Try a little of everything, and look for those opportunities that will continue to allow you to grow and learn — especially those opportunities that will challenge you.
Stephen’s impact:
Stephen Franchetti oversees Slack’s Business Technology department and strives to create exceptional technology experiences pairing Slack and a razor-sharp focus on business impact. He plays a critical role in aligning Slack’s IT strategy with its business strategy, and leveraging Slack’s platform capabilities to transform the department to support the company’s continuous hyper growth.
Stephen enabled his team to go beyond traditional IT team duties to become a major source of business information, data and insights for a cross-section of departments, including sales and finance. In the spirit of driving business objectives in an innovative way, the Business Technology department created the “Slack on Slack” program, building numerous bots, workflows and integrations that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to automate a variety of work tasks. Within 12 months, Stephen and his team unified multiple complex systems and unstructured teams to become a pivotal department within the larger organization.
Cross-departmental adoption and positive reception of the program early on were critical to its success. Notably, Slack achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 68% within the program’s first year. Slack’s engagement survey demonstrated an overwhelmingly positive trend in engagement, company confidence and management. These results allowed for the program to run effectively and achieve measurable results for all departments involved, ultimately enabling teams to power Slack for its 10 million users.
Why he’s an Up-and-Comer:
Stephen was instrumental in the planning and execution of Slack’s organizational transformation within its IT and business strategy departments. In addition to unifying a handful of complex systems and unstructured teams, he practiced an attitude of positivity and encouraged new design thinking practices from team members.
He also continues to implement management practices that promote innovation and new ways of solving challenges. This overall approach helps Stephen successfully break the department out of the traditional stereotypical IT concept and into the “Business Technology” brand that is critical to Slack’s strategy and growth.
What’s your number one piece of advice for people just starting their tech careers?
Remember life is a journey, not the destination. Keep yourself open to learning. Try a little of everything, and look for those opportunities that will continue to allow you to grow and learn — especially those opportunities that will challenge you. There will be failures along the way, but those are the moments where you will learn the most. Don’t follow the path well trodden, the obvious choices are often not the most rewarding.
There will be failures along the way, but those are the moments where you will learn the most.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
As long as I’m doing what I love I’ll be happy! The intersection of technology and people is the most rewarding place to be for me; leading a group of passionate people to create exceptional technology experiences is likely where you’ll find me. There’s no question that as technology continues to shift in the next 10 years, the CIO role will also shift dramatically; the CIO’s role will become more important than ever in using technology to create new business models to drive impact.
