On this installment of the IT Leaders Quick-5 — InformationWeek’s column for IT professionals to achieve peer insights — Kellie Romack, chief digital info officer at ServiceNow, explains how her workforce is actively planning forward for 2026. She additionally shares the IT abilities she is — and is not — seeking to foster in her workforce and why she’s not a giant believer in enterprise choices based mostly on consensus.
“We do not have to 100% agree on choices, however I would like them to know the choice,” Romack mentioned, including that speaking the why behind these choices is a core a part of her job.
Romack joined ServiceNow three years in the past, after stints at Walmart and Hilton, the place she targeted on product growth and transformation, respectively. She leads ServiceNow’s digital transformation initiatives, together with growth of the ServiceNow AI Platform, which, as she notes, touches “each nook of the corporate.”
AI — adoption, sentiment and worth — are huge priorities, and her workforce tracks the numbers on them each day.
This column has been edited for readability and area.
The Resolution That Mattered
What choice — technical or organizational — made the largest distinction this week, and why?
I have been on some GRC [governance, risk and compliance] calls this week, some price range calls. If I needed to actually zoom out, the [most consequential] choices would in all probability be our AOP, our annual working plan choices. As a result of we’re nearing the tip of the 12 months, we have got to arrange our workforce for achievement in ’26. These choices cannot be made in a vacuum, as a result of I characterize all the firm — we’re in each nook of the enterprise. Whether or not it is my HR accomplice or our product group, or it is finance or advertising and marketing, I’ve to unify their collective aspirations, targets and outcomes. We’re a data-driven firm, so we spend lots of time wanting on the information and actually understanding how individuals are partaking.
I do not do lots of issues by consensus. I feel typically consensus can breed mediocrity, as a result of we now have to make actually onerous choices. We’re by no means going to make everybody blissful in AOP, and what I must do is the proper issues for the enterprise.
I am very targeted on, “How will we do inner expertise so our workers can serve our prospects higher?” The difficult a part of being the CDIO is my job is to do the proper factor for the corporate, to raise and scale ServiceNow, and to help our prospects. I hope that everybody understands the trade-offs and the worth. We do not have to 100% agree on choices, however I would like them to know the choice.
The Laborious-Received Lesson
What did not go as deliberate not too long ago — and what did it pressure you to rethink?
Once we take into consideration AI normally, I am all the time taking a look at each AI adoption and sentiment and worth. How will we hone and tone our expertise for the customers, for the individuals we’re serving? How will we develop into human-led and AI-enabled?
I take a look at these AI numbers — adoption, sentiment, effectivity or productiveness — repeatedly. We had been studying [the stats] out to our executives on a month-to-month recap, however they mentioned it is altering a lot, it was not working for them.
We now have individuals wanting on the information each single day. We’re breaking it down, and never simply exhibiting [our executives] that huge month-to-month quantity. We’re exhibiting each day lively utilization, each day adoption, each day effectivity for the ServiceNow AI Platform and third-party instruments like Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Zoom.
The Expertise Commerce-Off
The place are you investing in expertise proper now — and what are you consciously not investing in?
We’re consciously prioritizing AI fluency, tradition and tradition adaptability. Tradition adaptability is actually essential, as a result of we live in an ever-changing world. Individuals who need it a sure means and who’re binary of their considering — that is not going to work. I want flexibility, considering exterior the field, and listening to and understanding different individuals’s factors of view. I am not making an attempt to drive consensus. I am making an attempt to drive understanding.
I am accountable for engaged on this AI transformation internally, so it is my job to redeploy the human potential. I used to be capable of take 85% of my IT service desk, and I’ve reskilled them and redeployed them to one thing else. We do this via ServiceNow College, we now have our AI studying sequence. We’re doing AI abilities assessments and supply so many certifications. We now have our “Use AI” day, and we simply had an AI innovation hackathon with native excessive faculties. It was wonderful to see what they did.
So now to the onerous a part of your query. Issues I am not prioritizing are fundamental automation or fundamental single-purpose abilities. In the event that they’re slim, handbook expertise abilities or single-purpose — these are the issues I actually wrestle with. I actually just like the multi-faceted expertise — broad technical aptitude with AI, huge curiosity and suppleness. I am actually targeted on adaptive, modern talent units.
The Exterior Sign
What exterior growth this week is almost definitely to vary how your group operates, even not directly?
I’ve a retail background with Walmart and Hilton. The CIO of Goal spoke the opposite day in a Fortune [interview] about how AI is impacting the retail group. I used to be additionally listening to some podcasts the opposite day that talked about how if customers landed on a web site with an AI assistant, they had been about 38% extra prone to convert than anybody else.
As an alternative of going to retailers’ entrance doorways, customers are utilizing AI to focus on, curate and outline searches each for procuring and journey. We’re seeing this transformation that I feel goes to vary the trade general.
What we now have to consider it’s how will we serve these companies which are transferring this fashion and making use of AI to all their inner capabilities, whether or not it is buyer help, or HR or finance? How can we take away the friction, as a result of if their prospects are utilizing it, their inner individuals have to be utilizing it, proper?
The Perspective Shift
What have you ever learn, watched, or listened to not too long ago that modified how you concentrate on management or expertise — even barely?
A e-book I learn just a few months in the past that I discovered actually useful is “Energy and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Synthetic Intelligence.” The e-book highlighted that as we take into consideration the ability of prediction and the economics which are occurring with synthetic intelligence, there is not any enterprise that will not be impacted. That e-book actually resonated as a result of it helps me take into consideration the transformation that we’re making in AI general, and the way far-reaching the impacts are and can proceed to be.
For podcasts, the one I feel is actually useful known as The Markets. It is a recap of the whole lot occurring out there right this moment and what is going on on in enterprise. It is a each day podcast, so I all the time sit up for listening to it at night time for a recap.
