How Legacy and Young IT Departments Are Staying Agile with Matthieu Houle, VP of IT and Digital Tech at ALDO Group, and Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CIO at AppDirect

In this episode, we talk to two executives at the opposite ends of the spectrum: Matthieu Houle, VP of IT and Digital Tech at ALDO Group, a half-century old retailer, and Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CIO at AppDirect, a cloud-born tech company. Despite coming from different IT landscapes, Matthieu and Pierre-Luc share a similar approach to future-proofing their companies’ IT. You’ll hear insights into staying ahead of the curve, like how to leverage data, prioritize projects, and more.

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Quotes

“If you look at the corporate employee, look at [IT] as a product… Where is the value? How much are we willing to invest? What are the usage metrics? The growth metrics? Where do we need to remove friction? A lot of IT is about removing friction.” – Matthieu Houle, VP of IT and Digital Tech, ALDO Group

“The good news is that over the years we’ve been able to abstract more and more of the work that IT does and rely on cloud providers, whether they’re infrastructure or software as a service. Meanwhile, the core of our efforts do not have to be managing the low-level anymore, and that allows us to be technology experts, but framed as ‘how does technology actually help business?’ – Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CIO, AppDirect

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Time Stamps:

* (1:47) Matthieu’s role at Aldo and Pierre-Luc’s role at AppDirect

* (5:09) The changing scope of the CIO’s role across industries

* (14:27) Matthieu’s product approach to IT leadership

* (18:15) What data-driven business alignment looks like at AppDirect

* (20:12) Building agility and resilience into a tech stack

* (23:32) Aldo and AppDirect’s next big projects

* (26:30) Matthieu and Pierre-Luc share their CIO secrets

* (28:51) The future of digital IT and shadow IT

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Sponsor

This podcast is brought to you by Asana. Asana is a leading work management platform that empowers teams to orchestrate their work — from daily tasks to big strategic initiatives — all in one place. By enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly, Asana helps organizations of all sizes and industries achieve their goals, faster. Learn more at Asana.com.

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Links

• Connect with Matthieu on LinkedIn
• Connect with Pierre-Luc on LinkedIn
• Learn more about TELUS International
• Learn more about the ALDO Group