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Alberto Ruocco, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Alliant Energy Alberto Ruocco is a Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Alliant Energy Corporation. He joined the company in September 2023, bringing years of experience in information technology and the utility sector. Alberto’s leadership guides the selection, implementation and optimization of technology solutions that facilitate essential aspects of the company’s strategy and enhance cybersecurity operations. In his role, he leads teams leveraging new technologies that play an increasingly critical role in serving customers and building stronger communities.
Key Experiences that Shaped the Journey of CIO
Over many years, I have been involved in numerous consulting projects, ranging from strategy initiatives to large-scale system implementations. These extensive engagement experiences have helped me focus on the return of technology investments and exposed me to the multi-faceted role of the CIO. My initial exposure to the regulated and unregulated energy and utility industry was a revelation – as I learned more, I was captivated by the industry’s problem statement: managing safe and reliable delivery of an essential service through a socialized, cost-sharing mechanism while adapting a complex, engineered system amidst the shift towards clean energy.
As a CIO for a mid-size, investor-owned utility, I always approach problem-solving holistically. While I draw upon various theoretical models that often guide our work, our plans and decisions revolve around achieving a balance across many stakeholders while maintaining a focus on the return on investment and affordable customer rates.
Key Leadership Qualities to Overcome Challenges
Earlier in my career, I perceived the utility industry as a place where business practices and enabling technologies rarely changed. However, over the last decade in this field, my experience has been the opposite. The pace of change towards the shift of clean energy has been significant where my team and I are learning continuously. We rely on a variety of sources across the utility and technology sectors to understand the evolving dynamics of our industry and leverage technology to drive advancements. Ultimately, the technology function is on the frontline— co-leading change within our organization and the industry. As a CIO, thriving in this dynamic environment and adapting quickly is the key to success.
“We engage in continuous learning, drawing insights on a variety of sources within the utility and technology sectors. This approach helps us understand the evolving dynamics of our industry and leverage technology to drive advancements.”
There is a healthy tension between maintaining a safe and reliable electric grid and implementation of emerging technologies. While embracing innovations, we need to be prepared to take calculated risks. By developing a logical understanding of the technology stack, we can decide when and where to take risks and how these risks might impact the company’s technology footprint. If we are too comfortable with the status quo, we might miss opportunities to positively impact business results. In contrast, if we take too many risks at the wrong time and in the wrong place in the stack, it could lead to negative business outcomes. This is why leaders must manage risk by inspiring collaborative problem-solving, encouraging bold ideas and driving informed decisions.
Leading the Vision
Two significant quotes guide the process to create a vision to drive growth of digital information, operations and cybersecurity technologies.
The first quote by Alan Kay states, “Context is worth 80 IQ points.” Our context starts with the global economy. We then consider utility industry dynamics and evaluate our company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. All these inputs help us determine how technology can further our company’s interests. In collaboration with functional leaders, we prioritize technology investments that enable transformation efforts and tactical improvements.
The second quote by Helmuth von Moltke states, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” The essence of “strategy” lies in its nature as a plan —a series of actions and decisions that move us from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’. As soon as a plan is finalized, the context inevitably changes. Both our company and technology function’s success hinges on our capacity to consistently plan, execute, review, and adapt.
Strategies to Leverage Digital Technology
We begin with a plan that aligns with the company’s goals. In order to achieve effective operations within this plan, we leverage two critical guides: a process and information blueprint and an application architecture blueprint. These guides help us identify opportunities to improve on our operational strengths and remediate our operational weaknesses. Since the company cannot pursue all the opportunities at once, the technology team works across the enterprise to build consensus for investment priorities. We focus on digital technologies that enhance efficiency and effectiveness and enable continuous improvement.
Leadership Philosophy
“If you want go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”
With this idea, we incorporate six core principles to guide our leadership philosophy-
Teamwork: I appreciate and value a focus on long-term goals. The energy utility sector needs to serve every citizen with reliable service now and in the future. To achieve our goals, we need to go together, as a team.
Transparency: Although it is difficult to accept changes, change remains a constant force. The ongoing evolution in energy solutions and technologies underlines this fact. Transparent communication about plans and uncertainties helps the team work constructively amidst this constant change.
Objectivity: The systems and solutions we contemplate are too broad, technical and dynamic for any person to ‘know everything’ necessary to succeed in the long run. We need to maintain an objective approach to problem-solving where we are willing to challenge the status quo and assumptions.
Equality: Analysis and evaluation are critical aspects of decision-making. It is equally important to maintain a sense of humility during the analysis process . Valuable insights can originate from any source, whether internal or external to the company. In this context, equality is reflected in our ability to listen to all ideas and points of view to drive innovation and make informed decisions.
Learning and continuous improvement: At the age of 87, Michelangelo said “I am still learning.” His words have always been a profound inspiration, and I have never stopped learning, which keeps my career interesting and makes me a stronger leader. I expect to continue to learn to improve myself, our team, and the company.
Action and results over ‘words and music’: In my role, a healthy dose of analysis and planning is a good prescription. However, I find that a healthy dose of impatience can also be helpful. This means maintaining a strong bias toward action and achieving results over reading and talking about a solution.
Key Advice for Leaders in the Energy Space
Be passionate toward mission: I am driven by the mission of our company where I am contributing to improving our services through the design and implementation of technology.
Embrace the excitement of change toward continuous improvement: With industry evolution and technological advancement, we are experiencing a once in a lifetime transformation of ‘the most complex machine ever made.’ Engineers, economist, politicians and executives are collaborating to solve the industry’s problem statement.
Know at least one thing, really well: To reach the executive table, it is important to bring a specialty that contributes to the whole. At the same time, it is important to acquire a foundational understanding of multiple disciplines to contribute effectively based on relevant experiences. Throughyour journey, take the opportunity to learn from everyone you meet , absorb insights from everything you read, and glean lessons from every experience you live.
Know the opportunities and limitations of technology: As a technology executive, it is important to know how technology can help and how it may be constrained. Practical experience with designing, building and implementing solutions is a great way to learn and —by extension – develop models that can be applied to solve new challenges.
