowling College and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. COMPANY BRIEF ServiceNow (servicenow.com) is making the world of work, work better for people. The company’s cloud-based platform and solutions deliver digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity for employees and the enterprise.
You have built businesses and achieved great success in your career, including leading SAP from $39 billion to $172 billion in value. What interested you in leading ServiceNow and made you feel it was the right fit?
I was inspired by ServiceNow’s hungry and humble culture. It is rare to find a company that has over 16,000 employees and still maintains its tireless focus on innovation. I saw a once-in-ageneration opportunity at ServiceNow to solve the biggest issue that has haunted enterprises for the last half-century – integration. In the past several years, trillions have been invested in digital transformation, but only a fraction of companies are seeing the ROI. Why? Because of the lack of integration across technologies. That’s where ServiceNow comes in. The Now Platform connects different applications and data sources to create intuitive experiences for employees and customers.
Having spent over two years with the best team in the business, I am fired up even more than when I started. It is the honor of my professional career to guide this amazing team on its journey to becoming the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century.
Will you provide an overview of ServiceNow’s business and how you define the ServiceNow difference?
We’ve never lost sight of Fred Luddy’s founding vision for ServiceNow – technology in service of people. Fred said, “There is no better experience than giving someone a piece of technology that lets them do something they never thought they could do.” Our platform enables people to do things they never thought possible. The Now Platform, the platform of platforms, unifies systems, silos and processes into enterprise workflows that deliver fast time to value and create great customer and employee experiences. The power of the ServiceNow platform is that it’s one data model, one architecture and one platform. This allows us to serve as the control tower for digital transformation, for every business, every industry, and every person.
We are so proud to work with the world’s greatest organizations as they work to achieve their goals. We will never lose our focus on the privilege that comes with saying, “The world works with ServiceNow.”
Will you discuss ServiceNow’s commitment to innovation and where is innovation taking place in the business?
ServiceNow has a customer-led innovation strategy. Our recipe for success is a mix of empathy to understand customer needs and
platform flexibility to develop the best solutions at unprecedented speed. In partnership with our customers, we transform the world’s biggest challenges into its biggest opportunities, from turning vaccines into vaccinations to tracking ESG progress and helping solve supply chain issues. Take what we are doing in the manufacturing industry. We’re working with one premium German auto manufacturer who uses ServiceNow as a control tower to orchestrate 30 million parts dispatched from more than 4,000 supplier locations to production centers in Europe and Mexico. The Now Platform Bill McDermott identifies potential disruptions and triggers the next-best action. We’re seeing this across all major industries and we’re only just getting started. That kind of innovation is a hallmark of ServiceNow’s best-in-class engineering tradition.
Where do you see the greatest opportunities for growth for ServiceNow as you look to the future?
Digital transformation is the opportunity of our generation. According to IDC, companies will spend $7.8 trillion on digital technologies over the next four years. Every CEO has digital as a top priority because digital organizations leverage the multiplier effect of platforms to deliver exponential growth. We’re also seeing a fundamental shift in how work gets done which will lead to an explosion of productivity. In its Low-Code Development Technologies report, Gartner estimated 70 percent of new applications developed by 2025 will use low-code or no-code technologies. ServiceNow empowers anyone to build applications on our platform.
We are reinventing the customer experience by creating consumer grade user experiences for employees and customers. Whatever systems, challenges, or opportunities you have, however fast you need to move, you have a trusted innovator in ServiceNow. ServiceNow is here to help our customers take the biggest possible share of the digital opportunity.
How did ServiceNow adapt its business to address the challenges caused by the pandemic and how proud are you to see the resilience of ServiceNow’s workforce during this unprecedented time?
When COVID hit, my leadership team and I were going into blue sky thinking when we realized there would be no blue sky if we didn’t handle COVID well. We immediately got to work. Our workforce transitioned to work from home in a day and listened to the needs of our employees and customers. We started regular communication with our employees through all hands and leadership team meetings. We also engaged our colleagues through virtual events with luminaries from diverse industries. We provided flexibility for our employees to handle their lives outside of work. With all of this, we continued to operate and innovate at speed and scale, releasing a complete suite of applications to meet the evolving needs of organizations and their employees – from our Workplace Service Delivery solution to our Safe Workplace and Vaccine Administration Management apps, and our twice a year seamless upgrade experience for customers.
Will you shine a light on the Safe Workplace apps that ServiceNow rolled out during COVID?
Employee and workplace safety are top of mind for every business right now, and we are the only company with a complete suite of applications to meet these critical needs. I’m incredibly proud of how ServiceNow responded to the pandemic, both as a company responding to the needs of our customers and how our employees adapted overnight to the new way of work. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve helped solve the many unprecedented challenges that businesses and society face. Our ability to quickly innovate – in a matter of days rather than weeks, months, and years – has allowed us to support our customers during every turn. From ServiceNow’s Workplace Service Delivery solution and Safe Workplace Suite that helps safely return employees to the workplace, simplify the complexity, and navigate the new world of work, to our Vaccine Administration Management solution that helps convert vaccines into vaccinations more efficiently and seamlessly, we’ve helped millions around the world get vaccinated, stay safe at work, and adapt to hybrid work.
How important is it for ServiceNow to build a diverse and inclusive workforce in order to bring diverse perspectives to the table when making business decisions?
ServiceNow’s purpose is all about people, and that’s why we are so focused on DIBs – Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. The world works when every empowered person can pursue big dreams, be themselves and live to their full potential. Creating a true sense of belonging is one of the most powerful things we can do to recruit and retain top talent. We want people with big dreams to be able to fulfill them here at ServiceNow. When people unlock their unique magic it creates happy people, loyal customers, and true prosperity for all.
What do you see as ServiceNow’s responsibility to the communities it serves and to being a force for good in society?
We are focused on leading with our purpose and making a positive impact on society – using our technology to help the world work better. We take this responsibility seriously, working in partnership with our customers to reinvent business models at digital speed. For example, we know ESG is part of every CEO’s agenda, but things are changing in record time. We developed an integrated solution for companies to activate their ESG strategy, programs, and initiatives – from reducing carbon emissions to enabling business resilience across the enterprise. ServiceNow’s goal is to help companies improve their ESG posture while driving greater environmental, social, and business impact for years to come.
What do you see as the keys to effective leadership and how do you describe your management style?
The pendulum has swung toward leaders being in service to their people as their highest purpose. Lead with empathy and selflessness and never forget that trust is the ultimate human currency – it’s earned in drops and lost in buckets. Everyone values open and honest communication and everything worth communicating is almost always under-communicated. It’s through consistent and clear communication that you can help people realize their own dreams because together, everyone achieves more. As a leader, inspiring people to live up to their greatest potential is the ultimate reward.
What advice do you offer young people interested in building a career in the industry?
There is no replacement for passion. Show up authentically and be intellectually hardworking. In other words, be curious, but also do your homework. Make sure you understand what makes you unique and how your accomplishments can easily translate into impacting the goals of the company. The intersection of those two forces makes magic happen. Winners define destiny. They dream, and they remain ever hungry and humble.•
Growing a Village
An Interview with Ashlee Hypolite, Operations Manager, Social Change Fund United
EDITORS’ NOTE Prior to assuming her current role, Ashlee Hypolite spent nearly five years at Creative Artists Agency. Hypolite earned a BA degree in politics and sociology with a minor in legal studies from Brandeis University.
ORGANIZATION BRIEF Social Change Fund United (thesocialchangefund.org), founded by Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade, was established to invest in and support organizations focused on empowering communities of color and advocating for the human rights of all Black lives through the lens of policy solutions, community representation and narrative change. Social Change Fund United supports critical and timely issues impacting the Black community including ending police brutality and championing criminal justice reform, economic equity, and voting and civic engagement. All donations are tax-deductible through Social Change Fund United’s 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF). EIF is a Charity Navigator Four-Star Charity that meets all 20 Better Business Bureau charity standards and carries the GuideStar Platinum Seal of Transparency.
What was the vision for creating Social Change Fund United and how do you define its mission?
