In the Clouds with...Vitality Group CIO Sean Katz: "AI and machine learning, and IoT are critical to our success"
Jo Maitland
Editor, Transform with Google Cloud
Welcome to our new column “In the Clouds with…” We'll be hearing from IT leaders about what keeps them up at night and their secrets to success.
Sean Katz, Chief Information Officer for Vitality Group, has extensive experience in Health IT technology specifically in the payor and wellness space. He has spent the last 26 years working in this field both abroad and locally providing technology solutions to solve business problems. Sean rejoined Vitality Group at the beginning of 2013 and is responsible for the technology that helps drive the engagement of Vitality Group’s client base.
Sean received his Master of Science degree in Computational and Applied Mathematics from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and his Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of South Africa.
Big Six:
1. What business challenge is keeping you up at night?
My top two are: Attracting and retaining the right talent while simultaneously keeping the cost of technology affordable for the organization. And security—ensuring no bad actors are able to gain access to our environment including our member data and personal health information (PHI).
2. How deeply is your company invested in the cloud? What about in five years?
We are invested in SaaS apps and some PaaS environments and are envisioning moving our remaining infrastructure into the cloud over the next five years.
3. Tech has always faced talent challenges, from scarcity to diversity. What’s your advice for recruiting top talent in today’s climate?
Get the right balance on your work from home policy. Attract people with non-direct financial benefits such as unlimited PTO, meals in the office, flexibility in hours, etc. Secondly, make sure you set up your staff for success and recognize the successes.
4. What are the two biggest technologies that will impact 1) your industry, and 2) the world in the next decade (and why)?
AI and machine learning and the Internet of things (IoT) are critical to our success.
Learning how our members behave and react to incentives helps us to determine the best ways to engage our members. In this day and age people expect to have personalization and not just be a number. AI is what will enable this, especially when referring to their health.
In our industry, the need to understand in real-time what activities our members get up to, what they eat, and anything else that affects their lifestyle. This is key for us to be able to incentivize and help with healthy choices at the time of the decision. IoT is what enables this. The industry is seeing people move away from web browsing to mobile apps on-the-go. As more things get internet-enabled, people will be able to react with the world in real-time, integrated technology and IoT is the glue for this.
5. Every executive has their “top secrets of success” they know they’ll repeat when taking any new job. What’s yours?
Build relationships, be vulnerable and have integrity. If you let people into your world and they know you are a person of integrity, they will respect your decisions and recommendations knowing it is coming from a good place.
6. What is the best advice you ever got?
The road to success is full of failure. Don’t see failure as failure, but rather an opportunity to grow and so don’t be afraid to take risks. Exercise a growth mindset!!!
Get the right balance on your work from home policy. Attract people with non-direct financial benefits such as unlimited PTO, meals in the office, flexibility in hours, etc. Secondly, make sure you set up your staff for success and recognize the successes.
Dirty Half-Dozen:
1. Book on your nightstand? Dean R Koontz (I like to escape).
2. Lunch with a leader living or dead? Elon Musk.
3. Favorite way to R&R? Go for a nice long walk in nature where I have not been before.
4. RTO, WFH or Mission to Mars? Hybrid.
5. Three apps you can’t live without? Activity, WhatsApp, Risk.
6. Your motto or mantra? Find the issue before the client does.
