CIO Influence Interview with Meredith Stowell, Vice President of IBM Z Ecosystem

“Open source initiatives are a primary pathway to encourage innovation within the IBM Z ecosystem.”

Welcome, Meredith, to the CIO Influence Interview Series! Please briefly describe your role and goals as Vice President of IBM zSystems Ecosystem.

Thank you for the opportunity, CIO Influence. I lead ecosystem initiatives for the IBM Z and the LinuxONE platforms. My goal in this role is to build and showcase a diverse, sustainable, vibrant, skilled community of partners, clients, job seekers, influencers, and team members to drive client success and growth.

How does your analytics and developer outreach background influence your strategy for IBM’s zSystems ecosystem?

I am an analyst at heart and I bring this mindset into my current role by using data-driven insights to not only design but also continuously improve the IBM Z ecosystem programs and strategy. This includes bringing in sponsor users throughout the design and execution process to provide feedback and recommendations, create success metrics, and incorporate scalability — all enabling us to ensure a frictionless experience as a core design point.

Additionally, my experience with developer outreach programs reiterated the need for authenticity, peer-to-peer engagement, hands-on technical interactions, and meeting individuals where they are. This influenced the overall ecosystem strategy, with a focus on providing hands-on system access through the LinuxONE Community Cloud, the IBM Z Xplore learning experience, and open-source projects. We have also increased the number of courses available through common learning channels such as Coursera, Pluralsight, EdX, and more. The focus on skilling also extends to the IBM Z Student Ambassador program, which provides leadership and mentoring opportunities for university students while also enabling peer-to-peer outreach to increase awareness of mainframe opportunities.

In what ways are you aligning ecosystem development with IBM Z’s role in digital transformation and hybrid cloud strategies?

The ecosystem is critical to accelerating digital transformation and the integration of IBM Z into a hybrid cloud strategy. At IBM, we recognize that a key driver of success is expanding the skills. Therefore, we engage the ecosystem through digital and direct outreach to help drive application modernization and hybrid cloud integration capabilities and use cases. This outreach includes:

• Our IBM Z Day virtual conference where community members share experiences.
• Code-a-thons and Datathons introduce AI concepts and contemporary ways of working with the mainframe and integration techniques.
• The Modernization Architect track within the Mainframe Skills Depot which provides self-service training materials and digital badging on the various application modernization entry points.
• Joining partners and community members at their events to engage with our joint clients.

We also support Global Systems Integrators to deepen their skills and develop Centers of Excellence focused on digital transformation and hybrid cloud strategies with IBM Z. Finally, we are consistently identifying new potential partners and open source communities to engage and expand options for clients to accelerate and de-risk digital transformation. Our goal is to bring together the ecosystem of ecosystems to share knowledge, accelerate innovation, create joint solutions, and ultimately deliver success to our mutual clients and users.

What motivated the creation of the Mainframe Skills Council, and what impact do you anticipate it having?

In my work with clients and partners globally, I’ve gained insight into what is being done from an IBM perspective as well as from a community perspective to build mainframe talent. While there are some common practices and programs globally, there are also some incredible initiatives that are being done regionally by non-profits, individual employers, open-source communities, and partners.

The Mainframe Skills Council will provide a forum to bring this broader global community together to share experiences, identify common challenges and gaps, and collaboratively implement solutions. We want to combine forces and cross-pollinate where there is value so that we are bringing more people into the mainframe community and providing them with more skills as well as networking opportunities. The ultimate common goal across all of the member organizations is to build a strong global workforce for the mainframe platform.

How does IBM collaborate with universities to foster mainframe skills among students and professionals?

IBM collaborates with universities to foster mainframe skills and provide educator resources and programs. This includes the IBM Z Xplore hands-on learning experience that can be integrated into curriculum; the Educators’ User Group for educators to network, access classroom resources, connect to subject matter experts and guest lecturers, and share curriculum; remote IBM Z system access for educators to provide students custom labs; facilitating IBM Z Career Connection events to connect students with mainframe employers; and an IBM Z Student Ambassador program providing students leadership opportunities to establish and lead mainframe student clubs as well as access to IBM coaches and mentors.

What drives your commitment to diversity in tech, particularly for women in STEM?

As a woman in tech, I am passionate about broadening diversity and inclusion and making the industry a more welcoming place for everyone. About 5 years ago I presented an introduction to Enterprise IT to a junior high class.  After my presentation, a female student asked me, “Do they make fun of you for being a girl in IT?”

