Intel Corp. CIO and Vice President Diane Bryant has worked at the chip maker for 25 years, starting right out of college. She earned four patents as a mobile engineer there in the early 1990s and later headed up the company's server business.
Her longevity with the company and deep job experience help account for her obvious confidence as the head IT person at an industry juggernaut where she oversees an IT staff of 6,300.
How on Earth can anybody lead such an organization? "Leadership is about gaining commitment to the organization," says Bryant, 48.
To accomplish that, she relies on a range of communication techniques, including face-to-face meetings, webcasts, videoconferences, email and blogs. She travels internationally most days of the week and has found that "taping a video is a great way to connect."
New collaboration technologies such as video are "almost a mandate," she says, since Intel has employees in hundreds of factories and other operations around the world.
"Video drives up our network use tremendously. Our network is growing by 35% [annually] and is heavily driven by video," she says.
IT's input at Intel has led to a host of improvements, Bryant says, including the use of business analytics to cut the factory planning cycle time from seven days to one. That, in turn, has already helped lower products' costs, including those for the Atom processors that will be appearing in smartphones and tablets this year.
CEO Paul Otellini says Bryant's experience at Intel has "given her a unique perspective on the potential of the CIO. She is focused on how IT can add value to our company and has delivered large gains."