John Wilson 0:00

Today's guest is Marcello Tomaki, co-founder and CEO of Red X Carbon. He's a technology leader with more than 30 years of experience. That's hard to believe, Marcello. 30 years of experience helping organizations navigate digital transformation, cloud strategy, cybersecurity, AI adoption. A respected Microsoft expert and industry speaker, Marcello is passionate about building resilient businesses through technology, innovation, and strong leadership. Marcello and his team serve a number of impressive clients, but just a couple of them are pure later, sick kids, BMO, TD, and Bombardier. Marcello, I can't thank you enough for being on the CO Global Network podcast today. We really appreciate you being here with us. Thank you, John. I appreciate inviting me. So that's very exciting, actually. Yeah, no, it's great to have you here. And I've got a couple of questions for you. So why don't we just roll right into them, okay? So the first question is I've often heard you say that technology should serve business goals. How do great CEOs avoid chasing every new trend that comes up, Marcello?

Marcelo Tamaki 1:07

That's a great question. I often see and talk to different levels within corporations that I work with. The CEOs, at times, they're a little bit detached from technology. So technology is what makes at times the companies run. They rely on their advisors to tell them what to do and when they should pull the plug on any type of technology. What I would suggest is to have a baseline education for those CEOs to understand how can specific technologies potentially improve or help their business today. It's essentially looking to what's new out there, the reasons that could potentially they should use that type of technology that helps them on their business today, but not to turn a blind eye to technology. So it depends which kind of business you are in. It is inevitable that you have a good deep into technology specifically, but other times not so much. You're detached from it. So my advice is to find a baseline that says, that's enough that I need to know. And then I'll trust my advisors to come in and tell me which direction I should take.

John Wilson 2:08

Well, thank you. That's good counsel for sure. Inevitable. No question about it, yeah. So, what leadership lesson has had the biggest impact on your journey from a technology expert to the CEO of your company? What's had the biggest impact on you?

Marcelo Tamaki 2:21

I would suggest that it was hard to me, but learning how I can translate complex technologies into something that businesses understand and can use. So there are a lot of technical bubble out there that is going to be hard to translate at times, but it gets the businesses to be more efficient. To me, having that understanding and be able to translate to the different levels inside the organization is it was key. And I started early ages just teaching courses related to computer skills. And I think I had to develop more and more. But every so often there's something that's so complex out there that I use as a challenge to transform into something that can be consumed by anyone. So what I would suggest that is a good skill to acquire.

John Wilson 3:05

That's quite a skill. That's terrific. You've spent the decades now helping organizations through major transformations like some of the ones that I mentioned. What separates companies that thrive from those that struggle with those major transformations?

Marcelo Tamaki 3:20

There's always a challenge when a new system or a new deployment of something related to technology comes into the corporations. And more often than not, organizations are not ready for that change that will occur. So change management is a big deal in large corporations. So you do have a team that is really focused on change management and how you're going to go to deploy this new technology. That change management team at times is what's going to make or break the project or the technology that you're implementing out there. I would suggest that looking to these transformations with change management is essential. So that's where you're really going to be able to help your employees to acquire and manage these new technologies coming forward. And looking inside your organization as well. More often than not, we rely on senior IT staff to be our champions because they do understand not only the technology that's coming across, but also how the business works. And then they call the experts to bridge that gap between what the business needs versus what the technology offers.

John Wilson 4:26

Yeah, that's very wise. AI is everywhere today, Marcello. As you well know, you're right at the center of it. Where do you think leaders should focus before investing in the latest tools?

Marcelo Tamaki 4:39

That's a hard question to answer because everybody is really excited about AI. And I think businesses are maturing enough to understand what the power of AI brings to their businesses. What I do see that sometimes is a gap is that you have the two sides of business. You have the operational side. That's where you have people, your employees running the business and they have their own needs, and you have the clients that they are serving. So as a CEO, I think you should not neglect one or the other. So you have to make sure that you attend both needs. When you do not have a shiny object that makes your clients happy because you need to transform your company and provide something great to them and sometimes very hard to come up with, you really have to focus on your internal stuff. What is your internal stuff doing that can be potentially optimized with artificial intelligence? And I was reading an article the other day, I believe it was from KPMG, they mentioned that 50% of employees they actually don't tell their bosses that they're using artificial intelligence to do their work. And that creates what we call it as a shadow AI. So people are gonna use artificial intelligence even if you don't provide to them. Just I would recommend to watch out for that. It's a dangerous lobe to be. That's a good watch out.

John Wilson 5:53

No, thanks for that. Now, looking back at your career, what challenge has taught you the most about leading under pressure, Marcello?

Marcelo Tamaki 6:01

As you noted on the type of clientele that we usually work with, you are touching thousands and thousands of employees, and they in turn are probably reaching out to millions of people out there. Any change that you make in the environment or not, it can be extremely sensitive. And there has been times where the technology did not work in the way that's supposed to. You as a leader, somebody that is actually driving the team forward, would have to collect your thoughts. So make sure that you keep it cool, you understand the pressure there you are under, and that can translate into the pressure that your team is under as well, clients and so on. So my suggestion is just step back a little, collect your thoughts in order to be able to lead. Absolutely.

John Wilson 6:43

I have one last question for you, and then maybe a bonus question if we have time. If you could give every CEO one habit that creates long-term success, what would that habit be?

Marcelo Tamaki 6:56

I would suggest, John, that a CEO, or it really doesn't matter which role the person is, but you should never stop teaching what you learned. The fact that you are teaching someone and you feel excited about passing along the knowledge to either your employees, your other leaders inside your company or clients is wonderful. So this gets to build your confidence as well. And of course, in order for you to teach, you're gonna have to learn something. Never stop learning. So keep reading, keep participating on the groups and your communities in the way that you are today. And I know you promote that a lot as well. My recommendation never stop teaching, never stop learning, and potentially on that order. Yeah. I love that.

John Wilson 7:37

You're absolutely right. Now I do the bonus question too is this, and I said to you earlier, I love getting together with you because every time I do, I get a really good book recommendation from you. And we're both avid readers. So could you just let everyone on the call, everybody watching, a book recommendation from Marcello Tomaki?

Marcelo Tamaki 7:55

Certainly. And I always have books around me, and I happen to have finished one book over here that it was actually recommended in one of your sessions. Let me bring it up here. So this one, Diod In by Dr. Dennis Sinclair. It was fabulous. I really loved the way that she puts together her thoughts and gets these extremely great athletes to perform better and better. I am a sports literate. I know very little about sports. Other than how that's a world cup of his own, so I'm cheering from Brazil and Canada, of course. Yeah, yeah, good for you. But that book taught me so much. And it's aligned with that thought about stepping back, take a breath, and understand what are the actions that you need to perform next in order to do better. That's a great book to read for sure.

John Wilson 8:37

It's an excellent recommendation, and I've read it too. I was very impressed with the book and with Dr. Dana Sinclair. She was outstanding, wasn't she? It was wonderful. Marcello, I can't thank you enough. It's amazing how fast the time goes. We're gonna have to wrap up here in a second, but we really appreciate you being with us on the CO Global Network podcast and love to do this again with you one day down the road. Me, too. Thank you very much, John. I appreciate the time. Yeah, thank you very much.