Ted Kingston, Director, IT-Business Alignment Process. He reports directly to the CIO and has a solid understanding of the business processes and financials. He's good at requirements gathering, organizing teams, and motivating people. He is a strategic thinker and has a short attention span. There will be many times when he will be the least popular guy at HomeWorks. A truly effective IT-business alignment involves a lot of overtime — work that is over and above your traditional job description. So he is the one who will come around and bug you to get things completed. And if you keep putting him off, he just might run to the CIO and get him to help out. Kingston is not afraid to be unpopular, because ultimately the success of this project rests on his shoulders. John Mills, CIO at HomeWorks. He's new to the organization, but comes from a retail background. Mills has a military background as well, so he can be demanding and uncompromising at times. He's highly intelligent and a genuine visionary who is deeply committed to running IT as a business. Mills is 48 years old and he's hoping to stay with HomeWorks until his retirement. Rebecca Morse, Senior Manager of Business Requirements and Analysis. She holds a key role in the IT-business alignment because she's the most senior person on the team from outside the IT organization. Many IT organizations ignore the significant role that the folks on the business side play in an IT-business alignment initiative. Rebecca's primary role is to form a team to put the processes and methods in place for gathering business requirements, doing cost benefit analysis, and working closely with the business units to prioritize their requests. Rebecca is a former buyer. She's very detail oriented, energetic, hard working, creative, and a fairly good motivator. Jesse Reed, Manager, Strategic Planning and Analysis. He's a visionary-type who gained most of his experience working for one of the big six firms. Jesse is highly capable and has years of experience in developing high-level strategic plans for companies. He was hired to develop the strategic vision plan for the IT organization and to ensure that it meshes with the overall strategic plan of the company. He's a great facilitator, he's up on technology, and he understands the various issues affecting retailers. He's also a great writer and a highly effective presenter. Andy Lyons, Director of Technical Services. He and his team are responsible for keeping the hardware, network, and operating systems and databases up and running at HomeWorks. He is a long time HomeWorks employee. In fact, HomeWorks is the only company Lyons has ever worked for in his 19 years in IT. He was hired directly out of a local technical college on an honors program and, beginning as a junior DBA, has steadily worked his way up to his current director position. Lyons is technically brilliant. He is also very opinionated and confident, to the point of arrogance. Roger Zimka, Director of Store Systems. He is responsible for the myriad hardware, software, and application systems within the 136 HomeWorks locations around the United States and Canada. He has been with HomeWorks for over 10 years, having joined the company via an acquisition of a smaller retailer. Zimka has the largest budget and staff of any of the SLT. Like an old fashioned Boston ward politician, Zimka has spent much of his time at HomeWorks building a constituency of loyal IS team members through what can only be characterized as a lavish patronage system. This patronage system consists of frequent raises, bonuses, and training and promotion opportunities for his team. The end-users think Zimka and his team walk on water. Marilyn Immelt. Marilyn Immelt is the newest of the HomeWorks IS Directors having joined the company seven years ago when she was brought in as part of a previous CIO's team. She is in charge of the development and support for all of the business applications not related to store systems. Immelt is intelligent, hard working, and very dedicated to HomeWorks. She is "true red" as they say around HomeWorks; referring to the predominant color found in the corporation's logo. She is respected by her end-users and staff but not well liked. Her staff characterizes her as anal-retentive in the extreme while her end-users find her remote and sometimes condescending. She has been responsible for the successful implementation of the new ERP merchandising system. Steve Wilson. Steve Wilson is in charge of the IS accounting team for John Mills. Wilson joined HomeWorks just four weeks ago and comes to the company from a junior accounting position at UPS. Wilson is a solid accountant but is very shy and reserved. He has no technical background. He hopes this IS position will be a steppingstone to allow him to move into the HomeWorks accounting department. He is impressed with Mills' comments on running IS in a fiscally responsible manner but is staggered by the lack of formal accounting systems and procedures currently in place within IS. Wilson has told his wife that he will be working late a lot in the coming months.
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