Philip Morris CIO Shares His Leadership And IT Alignment Insights

Joseph Amado, vice president and chief information officer of Philip Morris USA, visited Penn State’s Smeal College of Business in February to participate in the college’s new program, Leadership in Focus: Executive Insights.

This guest speaker series was developed to complement the Smeal educational experience by bringing high-profile business leaders to the college to connect with students, faculty, and administrators to share some of their experiences in leadership and their specific disciplines.

After meeting individually and in small groups with student leaders and faculty members, Amado sat down with Smeal Dean James Thomas for a conversation in the auditorium of the college’s Business Building. The two spoke for about an hour in front of an audience of Smeal students and faculty, who contributed questions for the conversation.

Amado, who is credited with reshaping Philip Morris' information technology culture to align the company's IT resources with its business needs, shared some of his experiences since taking over the company's IT operations in 2000 and discussed how technology can add business value and improve processes.

“IT is not about IT; IT is about the business,” Amado told Thomas. “It’s all about the business. Regardless of whether you’re in finance or marketing, it’s the business first.”

Amado said, in order to bring about business and technology alignment, he and his IT department, which is made up of about 600 employees, had to first change their basic thinking and perspectives of their jobs. He had to define his role, define his department’s role, list deliverables, and work more closely with other departments, including finance, logistics, marketing, and sales.

“Twenty-five years ago, when I started in IT, it was little ‘I’ and big ‘T,’” he said, “We cared less about the information and more about what was in that box.”

The rest of the company doesn’t care about the technology that’s “in the box,” he said. They just care that it works. The job of an IT department, according to Amado, is to “turn data into information and insight that will allow you to make better business decisions faster.”

In order to meet this objective, Amado looks for employees who demonstrate superior skills in project management, problem solving, communicating and presenting, business analysis, and leadership.

Leadership, he said, is vital to his efforts and to the entire corporation, because leaders allow the company to innovate, expand boundaries, and break from the status quo. Every employee fulfills a needed role and must be able to lead within that role, Amado noted.

He said Philip Morris looks for and develops leaders who can provide clear direction, allocate resources efficiently, and build the company’s capabilities. It’s also important, he said, to be constantly aware of your current situation, whether in your department or across the corporation. Otherwise, it’s impossible to know where you want to go and how you are going to get there.

"I tell my people: Software is not my best asset. Hardware is not my best asset. My best asset is you,” he said to Thomas toward the end of their conversation. “From a project perspective, delivery perspective, value to the business—it’s the people that make it happen, not the hardware, software or the brand. It’s the people. And we have a pretty incredible brand, but if it wasn’t for our sales force, that brand wouldn’t be incredible. If it wasn’t for our marketing dept, that brand wouldn’t be incredible. It’s the people."

Amado first joined Philip Morris USA in 1986 as a computer analyst. He served as information technology director of operations before his appointment in June 2000 to vice president and CIO, responsible for the management of all systems development and all of the company's IT assets. He holds a bachelor's degree from Winston-Salem State University, where he sits on the board of trustees.

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