Schneider Electric Launches New Podcast Series: Leaders Share Insights on Accelerating Digital Journeys During Pandemic

• Executive Insights addresses challenges industry CIOs and VPs face in ensuring business, education, and life continuity during the pandemic
• Guests include Julia White, Microsoft; Hani Nofal, Gulf Business Machine; and Schneider Electric’s CIO, Elizabeth Hackenson
• Latest episode discusses data center disaggregation challenges and features Bob Olwig, VP of Corporate Business Development at World Wide Technology

Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, announced the launch of a new podcast series featuring technology insiders discussing insights on how businesses are accelerating digital journeys at this unique moment in time. With five episodes available for free download, Executive Insights provides tangible strategies to help IT and data center professional ensure life is on and stays on for every one of us. Industry professionals can listen and subscribe to the Executive Insights podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher Podcasts – or watch the video versions available through SE.com.

Hosted by Kevin Brown, Senior Vice President, EcoStruxure Solutions and CMO of the Secure Power Division of Schneider Electric, Executive Insights came to life during the early days of the pandemic. With a monumental shift in the number of people suddenly working from home, Brown knew executives at Schneider Electric, our customers, and our partners were making hard decisions to successfully manage this transition and he wanted to know more.

“The pandemic accelerated digital transformation faster than any company or CIO could have on their own. My team and I saw a learning opportunity for our industry that could help a lot of people dealing with similar big issues. We partnered with our own CIO organization to join our first episode, and Executive Insights was born,” Brown said. “Through this series we will continue to discuss the challenges CIOs and VPs face as we move our digital transformation journey faster than we ever thought possible.”

Next up on Executive Insights: Understanding Data Center Disaggregation

The latest episode brings in Bob Olwig, VP of Corporate Business Development at World Wide Technology (WWT) to discuss disaggregation challenges with host Kevin Brown.

“For large enterprises and global service providers who have been locked into an expensive single-vendor data center design or solution, the prospect of taking advantage of the low cost and flexibility of commodity components, a practice called disaggregation, is extremely tempting. Yet with all its advantages, companies are finding that due to staff shortages and skills gaps, re-assembling these commodity components is becoming increasingly complex, time-consuming, and difficult,” Olwig explained. “Through Executive Insights, we are glad to help the industry through this challenging time sharing our knowledge to overcome challenges.”

The premiere episode of Executive Insights with Kevin Brown introduces Schneider Electric CIO Elizabeth Hackenson as the first guest. Hackenson led the charge to enable more than 100,000 employees around the globe to work from home seemingly overnight.

Executive Insights with Kevin Brown - Elizabeth Hackenson, CIO, Schneider Electric

In episode 2, Hani Nofal, VP Gulf Business Machines (GBM) of Dubai discusses how his organization helped customers ensure business continuity and the critical importance of relationships especially during a crisis.

Julia White, CVP Azure at Microsoft discusses scale and efficiency in episode 3. The rapid influx of cloud-based applications and connectivity for remote workforce created complexities to securing the last mile - and it was a wildly important focus for Microsoft to address at the onset of the global pandemic. White discusses what actions Microsoft took to ensure last-mile dependency was resilient.

Access full episodes of Executive Insights to glean insights and learn best practices from industry leaders. Find out what episodes are coming next and take advantage of additional resources, such as white papers and blogs pertaining to digital transformations, data center solutions, resiliency, remote monitoring, the work-from-home workforce, edge computing, and more.