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Don't break into jail: How to present technology to the board
Table of contents
About this episode
The urge to show your work can sink a board presentation. Brad Lontz, EVP and Chief Information Officer at CSAA Insurance Group, learned to hold back, because every extra detail you volunteer to a curious board becomes a question you then have to defend.
"You don't want to break into jail, so be careful what you're presenting."
That warning came from an underwriting leader, and it captures the discipline most technical leaders skip when they finally reach the boardroom. Brad pairs it with a rule from a CIO he worked for at Liberty Mutual: you are always telling a story. So he decides the story first, then shares only what serves it.
Getting to that boardroom took its own counterintuitive moves. Brad started out as an electrical and computer engineer, and to land his first CIO role, he took a smaller team than the one he was leading. A mentor told him that broadening into infrastructure, security, and telecom was worth the step down, and he was right.
He also walks Matt Peters through how he learns a new business. Instead of starting with the finance team, he starts at the front of the business and works through the value chain, including time in the field with agents. At CSAA, where the product is a promise to members, he connects every technical role back to that promise, down to the cybersecurity analyst.
Brad closes with why he keeps no separate AI strategy. CSAA competes on member experience, so he aims AI at improving that experience rather than at cutting headcount.
"People talk about 'here's my AI strategy.' I just have a business strategy and here's how AI can help me achieve that."
What you'll learn in this episode
- How to decide the story before you build a board presentation
- Why volunteering extra detail to a board can backfire
- Why taking a smaller team can be the fastest path to your first CIO role
- How to trade quick technical wins for longer-term leadership problems
- How to connect every technical role back to business impact
- Why learning the business should start with the value chain, not the CFO
- How to build relationship capital before you need to spend it
- Why AI belongs inside your business strategy
About Brad Lontz
Brad Lontz is the EVP and Chief Information Officer at CSAA Insurance Group, the insurance behind AAA. He started out as an electrical and computer engineer before moving into management consulting at PwC, then built a long career in IT leadership across insurance, manufacturing, and distribution.
He has held CIO roles at CopperPoint Insurance, the California Dental Association, and Nautilus Insurance Group, a W. R. Berkley company. Earlier, he led application delivery and eBusiness teams at Liberty Mutual. Brad holds a BS in computer and electrical engineering from Purdue and an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.
Resources mentioned
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Michael Lewis, author
- Malcolm Gladwell, author
- Connect with Brad Lontz on LinkedIn
About the host
Matt Peters is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fixify, where he's redefining the IT help desk for the AI era. Before founding Fixify, he was Chief Product Officer at Expel and held senior leadership roles at FireEye and Mandiant, where he helped pioneer some of the earliest managed detection and response services.
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