Social Change Fund United’s (SCFU) mission is to create a fair and equitable society for all through holistic, communityled initiatives focused on Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform, Civic Engagement, Economic Investment, Arts & Education, and Health Equity. Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade founded Social Change Fund United in direct response to the acts of racial police violence on Black lives including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and sadly too many countless others. They felt it was important to channel their collective frustration into action, creating a space for like-minded athletes to build a philanthropic movement utilizing their collective voices, influence, and resources in the fight for social and economic justice.
How important has it been to have Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade who are such passionate and outspoken activists for social justice and equality as the creators of the organization?
Athletes in both the WNBA and NBA have pushed their leagues to use their platforms to give voice to and name those who have been victims of police violence, particularly in 2020. Our founders, in addition to our Executive Council members, Candace Parker, CJ McCollum, Khris Middleton and Natasha Cloud, have always utilized their global platforms to speak out against social injustices. These individuals, with support from their teams, bring together their personal philanthropy, experiences, learnings, and connections to uplift, amplify, and fund
the vital work of local community leaders while collectively using their influence to speak on the realities of Black lives in America.
How has the work of Social Change Fund United evolved since its founding in July 2020?
It has been an inspiring year. We have piloted partnerships and programs through financial and in-kind investments in both national and grassroots organizations including Equal Justice Initiative, When We All Vote, The Bail Project and DonorsChoose. In just one Ashlee Hypolite year, we have donated $1.1 million in-kind donations, committed to multi-year support for our grantees, as well as empowered and invested in over 5,000 young people. Through our collaboration with Bleacher Report, seven Black designers were selected to create a one-of-a-kind HBCU Homecoming collection that celebrates six Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and brings visibility to these pillars of higher education for the Black community and the students that attend them. As we embark on our second year, we plan to deepen our work with local grassroots organizations and partner with more corporations to bring the needed resources to communities across the country.
Will you highlight the issues Social Change Fund United is addressing and how it approaches its work?
Social Change Fund United was founded to challenge institutional and systemic racism that permeates all aspects of life for communities of color, specifically the Black community in America.
“We are committed to supporting organizations that directly represent and benefit the Black community with the Social Change Fund United. Our goal is to create a pathway for inclusion and success by deploying the necessary funds and resources to invest in long-term change.” Dwyane Wade
SCFU has five pillars that guide our grantmaking and strategic partnership – Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform, Civic Engagement, Economic Investment, Arts and Education, and Health Equity. We address the problem of social injustice by focusing on solutions using a holistic approach that directs support, representative change and narrative change. One example of this approach is our Social Justice grant to the Bail Project. The grant allows the Bail Project to post bail for roughly 10 clients directly, and many others as the funds are returned and are reused for additional clients. Of the more than 17,000 clients for whom The Bail Project has posted bail since January 2018, 64 percent are people of color, and 21 percent identify as women. Not only is the Bail Project providing the much-needed immediate support to their clients now, but they are also publishing reports and educating the public to understand how predatory the cash bail system is. We will continue to identify initiatives and organizations that apply this approach to their work and align with our mission and values.
What are the key characteristics that Social Change Fund United will look for when deciding to support and partner with other organizations?
We prioritize high-need cities based on guided research and recommendation. Some of those cities include Chicago, Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Portland, Charleston, Milwaukee,
“On behalf of my brothers, Dwyane and Melo, we are excited to partner with bold.org to offer two scholarships for Black students aspiring to be mental health professionals in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. We need more professionals in this space that look like us in order to continue to break the stigmas around mental health in the Black community.
Through the work the Social Change Fund United does, we are committed to contributing to changing the narrative.” Chris Paul
“We established the Social Change Fund United to invest in and support organizations working to advocate for the human rights of all Black lives. From championing criminal justice reform to enacting policy solutions, we strive to create change that will uplift the Black community now and for generations to come.” Carmelo Anthony
Atlanta, Baltimore, Winston Salem/North Carolina, and Canton, Ohio. In addition to partnering with national organizations, we prioritize creating local impact and look for nonprofit organizations with deep ties to the Black community, initiatives with diverse representation in their leadership, and a successful track record of impact.
What is the relationship between the Entertainment Industry Foundation and Social Change Fund United?