This was when it hit me that we really have an issue and despite all the strides being made, it hasn’t gotten significantly better if a 13-year-old girl in today’s world is asking this question.

So, when I’m asked what drives my commitment to diversity and inclusion in tech, it is girls like her and other individuals who may think they don’t have the right education, don’t have the right background, won’t fit in or will be ostracized. These individuals have the initiative and drive, the curiosity, and the interest — and we must provide them with opportunities via non-traditional pathways to tech. This includes working with employers to adopt new talent programs, showcasing role models, and being upstanders.

Through the IBM Z Global Skills Accelerator and Apprenticeship program, for example, I’ve heard passionate success stories first-hand from graduates who had no IT experience or background and are now successful mainframe system administrators and application developers who love their jobs. This is what motivates me.  Not only do I get to work with leading-edge technology that powers the global economy, but that technology is now creating opportunities to change people’s lives.

Can you explain how the IBM Z Mainframe Skills Depot makes mainframe education more accessible?

The Mainframe Skills Depot makes mainframe training paths and content more accessible by creating an easily navigable, dedicated portal to access over 1,000 hours of self-paced, virtual mainframe training content. This content is organized by common roles and experience levels, and much of the training is no-charge or low cost. Ultimately, this reduces the barriers to onboarding new talent, deepens skills of the existing community, and enables participants to earn industry-recognized digital credentials throughout the learning tracks.

How do you encourage innovation within the IBM zSystems ecosystem?

Open source initiatives are a primary pathway to encourage innovation within the IBM Z ecosystem. Active membership and support of the Open Mainframe Project within the Linux Foundation provides a forum for the IBM Z ecosystem to come together and innovate new solutions. In addition, the Mainframe Skills Council, for example, will provide another forum to bring together the community to innovate and create new solutions.

What steps does IBM zSystems take to remain agile with emerging tech trends like AI and quantum computing?

IBM is known for our industry leading research, industry expertise, and ability to leverage design thinking. This powerful combination, in my opinion, allows IBM Z to remain agile and bring industry-first technology to market. For example, the current IBM z16 system has industry-first quantum-safe encryption that is resistant to attacks by both classical and quantum computers. As new algorithms are standardized, IBM Z built agility into the framework to enable quick adoption of future requirements. In addition, the IBM z16 has AI inferencing acceleration built into the chip enabling AI at scale without impacts to stringent SLAs.

The adoption of common, open standards also enables clients to build and train models where they want and then easily deploy within their transaction processing on IBM Z.

What strategies do you use to engage professional developers with IBM zSystems and LinuxONE?

The core of our strategy is to provide hands-on, technical opportunities for professional developers to explore and experience solutions, develop job-relevant skills for growth, and meet them where they are digitally and physically, while also providing opportunities to bring developers together to network and share.

We regularly engage professional developers through IBM TechXchange technical workshops, conferences (IBM Z Day and TechXchange), digital communities, code-a-thons, and virtual sessions. We also participate in third-party events and user groups such as SHARE (where IBM is the Premier Education and Technology Platform Provider), along with open source and professional developer industry conferences.

Additionally, we’re proud to have a passionate community of external advocates and IBM Champions who engage professional developers via social platforms, technical content, and ongoing outreach across their IT organizations.

What leadership principles guide you in driving collaboration and results in the ecosystem?

Three prevailing leadership principles have guided me in this role and throughout my career.

First is radical collaboration, both internally and externally. I’ve found it’s critical to bring a diversity of thought, experience, and background into each initiative to create powerful solutions that lift everyone up.

Second is a concept that dovetails on this and was shared by NASA astronaut, Steve Smith. It’s important to adopt an explorer’s mindset and recognize that the path to success isn’t linear, and it may not be Option A or Option B but rather Option X. It requires experimentation, continuous learning, and building on experiences to drive progress and results.

Finally, I’m a big subscriber to the Flywheel model and firmly believe that our clients and community are our best advocates. If you make them happy, they will tell others, and if you make solutions and programs easy to learn and adopt that will turn the gears and build momentum for growth.

Any advice for future tech leaders aiming for inclusive and sustainable talent development?

My top advice for future tech leaders is to act intentionally, explore non-traditional pathways, experiment without fear of failure, and radically collaborate. By taking these steps in your career, you can freely share and receive ideas, drive innovation, make incremental improvements, and ultimately, discover Option X.

Thank you, Meredith! That was fun and we hope to see you back on CIO Influence soon.