Gender equity is not the only challenge women CIOs face: an interview with Anu Varma, CIO for the communication solution segment at TE connectivity

Abstract

This interview offers rare insight covering the recent triangulation of events - technology churning and crunching more bytes, COVID presenting more supply chain and analytical challenges, and more female CIOs entering the C-suites. Anu Varma, Vice President and CIO of the Communication Solution Segment at TE Connectivity, sat down with JITCAR to offer a rare insight into the evolving CEO-CIO dynamics, particularly from the women CIO perspective in these challenging and also promising times. In the interview, Anu shares how the CEO-CIO dynamics have changed significantly in the past ten to fifteen years. She also highlights how IT is now driving the business strategy, and the CIO is trusted with business roles rather than a back-office role. As a female CIO, Anu offers unique perspectives on the challenges faced by women in the IT world, particularly at the CIO level. During Covid, she and her team embraced the supply chain challenges and turned those into an opportunity to transform IT operations at TE Connectivity. Their efforts have also driven the analytics and insight-driven culture and created more demand for analytical-driven solutions within the business. The interview also discusses several other pressing issues facing CIOs in the manufacturing industry: IT talent acquisition/retention and costs of IT and cybersecurity. The interview also discusses how business leaders can support women in balancing their work responsibilities and family obligations in IT and elsewhere. The interview was conducted by Dr. Gaurav Bansal and transcribed by Dr. Zhuoli Axelton, both from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gaurav Bansal

Gaurav Bansal is Frederick E. Baer, Professor in Business and full professor of MIS/Statistics at the Austin E. Cofrin School of Business at UW-Green Bay. He is a Distinguished Member (Cum Laude) of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). He currently serves as editor-in-chief for the Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research. He earned his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee in 2008. Dr. Bansal has published in several premier MIS journals, such as the Journal of Management Information Systems, the European Journal of Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, and Information & Management. He has served as the past President of the Midwest Association for Information Systems.

Zhuoli Axelton

Zhuoli Axelton is an Assistant Professor of Accounting and VITA coordinator at the Austin E. Cofrin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She earned her Ph.D. in Accountancy from Washington State University in 2021. Before joining academia, she worked on federal and international tax issues in the tax department as a senior international tax accountant at Micron Technology, Inc. in Boise, Idaho. She obtained her bachelor of accounting and MBA from Boise State University in 2007. Her research interests include taxation, risk disclosures, security-based crowdfunding, cybersecurity, and IT security compliance intentions. She has published several articles in Tax Notes and has been working on various research topics related to information systems.