System Upgrade

When D. Michael Bennett starts talking about technology, expect to be both inspired and enlightened. He’s excited not just about new and emerging tools and applications, but also about brainstorming new uses for existing technologies and how new developments can create productive, lucrative opportunities for businesses and professionals. It’s why in the late 1990s, Bennett abandoned a career in law.

Bennett now leads the development and implementation of its information technology policy, security, and execution as BAE Systems’ chief information officer, managing operations across the U.S. as well as in India, Sweden, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. He previously worked as vice president, contracts, procurement, pricing and facilities at the global defense and securities company based in the United Kingdom. Closer to home, the Charlotte, North Carolina, native uses his position to champion the need for youth and African Americans of all ages to be more open to technology as a creative and diverse pathway to career success.

You loved being a lawyer. What made you shift gears?
In

the late 1980s, as the Internet was developing, I was doing a lot of technology law, learning about software and new applications from a legal standpoint. I was also involved in a lot of mergers and acquisitions and procurement work, and those things really piqued my interest in running a business. Law was very narrow. I wanted to move from general counsel into general management. Later, BAE offered me the opportunity to run its cyber security business.

African Americans have been slow to step up to the technological plate, to our own detriment.
It’s true, and I understand it. Becoming CIO never occurred to me. When our CEO Linda Hudson first approached me with it, I said, “I’m not an engineer, I’m not a technologist, I’m a business guy.” She said, “That’s exactly what we need.” My job is about figuring out how to develop IT to help drive the business. Most companies look at IT as an enabler, maybe a costly one. The most successful companies look at

IT not just as an enabler, but as a driver to offer you a competitive advantage in the marketplace. If you use technology properly, it gives you that. That’s what I’m focused on every day here at BAE, and it’s incredibly exciting to realize how technology can enable your company to move forward, not just operationally, but cost-effectively.

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Is age a factor in breaking into technological jobs?
Younger people may be more instinctive about technology, but it’s not rocket science and it’s not expensive to learn about. Community colleges offer two-year degrees in Web design and cyber security, and these are real areas of growth. The only barrier to entry is you, not your age–and breaking through whatever mental barriers exist. Finance is laying off lots of people, but I guarantee they’re still hiring in technology, because they have lots of information they need to protect, and that need is growing, not shrinking. The same is true in medicine and lots of other industries, so choose an industry you like and figure out how to leverage your knowledge and skills to break into the tech side of that industry.

For people who are further along in their careers, don’t be intimidated. Your knowledge and skills can be a springboard for figuring out how to leverage technology within that arena.

You’ve moved IT from being a sort of foundational
function at BAE to a core one.
Business technology officers have to know where the business is going, not just where technology is going, so that tech decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. My goal is for an executive to say, I have a $10 million problem that I need you to help me solve. How much do I need to invest in technology to drive $10 million in costs from my process? That’s my business technology officer’s job.

What’s an example of your impact so far?
We’ve built 40 telepresence studios throughout the company in the last year rather than fly people around the world to

gather for meetings. It was motivated by our Global Information and Technology Council, which meets four times a year for four hours and involves 15 people from the U.S., the UK, India, Sweden, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. We encourage everyone to use the technology–all they have to do is reserve the rooms.

It takes an enormous amount of money to fly people to one location for a few hours, not to mention lost production time, coordinating time, etc. Telepresence is phenomenal. It’s almost like a hologram. The 1080-pixel quality of the technology creates an image with better clarity than the naked eye offers, and it’s life-size. The way the images appear, you can forget you’re not in the room with the other people. And unlike teleconferencing, where multiple voices can’t be heard at the same time, the audio is conversational and instantaneous–there’s no delay. It’s amazing. But, more importantly, it has improved our responsiveness to each other and our customers at a savings to everyone.