CIO Classified

When you’re managing $60 trillion in assets across dozens of products and 30 global jurisdictions, technical debt isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s an existential risk.Jason Adams, CTO of State Street Alpha and Charles River Development, leads 800 engineers building mission-critical trading platforms for the world’s largest asset managers. Joined by Sid Pardeshi, Co-Founder and CTO of Blitzy, he explains how State Street is using an AI-augmented SDLC to modernize decades-old systems, refactor legacy code, and dramatically increase developer productivity—without compromising the rigor required in financial services.Jason frames the strategy around three pillars: AI for engineering (copilots and polyglot support),AI for operations (APM, observability, and proactive monitoring), andAI embedded in products (LLM-powered explainers).Using Blitzy’s agentic approach—iterative context building, dependency mapping, and targeted code generation—State Street compressed months of work into weeks while maintaining strict quality gates.About the Guests:Jason AdamsJason Adams is a fintech leader and technology strategist, currently serving as Interim CTO for Charles River Development and the State Street Alpha platform. He brings deep expertise in modernizing legacy fintech infrastructure into scalable, cloud-native systems that support mission-critical financial services at global scale.Previously, Jason was Head of Platform Product and Strategy at Charles River Development and CTO of Mercatus (acquired by State Street and now part of Charles River for Private Markets). He has led high-impact initiatives across engineering, product, and cloud infrastructure, with extensive experience guiding end-to-end delivery teams.Today, Jason is driving a comprehensive SaaS transformation at CRD, focused on building resilient, future-ready architectures. From scaling global engineering organizations to delivering secure, high-performance platforms, he is committed to advancing innovation, agility, and long-term growth across Charles River, State Street Alpha, and State Street.Sid PardeshiSid Pardeshi is a technology leader and entrepreneur, currently Co-Founder and CTO of Blitzy. He holds a Harvard MS/MBA and previously served as a Software Architect at NVIDIA, where he built deep expertise at the intersection of AI, large-scale software systems, and product innovation.At NVIDIA, Sid was recognized as a Master Inventor, earning the Inventor’s Jacket for driving AI-powered product innovation, with more than 25 U.S. patents filed across gaming, augmented reality, and virtual reality. He is also a seasoned software engineer with a strong track record in application performance optimization, delivering native client load-time improvements of up to 90%.Beyond hands-on engineering, Sid has led and coordinated software design, framework requirements, and application architecture across global teams of 500+ engineers. Today, he applies this blend of innovation, technical depth, and organizational leadership to building autonomous software development platforms that help enterprises modernize at scale.Timestamps:00:30 – Jason on Managing $60 Trillion in Assets01:55 – Challenges and Strategies in Financial Services07:00 – Embracing AI for Modernization09:10 – AI in Software Development Lifecycle15:55 – Ensuring Quality and Compliance with AI23:55 – AI in Operations and Incident Response26:00 – Proactive Workflow Monitoring26:20 – AI in SDLC: Creation to Operations30:00 – Challenges in AI Recommendations33:20 – Iterative Context Building with AI36:00 – Human Side of AI Transformation42:30 – Adopting AI Tools in Financial ServicesGuest Highlights:"One of the things that excites me the most right now is the ability to use an AI-augmented SDLC to drive modernization. Otherwise, with this many systems, it's too hard." — Jason "You have to invest in the non-attractive parts first. You have to build a foundation that's gonna support being able to bring on solutions and tools that could change your overall enterprise SDLC. That's a lot of work and that's a major investment." — Jason "We are unlocking by adding these additional capabilities and additional assurance that improves quality exponentially more than we could have in the past. Now I can have an agent swarm check itself—multiple agents doing code review at a level of depth we just don't have time to get to." — JasonGet Connected:Jason Adams on LinkedInSid Pardeshi on LinkedInYousuf Kahn on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInHungry for more tech talk? Check out latest episodes at ciopod.com: Ep 63 - How Autonomous AI is Solving the Enterprise Modernization ChallengeEp 62 - Running IT Like a Growth EngineEp 61 - What Manufacturing Can Teach You About Scaling Enterprise AILearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Most enterprises have roadmaps stretching 3-5 years out. What if you could compress that to 1-2 years? Brian Elliot is the Co-Founder and CEO of Blitzy, an enterprise-focused autonomous software development platform tackling one of technology's toughest problems: how do you modernize 20-100 million lines of legacy code when the developers who wrote it retired 15 years ago?In this episode, Brian explores:Why orchestrated AI agents can handle 80% of transformation work autonomously (and why humans still matter for the other 20%)The realities of enterprise buying cycles and why embedded on-site teams accelerate change managementWhy documentation and test coverage are the unsexy first steps that make everything else possibleAbout the Guest: Brian Elliott is CEO and Co-founder of Blitzy. A serial entrepreneur, former Infantry Officer with the 1st Ranger Battalion, and West Point graduate in Systems Engineering with a Harvard MBA, Brian brings a unique blend of military precision, engineering expertise, and entrepreneurial vision to