Social Change Fund United is fiscally sponsored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) which has a long history of managing charity organizations. EIF mobilizes the powerful voices of the entertainment industry and partners with a robust roster of such clients as Akim Aliu, Charlize Theron, Colin Kaepernick and Jennifer Hudson. EIF has served as a great connector as we are able to share learnings with other funds and build awareness while developing and enhancing programs on the local, national and global level that facilitate positive social change.
Leading companies such as Goldman Sachs and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) have signed on to support Social Change Fund United. What opportunities exist for other leading companies to become involved and support SCFU’s work?
We are continuing to grow our Village – we refer to our partners, collaborators, supporters, and grantees, as our Village because we believe to create real impact, we all must commit to systemic change. Overall, we look to truly collaborate with our corporate partners to identify mutual community interests and maximize our platform. We welcome opportunities to discuss partnerships that will create impact through our grant-making and programmatic endeavors. We will launch our Gamechanger Fellowship program in 2022 to equip young people in a cross section of fields with the resources and skills they need to effectively lead, support, and thrive for the betterment of their community.
How will you measure success for Social Change Fund United’s efforts and what are the keys to driving lasting, sustainable change in the fight for social justice and equality?
We understand that by supporting local organizations, Social Change Fund United is directly investing in Black lives. We are doing the work to know where our dollars are spent and to measure our impact over time. We realize that this work is long-term and ongoing, and although we can sometimes feel defeated as we react to real time events, we continue to fight on and grow our village. Our success will be measured by the number of individuals served through our grant-making, the investment in communities by equipping the next generation of changemakers through our programs, and the number of companies and corporations who join us in this work.•
Positively Impacting Lives
An Interview with Keith Wargo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Autism Speaks
EDITORS’ NOTE Keith Wargo joined Autism Speaks as President and CEO in October 2021. He brings a unique and diverse background to Autism Speaks with nearly 30 years of business building experience at leading global financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, BMO Capital Markets and Mizuho Securities. In the year before joining Autism Speaks, Wargo combined his business expertise and personal values when he became an owner of Monarch Cypress, an industry-leading amenity manufacturer and supplier with a mission to employ autistic individuals. He and his wife, Anne, are parents of two adult children, one of whom has autism. Wargo holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Boston College and earned an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. ORGANIZATION BRIEF Autism Speaks (autismspeaks.org) is dedicated to promoting solutions, across the spectrum and throughout the life span, for the needs of individuals with autism and their families. It does this through advocacy and support; increasing understanding and acceptance of people with autism; and advancing research into causes and better interventions for autism spectrum disorder and related conditions.
Keith Wargo
You recently assumed the role of President and CEO of Autism Speaks. What excited you about the opportunity and made you feel it was the right fit?
In late 2020, as the world was beginning to see signs of progress with COVID-19, I decided to make a change and left the investment banking industry after 27 years. Pretty quickly thereafter, I found the opportunity to become an investor in Monarch Cypress, an industry-leading amenity manufacturer and supplier that services the hospitality industry. In this new role, I made it a company mission to employ individuals with autism. We quickly saw success in this effort, and I witnessed first-hand the positive impact that providing meaningful work provides to the autistic employee and the overall workplace culture. Every member of Monarch Cypress feels more engaged and committed to the business. This sparked an interest in me to take this effort much further. When Autism Speaks announced it was searching for a new leader, I pursued the opportunity. As the father of an adult on the spectrum, I have been part of the Autism Speaks community for a long time. My family has experienced all the critical life stages with our son – from diagnosis to intervention; from school placements to, most recently, transitioning to the workforce. Just like my family did, the entire autism community needs support in reaching each of these milestones and I want to help make that support more readily available, reliable and accessible for all. I am committed to moving the organization forward in addressing the needs of those with autism and their families.
How has the work of Autism Speaks evolved and will you provide an overview of Autism Speaks’ initiatives?
Since we were founded in 2005, a lot has changed. At that time, less was known about autism and the way it impacts people and their families. In fact, in 2006, the prevalence was 1 in 110 and today the prevalence is 1 in 44 – a 156 percent increase in 15 years. Importantly, today over 2 percent of children are being diagnosed with autism.
