Everyone deserves outstanding digital products and services.
Working in tandem with your team, we clarify expectations, foster partnerships, boost trust, and remove roadblocks, helping you achieve your goals and establish a sustainable, high-performance operation. Our personalized Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) services offer the tools and insights you need to grow with confidence.
Marc Kase and Craig Shohara have served in CIO, CTO, and senior technical roles for over 20 years and have facilitated breakthrough results for their employers:
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Life sciences medical device startup achieved 100% on-time delivery of 2 billion COVID-19 tests with the help of a cloud digital suite.
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Global travel insurance company increased self-service claims-filing usage from 45% to 80% and improved Net Promoter Scores by rigorously measuring and improving the digital claims customer experience.
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Global irrigation and lighting manufacturer increased operating margins by 2% (200 basis points) and doubled revenue through a series of acquisitions, digital product releases, and by integrating all business units and locations into an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
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Major defense contractor was able to split into two entities through a well architected systems modernization program, saving $50 million. They also saved $100 million through a successful multifunctional shared service center implementation that leveraged enterprise architecture, employee experience, service management, KPIs, and SLAs."
Marc Kase
Chief Information Officer
I have spent the past 18 years as a CIO or head of IT helping Fortune 500 and mid-market companies grow and adapt by guiding effective business, technical and cultural changes.
I am now helping a wider variety of companies make outstanding decisions, delight their customers, and operate with integrity by serving as a fractional CIO.
A fractional arrangement gives you the technical leadership you need to grow at a commitment level that scales with you.
#culture, #change, #agility, #teams, #mentoring, #lifesciences, #manufacturing
My Story
I earned a B.S. in Decision Sciences and an MBA in Decision and Information Systems from Indiana University, Bloomington and then worked in the automotive industry for a decade before jumping to an IT Director role at a Fortune 500 professional services company in 2005. Since then, I have been serving as a CIO or IT Director for startup, mid-market and Fortune 500 companies, using transformative business practices and technology to drive advantage. In 2018, I founded Achieve Agility and have since balanced running this business alongside my full-time roles.
One of my recent achievements includes setting up the IT function and capabilities at Innova Medical Group, a life sciences startup. My teams and I successfully navigated FDA hurdles, delivered 2 billion lateral flow tests on schedule, and scaled operations to match changing demand. We also implemented procedures and technology to secure ISO-13485 medical device manufacturing quality certification.
I am a pioneer in agile business practices, and led the Hunter Industries team that invented the 'Mob Programming' software teaming methodology—a collaborative approach to software development—that's now used by Intuit, Salesforce, and Tesla to improve quality and productivity.
Here are a few of my specialties:
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Align IT with business needs: Evaluate the company, marketplace, IT services, technology, key employees, and key business partners to produce an IT strategy, roadmap, risk assessment and operating plan that facilitates business results.
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Improve business agility: Help a team quickly implement new ideas, learn from experience and release improvements. Align expectations across teams.
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Develop digital business models: Develop digital strategies, establish new partnerships, develop “win-win” contracts, ensure service levels meet or exceed business needs, ensure solutions deliver an excellent user experience.
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Improve team performance: Assess team capabilities and culture, define goals, objectives, and job descriptions, create individual development plans, mentor employees, foster a positive culture, improve practices, and ultimately, deliver results.
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Help projects succeed: Clarify expectations, improve methods, increase trust, deliver commitments.
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Mitigate risks: Assess and mitigate IT, security and privacy risks; Develop programs, policies, and procedures.
In my spare time I serve on the board of directors of the Boys to Men Youth Mentoring Network and explore San Diego’s hiking and bicycling trails with my family.
Craig Shohara
Enterprise Architect and Chief Technology Officer
I have focused my career on transforming organizations to achieve their strategic business goals. My approach is to understand the business strategy and then align IT with the business using enterprise architecture and Agile best practices. I achieve success by building strong relationships with the business and engaging each stakeholder in a way that clearly demonstrates how IT is supporting the business to deliver measurable business value.
My Story
I have defined and led successful corporate transformation, modernization, acquisition/divestiture, cloud migration, legacy system retirement, and enterprise application deployment initiatives. These efforts have enabled new business operating models, expanded strategic business capabilities, improved business processes, reduced risk, and generated million-dollar savings. My experience spans large, global, complex Fortune 500 companies to SMBs and start-ups.