transforming enterprise software development.As CEO, Brian leads Blitzy's mission to empower systematic AI adoption across enterprises, transforming traditional development lifecycles into AI-native workflows. Under his leadership, Blitzy has developed an agentic platform where thousands of specialized AI Agents cooperate at inference to autonomously deliver enterprise-scale code that is tested, validated, and compiled.Focused on operational deployment at scale, Brian architected the company's proven Agentic SDLC Accelerator—a structured methodology that systematically guides engineering organizations from technical validation to full-scale enterprise adoption. This framework unlocks autonomous capabilities across the complete software development lifecycle.Timestamps:01:25 – Understanding Blitzy's AI Capabilities03:25 – Challenges and Solutions in Enterprise Software06:00 – The Genesis of Blitzy07:30 – Insights from Nvidia and AI Development11:00 – Implementing AI in Enterprise Systems18:00 – Change Management and Customer Collaboration20:30 – Understanding Enterprise Security Needs25:10 – Improving Code Quality and Test Coverage28:15 – Blitzy's Mission and Market Direction30:10 – Challenges and Opportunities in Enterprise SoftwareGuest Highlight:"Code is beautiful in that it's verifiable. We're following enterprise best practices—everything goes to a dev branch where a human can look at it, review it, go through a typical QA process. The first thing we're gonna do is document their code so they know what's going on, then add test cases, then develop software at scale that's highly verifiable."Get Connected:Brian Elliot on LinkedInYousuf Kahn on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInHungry for more tech talk? Check out past episodes at ciopod.com: Ep 62 - Running IT Like a Growth EngineEp 61 - What Manufacturing Can Teach You About Scaling Enterprise AIEp 60 - Why the Smartest CIOs Are Becoming Business StrategistsLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comOur Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Blitzy, the Enterprise Autonomous Software Development Platform with Infinite Code Context. Blitzy uses thousands of specialized AI agents that think for hours to understand enterprise scale codebases with millions of lines of code.Enterprise Engineering leaders start every development sprint with the Blitzy platform, bringing in their development requirements. The Blitzy platform provides a plan, then generates and pre-compiles code for each task. Blitzy delivers 80%+ of the development work autonomously, while providing a guide for the final 20% of human development work required to complete the sprint.Public companies are achieving a 5x engineering velocity increase when incorporating Blitzy as their Pre-IDE development tool, pairing it with their coding co-pilot of choice to bring an AI-Native SDLC into their org.Visit Blitzy.com and press book demo to learn how Blitzy transforms your SDLC from AI Assisted to AI Native. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Chetna explains how new automation strategies are evolving not only productivity, but the role of the CIO. Chetna emphasizes the importance of data quality and security when scaling a fast-growing company, as well as transparency and partnership in vendor relationships. About the Guest: Chetna is an award winning CIO, board member, and VC advisor with over 25 years of experience working in the Fortune 100 and serving as a 3X CIO for hyper-growth SaaS businesses. Chetna currently serves as CIO of Webflow, a hyper-growth Website Experience Platform SaaS company. Previously, she served as CDIO at Amplitude and ZoomInfo.Chetna is an advisor to prominent VC firms including Sequoia Capital, Accel, Ridge Ventures, and Mayfield and serves on the Customer Advisory Board (CAB) at Veza and, Productiv and was formerly at Snowflake and Google Cloud Platform CAB. She served on the Tech Committee with Carlyle and Thoma Bravo, and on the Advisory Board of Ninja Focus and Women & AI.She was a finalist and nominee for the Bay Area ORBIE, CIO award, a finalist for “2019 Markie’s Cultivator Award for Best Lead Management Program,” a recipient of the Delta Dental Women in Business Stevie Award of Excellence in Healthcare Transformation, and a Boeing Spirit of Excellence Award recipient. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, hiking, and skiing and has a passion for exploring different cultures.Timestamps:01:41 - About Chetna04:53 - Automation as a starting point07:16 - Employee productivity and the CIO11:25 - Discovering new AI tools13:44 - Evolving revenue systems22:47 - How will the CIO role evolve?28:37 - Lightning roundGuest Highlight:“ AI has really taken productivity at a whole different level now. It has really helped us drive the pace in productivity we couldn't have fathomed before the event of the content generation. It's not just content generation anymore. It's way beyond that. The velocity at which we are innovating on the product is huge.”Get Connected:Chetna Mahajan on LinkedInYousuf Kahn on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInHungry for more tech talk? Check out past episodes at ciopod.com: Ep 62 - Running IT Like a Growth EngineEp 61 - What Manufacturing Can Teach You About Scaling Enterprise AIEp 60 - Why the Smartest CIOs Are Becoming Business StrategistsLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.comOur Sponsor:This episode was brought to you by Blitzy, the Enterprise Autonomous Software Development Platform with Infinite Code Context.Blitzy uses thousands of specialized AI agents that think for hours to understand enterprise scale codebases with millions of lines of code. Enterprise Engineering leaders start every development sprint with the Blitzy platform, bringing in their development requirements. The Blitzy platform provides a plan, then generates and pre-compiles code for each task. Blitzy delivers 80%+ of the development work autonomously, while providing a guide for the final 20% of human development work required to complete the sprint.Public companies are achieving a 5x engineering velocity increase when incorporating Blitzy as their Pre-IDE development tool, pairing it with their coding co-pilot of choice to bring an AI-Native SDLC into their org.Visit Blitzy.com and press book demo to learn how Blitzy transforms your SDLC from AI Assisted to AI Native. