Rosalie Adriano has built her career and reputation on the way she leads and transforms. She has an extensive track record of delivering operational cost savings, process improvements, strategy development, and overall digital transformation across multiple business areas. Her background is actually in finance, not IT. However, her dedication to successful business transformation didn’t just lead to her role as CIO for Nestlé Oceania. It also led to her being recognised as one of the 2024 top 50 CIOs in Australia.
Adriano doesn’t accept this honour lightly. She considers it a dedication to the Nestlé Oceania IT team and its collaborative spirit. She also believes it’s a credit to her mentors and colleagues who have supported her journey into becoming a CIO.
“I’m really humbled and honoured by it,” she says. “IT is heavily dominated by people that have been in the sector for their entire careers, and have formal qualifications in it. However, I believe the CIO persona is evolving. People are looking for CIOs that have the ability to speak in business language when they’re talking to business people, and the IT language when they’re talking to IT people. It’s important to have a balance of both business and commercial acumen, and technical expertise.
Becoming the CIO
Within weeks of the announcement of Adriano’s CIO role, Nestlé employees were told they needed to work from home due to the pandemic. As a result, she was forced to hit the ground running. The first job was to get people connected, getting rid of Skype in favour of Microsoft Teams, and introducing a virtual private network. The global IT team was able to get everyone set up and ready to work in under a fortnight.
“People are resilient; they adapted quickly to the new way of working,” says Adriano. “They also quickly realised that working from home works well and that their leaders trusted them to do so. We knew our employees didn’t have to be in the office every day to get things done. So there was a quick mindset change.”
Adriano proceeded to bring the best of the best into her team. A group that spans multiple areas of expertise, all designed to help push forward the IT side of Nestlé Oceania. She’s passionate about diversity in the workplace and kept that in mind while forming this team. Since then she has leveraged the myriad skills of those people to drive the transformation.
The right people in the right places
With Adriano at the helm of a talented team, this transformation has been a resounding success. The CIO is the influencer and overseer of change, and that’s why it’s important to have someone in that role who fosters a culture of continuous improvement, change, innovation, and learning.
“Continuous improvement and growth require encouraging employees to enhance their skills, improving technologies, promoting an agile mindset, and a focus on delivering business value,” Adriano explains. She’s passionate about inclusivity, valuing the input of each and every employee on an individual basis, and celebrating diversity.
