On this installment of the IT Leaders Quick-5 — InformationWeek’s column for IT professionals to realize peer insights — Kellie Romack, chief digital data officer at ServiceNow, explains how her staff is actively planning forward for 2026. She additionally shares the IT expertise she is — and is not — seeking to foster in her staff and why she’s not a giant believer in enterprise selections primarily based on consensus.
“We do not have to 100% agree on selections, however I would like them to know the choice,” Romack mentioned, including that speaking the why behind these selections 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 huge priorities, and her staff tracks the numbers on them every day.
This column has been edited for readability and house.
The Determination That Mattered
What determination — technical or organizational — made the largest 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] selections would in all probability be our AOP, our annual working plan selections. As a result of we’re nearing the tip of the yr, we have got to arrange our staff for achievement in ’26. These selections cannot be made in a vacuum, as a result of I signify the complete firm — we’re in each nook of the enterprise. Whether or not it is my HR accomplice 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 trying on the information and actually understanding how persons are partaking.
I do not do loads of issues by consensus. I believe generally consensus can breed mediocrity, as a result of we have now to make actually arduous selections. We’re by no means going to make everybody blissful in AOP, and what I must do is the proper issues for the enterprise.
I am very centered on, “How will we do inner expertise so our workers 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 assist our clients. I hope that everybody understands the trade-offs and the worth. We do not have to 100% agree on selections, however I would like them to know the choice.
The Laborious-Gained Lesson
What did not go as deliberate lately — and what did it power you to rethink?
Once we take into consideration AI on the whole, I am all the time taking a look at each AI adoption and sentiment and worth. How will we hone and tone our expertise for the customers, for the folks we’re serving? How will we develop into human-led and AI-enabled?
I take a look at these AI numbers — adoption, sentiment, effectivity or productiveness — commonly. We had been studying [the stats] out to our executives on a month-to-month recap, however they mentioned it is altering a lot, it was not working for them.
We now have folks trying on the information each single day. We’re breaking it down, and never simply displaying [our executives] that huge month-to-month quantity. We’re displaying every day lively utilization, every day adoption, every 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 basically necessary, as a result of we live in an ever-changing world. Individuals who need it a sure method and who’re binary of their pondering — that is not going to work. I want flexibility, pondering exterior the field, and listening to and understanding different folks’s factors of view. I am not making an attempt to drive consensus. I am making an attempt to drive understanding.
I am answerable 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 means of ServiceNow College, we have now our AI studying sequence. We’re doing AI expertise assessments and provide so many certifications. We now have our “Use AI” day, and we simply had an AI innovation hackathon with native excessive faculties. It was superb 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 expertise. In the event that they’re slender, handbook expertise expertise or single-purpose — these are the issues I actually wrestle with. I actually just like the multi-faceted expertise — broad technical aptitude with AI, huge curiosity and adaptability. I am actually centered on adaptive, modern talent units.
The Exterior Sign
What exterior growth this week is most definitely to vary 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 consumers landed on a web site with an AI assistant, they had been about 38% extra more likely to convert than anybody else.
As an alternative of going to retailers’ entrance doorways, shoppers are utilizing AI to focus on, curate and outline searches each for purchasing and journey. We’re seeing this transformation that I believe goes to vary the business total.
What we have now to consider it’s how will we serve these companies which might be transferring this manner and making use of AI to all their inner capabilities, whether or not it is buyer assist, or HR or finance? How can we take away the friction, as a result of if their clients are utilizing it, their inner folks must be utilizing it, proper?
The Perspective Shift
What have you ever learn, watched, or listened to lately that modified how you consider management or expertise — even barely?
A guide I learn a couple of months in the past that I discovered actually useful is “Energy and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Synthetic Intelligence.” The guide highlighted that as we take into consideration the ability of prediction and the economics which might be taking place with synthetic intelligence, there is not any enterprise that will not be impacted. That guide 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 believe is basically useful is known as The Markets. It is a recap of every little thing happening out there immediately and what is going on on in enterprise. It is a every day podcast, so I all the time sit up for listening to it at night time for a recap.