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features Chidi Alams, CIO of Just Born — the company behind candy classics like Peeps, Mike and Ike, and Hot Tamales.Chidi shares how his team is using AI, automation, and smarter data systems to modernize operations, strengthen supply chain resilience, and double the business impact of technology. It’s a conversation about what it really means to run IT like a growth engine — not just keeping the lights on, but driving strategy, efficiency, and innovation.Plus, much more:Chidi’s take on “physical AI” in manufacturingHow the CIO role is evolving into a more strategic leadership positionWhy a values-driven tech culture might be the secret to long-term successWhether you’re a CIO, IT leader, or simply curious about how AI and data are reshaping business, this episode delivers grounded, real-world insights. About the Guest: Chidi Alams, CIO at Just Born, Inc., is a transformation executive with a proven track record of leading strategic initiatives that drive operational excellence, organic growth, and digital innovation. His experience includes both Fortune 500 and private equity-backed companies.Timestamps:02:10 Transitioning Between Industries03:26 Role and Responsibilities of a CIO06:05 Business Transformation and Strategy08:12 Managing Peak Seasons and Supply Chain14:26 Leveraging Data and AI21:20 Talent Acquisition and Company Culture27:51 Future of Technology and CIO RoleGuest Highlights:“ A lot of how we ran the business, even during the peak season, was a tremendous amount of tribal knowledge. We can't scale based on tribal knowledge, right? So having data systems, particularly as we bring in new people into the organization, helps us to be more predictive and meet demand during peak season.”“ CIOs have to become more business centric.  When you look at what's happening in large enterprises, you're seeing a fragmentation of technology leadership.  I do believe that there will be a convergence at some point.”“ I'm extremely interested and have been tracking what I think is a very important trend, not just in CPG but in retail and any consumer space — even pharma — and that is how can we leverage large language models that are trained for CPG to help drive product innovation. It’s already happening.”Get Connected:Chidi Alams on LinkedInYousuf Kahn on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInHungry for more tech talk? Check out past episodes at ciopod.com: Ep 61 - What Manufacturing Can Teach You About Scaling Enterprise AIEp 60 - Why the Smartest CIOs Are Becoming Business StrategistsEp 59 - CIO Leadership in AI Security and InnovationLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

CIO Classified is back! More CIO secrets. More battle-tested IT wisdom. Straight from leading CIOs across a wide range of industries. In this episode, host Ian Faison and co-host Yousuf Khan dive into the deep end of technology leadership in manufacturing. Ben Davis, Executive Vice President of IT at Cambria, joins the show to talk about his sweeping digital transformation at the quartz manufacturing leader, and shares how his startup past helped him turn IT from a reactive function to a trusted business advisor. Plus much more:How Cambria is leveraging AI in demand forecastingHow to optimize supply chains and improve customer experience How to do it all while managing a legacy infrastructure and cybersecurityThis episode is a must-listen for the modern CIO looking to bridge the gap between traditional industries and modern technologies without sacrificing security or business continuity. About the Guest: Ben Davis, EVP  IT, Cambria, is a technical leader who is passionate about introducing new technology, improved processes and unexplored data sets to businesses in a manner that allows them to achieve scalable revenue growth. He does this by helping business-minded technologists use automation, prioritization and critical thinking to deliver technology, process improvement and data in a high-value, cost-effective way. Timestamps:02:30 – From startups to manufacturing: Applying entrepreneurial DNA07:00 – Communicating tech value across the organization09:30 – Why AI in manufacturing is a game-changer15:00 – Cybersecurity training, scorekeeping, and zero-trust realities17:30 – Modernizing legacy infrastructure in manufacturing23:00 – AI adoption vs. business architecture readiness26:00 – Staying close to the customer experience as CIO28:00 – Building, retaining, and empowering high-impact IT teams31:00 – Governance, shadow IT, and the rise of internal agents35:00 – AI tooling, data gaps, and minimizing technical debt38:00 – Manufacturing success, excitement, and the human side of techGuest Highlights:“ I think everybody under spends on cybersecurity. If I had an unlimited budget, I’d put the money towards that. I would also spend the money on data scientists, data modeling, data governance, mass data management to ensure that our data was ready to really take advantage of AI.”Get Connected:Ben Davis on LinkedInYousuf Kahn on LinkedInIan Faison on LinkedInHungry for more tech talk? Check out past episodes at ciopod.com: Ep 60 - Why the Smartest CIOs Are Becoming Business StrategistsEp 59 - CIO Leadership in AI Security and InnovationEp 58 - AI-Driven Workplace TransformationLearn more about Caspian Studios: caspianstudios.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.