On this installment of the IT Leaders Quick-5 — InformationWeek’s column for IT professionals to realize peer insights — Kellie Romack, chief digital info officer at ServiceNow, explains how her workforce is actively planning forward for 2026. She additionally shares the IT abilities she is — and is not — seeking to foster in her workforce and why she’s not an enormous believer in enterprise choices primarily based on consensus.
“We do not have to 100% agree on choices, however I would like them to know the choice,” Romack stated, including that speaking the why behind these choices is a core a part of her job.
Romack joined ServiceNow three years in the past, after stints at Walmart and Hilton, the place she centered on product growth and transformation, respectively. She leads ServiceNow’s digital transformation initiatives, together with growth of the ServiceNow AI Platform, which, as she notes, touches “each nook of the corporate.”
AI — adoption, sentiment and worth — are massive priorities, and her workforce tracks the numbers on them day by day.
This column has been edited for readability and house.
The Choice That Mattered
What determination — technical or organizational — made the most important distinction this week, and why?
I have been on some GRC [governance, risk and compliance] calls this week, some finances calls. If I needed to actually zoom out, the [most consequential] choices would most likely be our AOP, our annual working plan choices. As a result of we’re nearing the tip of the yr, we have to arrange our workforce for fulfillment in ’26. These choices cannot be made in a vacuum, as a result of I symbolize your entire firm — we’re in each nook of the enterprise. Whether or not it is my HR associate or our product group, or it is finance or advertising, I’ve to unify their collective aspirations, objectives and outcomes. We’re a data-driven firm, so we spend loads of time wanting on the information and actually understanding how persons are partaking.
I do not do loads of issues by consensus. I feel typically consensus can breed mediocrity, as a result of now we have to make actually arduous choices. We’re by no means going to make everybody blissful in AOP, and what I have to do is the proper issues for the enterprise.
I am very centered on, “How will we do inner know-how so our staff can serve our clients higher?” The difficult a part of being the CDIO is my job is to do the proper factor for the corporate, to raise and scale ServiceNow, and to help our clients. I hope that everybody understands the trade-offs and the worth. We do not have to 100% agree on choices, however I would like them to know the choice.
The Onerous-Gained Lesson
What did not go as deliberate just lately — and what did it pressure you to rethink?
After we take into consideration AI normally, I am at all times each AI adoption and sentiment and worth. How will we hone and tone our know-how for the customers, for the folks we’re serving? How will we turn out to be human-led and AI-enabled?
I take a look at these AI numbers — adoption, sentiment, effectivity or productiveness — usually. We had been studying [the stats] out to our executives on a month-to-month recap, however they stated it is altering a lot, it was not working for them.
We now have folks wanting on the information each single day. We’re breaking it down, and never simply exhibiting [our executives] that massive month-to-month quantity. We’re exhibiting day by day lively utilization, day by day adoption, day by day effectivity for the ServiceNow AI Platform and third-party instruments like Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Zoom.
The Expertise Commerce-Off
The place are you investing in expertise proper now — and what are you consciously not investing in?
We’re consciously prioritizing AI fluency, tradition and tradition adaptability. Tradition adaptability is de facto essential, as a result of we live in an ever-changing world. Individuals who need it a sure approach and who’re binary of their considering — that is not going to work. I would like flexibility, considering exterior the field, and listening to and understanding different folks’s factors of view. I am not attempting to drive consensus. I am attempting to drive understanding.
I am accountable for engaged on this AI transformation internally, so it is my job to redeploy the human potential. I used to be capable of take 85% of my IT service desk, and I’ve reskilled them and redeployed them to one thing else. We do this by ServiceNow College, now we have our AI studying collection. We’re doing AI abilities assessments and supply so many certifications. We’ve our “Use AI” day, and we simply had an AI innovation hackathon with native excessive colleges. It was wonderful to see what they did.
So now to the arduous a part of your query. Issues I am not prioritizing are primary automation or primary single-purpose abilities. In the event that they’re slender, guide know-how abilities or single-purpose — these are the issues I actually wrestle with. I actually just like the multi-faceted expertise — broad technical aptitude with AI, massive curiosity and suppleness. I am actually centered on adaptive, modern ability units.
The Exterior Sign
What exterior growth this week is most certainly to alter how your group operates, even not directly?
I’ve a retail background with Walmart and Hilton. The CIO of Goal spoke the opposite day in a Fortune [interview] about how AI is impacting the retail group. I used to be additionally listening to some podcasts the opposite day that talked about how if customers landed on a web site with an AI assistant, they had been about 38% extra prone to convert than anybody else.
As a substitute of going to retailers’ entrance doorways, customers are utilizing AI to focus on, curate and outline searches each for procuring and journey. We’re seeing this transformation that I feel goes to alter the trade total.
What now we have to consider it’s how will we serve these companies which can be shifting this manner and making use of AI to all their inner features, whether or not it is buyer help, or HR or finance? How can we take away the friction, as a result of if their clients are utilizing it, their inner folks have to be utilizing it, proper?
The Perspective Shift
What have you ever learn, watched, or listened to just lately that modified how you concentrate on management or know-how — even barely?
A ebook I learn just a few months in the past that I discovered actually useful is “Energy and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Synthetic Intelligence.” The ebook highlighted that as we take into consideration the facility of prediction and the economics which can be taking place with synthetic intelligence, there is no enterprise that will not be impacted. That ebook actually resonated as a result of it helps me take into consideration the transformation that we’re making in AI total, and the way far-reaching the impacts are and can proceed to be.
For podcasts, the one I feel is de facto useful known as The Markets. It is a recap of all the pieces happening available in the market at present and what is going on on in enterprise. It is a day by day podcast, so I at all times sit up for listening to it at evening for a recap.
