After racking up 10 years as CIO of financial services firm AMP (ASX: AMP), Lee Barnett shows no signs of slowing down. During that time she has been involved in a number of projects including customer online portals and a private Cloud migration of email services. Barnett spoke with CIO Australia about some of these projects, brain training and why she would like a robot personal assistant. What does an average work day involve for you at AMP? SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe Steering committees, governance boards, catching up with my team and a bit of think time. I’ve just started reading a book called Brain Rules by John Medina, and it seems there is clear scientific evidence about the importance of exercise to brain functioning. As a result, I am going to have to make the time to add exercise into the work day as well. What are some of the challenges you face in the role of CIO? Keeping all the details, systems and projects in my head. A perennial challenge is around continuing to develop as a leader–a never ending journey. There have been a lot of challenges over the last decade including a demerger [of AMP’s UK operations in 2003] and integrations following the acquisition of AXA Asia-Pacific Holding’s Australia and New Zealand operations in 2011. I have enjoyed them all in hindsight, as they have provided me with real growth opportunities as a person as well as a professional. What are some of the major projects you have been working on? An integration project in relation to the rebuild of our Planner and customer on-line portals. Implementation of AMP’s new collaboration suite for all staff. Constitution and chairmanship of a new digital governance board. In addition, there have been a significant number of integration projects including the rollout of a new Identity Access Management solution as well as infrastructure projects associated with the transition from AXA Tech to CSC. What are the three biggest issues facing CIO’s today? The simultaneous need to invest and cut costs in a challenging economic climate and in an environment of changing customer expectations and behaviour. Placing the right bets in a world of too many opportunities–and getting the timing right. Rising complexity in the portfolio. What is your favourite gadget? I haven’t got it yet but I want a robot like Rosie in the Jetsons that cooks, cleans, walks the dog and is a personal trainer. Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick Follow CIO Australia on Twitter: @CIO_Australia Related content brandpost Four Leadership Motions make leading transformative work easier The Four Leadership Motions can be extremely beneficial —they don’t just drive results among software developers, they help people make extraordinary progress wherever they lead. By Jason Fraser, Director, Product Management & Design, VMware Tanzu Labs, Public Sector Sep 21, 2023 5 mins IT Leadership feature The year’s top 10 enterprise AI trends — so far In 2022, the big AI story was the technology emerging from research labs and proofs-of-concept, to it being deployed throughout enterprises to get business value. This year started out about the same, with slightly better ML algorithms and improved d By Maria Korolov Sep 21, 2023 16 mins Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence opinion 6 deadly sins of enterprise architecture EA is a complex endeavor made all the more challenging by the mistakes we enterprise architects can’t help but keep making — all in an honest effort to keep the enterprise humming. By Peter Wayner Sep 21, 2023 9 mins Enterprise Architecture IT Strategy Software Development opinion CIOs worry about Gen AI – for all the right reasons Generative AI is poised to be the most consequential information technology of the decade. Plenty of promise. But expect novel new challenges to your enterprise data platform. By Mike Feibus Sep 20, 2023 7 mins CIO Generative AI Artificial Intelligence Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe