- [Narrator] It's lunch time
and this is Brad Anderson's Lunch Break.
(light upbeat music)
If you work with technology,
you've probably been to
more than a few conferences in Orlando.
When I got invited to speak at Citrix Synergy,
I booked a flight and called a few really smart people
to meet up for lunch.
(light upbeat music)
Today, I drive around with Chris Singh,
Vice President of Product Management at Moody's.
(engine revving)
- [Brad] Hi, Chris. (giggles)
- [Chris] Hi.
- Need a ladder? (laughs)
- [Christine] (laughs) Yes, I do.
- How are ya?
- I'm very good, thank you.
- Thanks for doing this. - And yourself?
- Doing really, really well.
Nothing kind of odd here, you know,
a car that's about 20 feet tall
with a bunch of cameras in it.
- Moody's, you guys operate in six continents,
you analyze 10 trillion securities every year,
thousands of workers to support,
all while safeguarding the financial data.
Looks like a challenge.
- It is, it certainly is.
But, you know, we're up for it. (laughs)
- So tell us a little about your role at Moody's.
- Yeah, so, I'm the Vice President of Product Management
for all end user technologies.
So under my purview is like mobility,
the unified collaboration products,
desktop and device services.
- Just wild, just write down all the stuff that I do.
- (laughs) Yeah, right.
- When you look at corporate security,
do you look at it as a cultural issue, a technical
or a combination of both cultural and technical?
- I see it as both.
- I mean what do you think's actually harder to implement?
The technology in order to drive security?
Or the cultural changes?
- Cultural.
- Yeah, so what advice do you give to people
when they ask you about that?
Or what, how do you direct your team
and then the broader company to really embrace
these cultural changes that have to happen?
- It's definitely a fine balance.
Ya know, most important is making sure that, ya know,
our customers are engaged from day
one on what we're delivering.
Even from a security perspective, it's really good
to have a customer have a seat at the table
because at the end of delivering that product,
they give, ya know, really good feedback
on what's important and what's not.
- Yeah.
- So, by balancing some of those choices,
you may even end up delivering exactly what they wanted
and securing your assets the way you might originally
perceived it.
- See, you don't feel like you're in this tyranny
of war where you have to do security
or an exceptional experience?
You can do both.
- You can do both.
You definitely can do both.
I think it's all in messaging.
And making sure that, you know, that there's a partnership
with your end users as your, you know, changing,
do organization, and they're gonna be feeling
like they're part of the culture change,
they have the right level of input and they were
part of the decisions, as opposed to ya know,
security sort of being shoved down their throat.
- Exactly, exactly.
- So I think part of a role of an executive like you
is evaluating software and partners, like Mircorsoft
and Citrix, so how do you push your partners
and your vendors like Microsoft and Citrix
to deliver what you need from them and from us?
- It's very much in telling the story.
- Oh yeah, OK.
- We have to be very clear on what our end state is.
And essentially, ya know, almost sell (laughs)
to our partners that this is a meaningful journey
for us to go on together.
And, ya know, at the end of the day, we understand
that great partner like Microsoft or Citrix
are gonna look at it to say ya know, who else can we
deliver this solution or this story to?
How compelling is it?
So I think being very clear on what the end goal is,
the value that will be delivered to customers,
is really gonna make the difference in how engaged
they are with us.
- I'll tell you as an engineering leader
on the receiving end of that,
when an organization can come in and really clearly
articulate the scenario, the end state,
then we can visualize that.
And it's amazing what that can do in order to help us
deliver exactly what it is you want.
- Right.
- [Narrator] Next time on Brad Anderson's Lunch Break,
- Cloud is helping what you're describing in a lot of ways.
Not all great ideas have to come from the top down.
You might have a great idea,
pilot it, test it.
- Prove it.
- Prove it out.
Show what the value is and certainly leadership will--
- Let the results speak for themselves.
(light music)