CIO Rob Carter Transforms FedEx Into A Cloud Centric Enterprise

Rob Carter is on the short list of the finest CIOs in history anywhere. I have profiled his accomplishments in an interview published roughly one year ago. A few months ago, Carter spoke at the Forbes CIO conference with his CEO, FedEx founder Fred Smith. First, it was readily apparent how much Smith values Carter's opinion, indicating that no strategic decisions are ever made without Carter involved. I was also particularly struck by Carter's overview of the IT transformation that he has led. As he said then, and as he describes in greater detail in this interview with him, the systems that were at the core of FedEx's success in recent years in becoming and maintaining its position as a logistics and data analytics leader would not be the same ones that would sustain its success. In fact, as Carter notes, the longer the organization waited to transform, the more those systems would actually impede its success.