In 2016, we refocused our mission to better serve the autism community and to reflect what Autism Speaks represents today. We approach each of our mission objectives with an eye toward making the most meaningful impact for the most people on the autism spectrum – from those for whom autism may be a great strength, to those who require significant support just to remain safe. Each person on the autism spectrum is unique, and we aim to address these diverse needs.
On the back of our business card, it says, “We’re here to help,” and we are. Last year our Autism Response Team made contact with over 70,000 individuals looking for advice or guidance. The support provided ranges from referrals to local clinics or doctors to assistance in finding employment resources. We also offer vast amounts of information and resources to the community. Last year over 1.3 million people downloaded one of our more than 42 free toolkits and over 20 million people have accessed our curated online database of nationwide autism services and resources. The breadth of our initiatives continues to grow as we
are aggressively tackling employment challenges through our Workforce Inclusion Now™ (WIN) program, as well as Delivering Jobs, the inclusion campaign dedicated to creating pathways to one million employment and leadership opportunities for people with autism and/or developmental differences by 2025. We actively advocate to protect the rights, services, and support of people with autism including insurance coverage, education and housing. Finally, we partner and support research to improve the lives of people with autism by investing in science that will allow more personalized treatments and therapies. We also fund research into better treatments of medical conditions that often accompany autism, such as GI issues, sleep disorders, eating disorders, anxiety and seizures.
What are Autism Speaks’ current advocacy priorities?
Our advocacy aims to protect the rights, services, and support of people with autism. As an example, we funded advocacy efforts to pass legislation to have autism insurance benefits covered for 204 million people in 50 states.
Currently our priorities include educating legislators and regulators on autism spectrum disorder to ensure policymaking benefits individuals across the spectrum, increasing funding for autism research at federal agencies, ensuring that autistic individuals have access to the healthcare they need, irrespective of whether a private payer or a public payer such as Medicaid pays for their healthcare costs, and improving the quality and accessibility of employment-focused training systems. These are only a few of the highlights of our work. We are also committed to enhancing support services and assistance that address the unique risks and challenges, including those resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, faced by individuals with autism and their families.
What do you see as the keys to effective leadership and how do you describe your leadership style?
I am a strong believer in transparency and collaboration. As a leader, I believe you should spend at least as much time listening as you do speaking. I have found in my career that very often, the best ideas come from the team and I am in a position to afford the ability for everyone to voice their ideas in order for the organization to be its best. At the same time, it is a leader’s job to set the tone and be transparent about the direction and expectations of the organization.
I have been blessed to work in several financial services organizations that instilled in me a belief that you need to deliver excellence in what you do. At Autism Speaks, we are addressing a broad community with diverse and urgent needs. One of the questions I consistently ask the team is whether what we are doing is best in class or can we do it better, because our community deserves our absolute best.
Did you always know that you were attracted to this type of work and that this was your passion?
Throughout my career, I have looked for opportunities where I could bring my skillset, my energy and my passion to projects for which I believed I could have real impact. In my finance career, this meant building businesses and setting strategies. I joined Autism Speaks because I saw the opportunity to apply 25 plus years of learnings to a leading organization that is serving a very large community with real needs. Clearly a great deal of my motivation to join Autism Speaks was driven by our personal journey with our son, but I also passionately believe in our mission and our opportunity to have tremendous impact.
How do you measure success of Autism Speaks’ work and how important is it for the organization to take moments to celebrate the wins?
This is something I think about a lot. We work to invest in initiatives that do the most good for the most people and we measure our success through the positive impact these initiatives have on the community. Listening to and understanding the needs of our communities, then directing our efforts to make advances in these areas and thus improving lives, is our success. We have many stakeholders, so our success is ultimately driven by understanding their needs and delivering solutions.
I think it’s critical to celebrate wins. For 16 years, Autism Speaks has driven awareness and acceptance of people with autism. Over 20 million people have turned to us for information and resources. We have invested $222 million in scientific grants. We have successfully advocated for autism insurance benefits covering 204 million people in all 50 states. These are wins. They are wins because they positively impact lives. We will have many more wins and I am excited for that.•
A participant in the Workforce Inclusion Now program at Lee Container in Centerville, Iowa
