The finalists for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards were announced March 28, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place live, in-person May 10.
Next is Myles Weber, chief information officer at Appian, and finalist in the Private and Public Chief Information Officer category. Here, he shares key achievements, focus areas going forward, career advice and more.
What key achievements did you have in 2023?
Our focus is a platform for AI process automation. We expanded our worldwide coverage and enablement in regard to compliance, certifications, systems and support.
We expanded and added major compliance and certifications to help our customers in Italy, Germany, Australia and the U.S, government (FedRAMP High, StateRAMP) for a total of 26 different compliance and certification programs worldwide across a wide variety of industries.
We also added more automation to our business to help us scale and be more efficient. We increased the quality in which we enhance our data, the speed in which we route it and the breadth of data points, while focusing on the most important data first.
We opened two new offices to expand our presence in Mexico and India.
We added local support in Japan and expanded our presence and coverage throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. In parallel to this growth, we also had a 97% customer support satisfaction rate through a focus on being responsive, helpful and driving root cause resolutions.
What are your primary focus areas going forward, and why are those so important to the mission?
One area of focus is to continue to improve the experience of our customers, partners and employees through tighter system integration, automation of key processes and greater insight. It is exciting to adopt new technologies, especially in the AI focus, as we scale the business for growth and strive for cost efficiencies.
We are also focused on leveraging data fabric to increase our speed and agility to do data analysis, data modeling and digital transformation work. This virtualized data layer on top of data sets, removing the need for the complex API and coding work will simplify our work and improve customer outcomes.
What is your best career advice for those who want to follow in your footsteps?
Obviously, everyone’s time is valuable. Be focused on where you spend your time and be sure you are leaving things better than where you found them. If something isn’t going well, step up and help make it better. If you have the ability to choose where to spend your time, it is the greatest freedom. Please use that time wisely, hopefully for the greater good.
Fun Fact: What is something about you that most people do not know?
Inspired by my blue-collar upbringing and the leadership exemplified by my family’s grit and volunteerism, I’ve invested in youth and diversity development. One example is as a coach for 24 youth sports teams over the past nine years. I’ve seen firsthand the value of investing in our youth. I focused the teams on building life skills and improving each day, not the score.