Executive Insights: An Interview with Mike Pearl, Principal at PwC

Two weeks ago, while in San Francisco for a major industry conference, Alex Bakker and I caught up with Mike Pearl, who is a Principal and US Cloud Lead at PwC.

In a brief “Executive Insights” video interview posted on YouTube, Pearl shares his insights and experience concerning the inflection point in IT that the new Cloud-lead Master Architecture is driving. In addition, he discusses how customers are driving significant new business innovation through the deployment of Cloud services. At the same time, he provides practical insight relative to the journey IT leaders are on in moving to the Cloud, and the challenges are often less about technology, and more about people, organization and process -- and getting everybody aligned and bought in to the journey. Pearl also shares some real-world experience in working with customers relative to the deployment of Social and Mobile technologies, and how they are being used to drive the business. The interview closes with best practice guidance for other senior IT leaders embarking on the journey to the Cloud.

We offer this Executive Insights video as a prelude to the exciting program we are assembling for this year's Cloud Business Summit, to be held on November 14, 2012, at the Westin Times Square in New York City. This is the second in a series of video interviews that we are producing, and posting to YouTube, as we introduce our readers to some of the speakers and panelists who will be sharing their insights and experience at the conference.

Pearl will be participating as a Featured Speaker in a mid-afternoon session entitled "The Business Value of Digital Transformation" at the Cloud Business Summit. This one-day executive forum brings together CIOs, CTOs and senior business leaders from mid-and-large size enterprises -- across a wide range of industries -- to explore how they can and are realizing value from the Business Cloud.

To learn more about the conference, including information about how to register for the event, go to www.cloudbusinesssummit.com, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Bill McNee

Mr. McNee is the President and CEO of Saugatuck Technology, a subscription research and advisory firm focused on emerging industry trends and disruptive technologies driving change in enterprise IT. Over the past few years, Mr. McNee has helped spearhead the firm's research into evolving business models as a result of the shift to software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing. More recently, he has been actively involved in launching the firm’s CIO-targeted Cloud migration / leadership practice.

Prior to founding the firm in 1999, Mr. McNee spent eleven years with Gartner, Inc., most recently as Group Vice President and Research Fellow, responsible for guiding the firm's overall research strategy. A recognized expert in enterprise software and related business / IT services, Mr. McNee spent five years leading Gartner's Business / IT Management practice as its Director of Research, focusing on CIO governance, IT sourcing models and e-commerce management strategies. Prior to this role, he was a lead analyst focusing on enterprise business applications, and asset management strategies. Prior to Gartner, Mr. McNee held strategic planning, financial management and marketing positions at CBS, HBO, Comshare and the Institute for Social Research.

A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Mr. McNee has published hundreds of articles and consulted with thousands of business and IT executives, and vendor clients around the globe.

Mr. McNee is a University of Michigan alumnus, and has completed graduate work in economics at New York University. Since 2001, he has been a Board or Advisory Board member for the Westport Public Library.

Follow Mr. McNee on Twitter at @billmcnee.

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