In this installment of the IT Leaders Fast-5 — InformationWeek’s column for IT professionals to gain peer insights — Kellie Romack, chief digital information officer at ServiceNow, explains how her team is actively planning ahead for 2026. She also shares the IT skills she is — and isn’t — looking to foster in her team and why she’s not a big believer in business decisions based on consensus.
“We don’t have to 100% agree on decisions, but I want them to understand the decision,” Romack said, adding that communicating the why behind those decisions is a core part of her job.
Romack joined ServiceNow three years ago, after stints at Walmart and Hilton, where she focused on product development and transformation, respectively. She leads ServiceNow’s digital transformation initiatives, including development of the ServiceNow AI Platform, which, as she notes, touches “every corner of the company.”
AI — adoption, sentiment and value — are big priorities, and her team tracks the numbers on them daily.
This column has been edited for clarity and space.
The Decision That Mattered
What decision — technical or organizational — made the biggest difference this week, and why?
I’ve been on some GRC [governance, risk and compliance] calls this week, some budget calls. If I had to really zoom out, the [most consequential] decisions would probably be our AOP, our annual operating plan decisions. Because we’re nearing the end of the year, we’ve got to set up our team for success in ’26. These decisions can’t be made in a vacuum, because I represent the entire company — we’re in every corner of the business. Whether it’s my HR partner or our product organization, or it’s finance or marketing, I have to unify their collective aspirations, goals and outcomes. We’re a data-driven company, so we spend a lot of time looking at the data and really understanding how people are engaging.
I don’t do a lot of things by consensus. I think sometimes consensus can breed mediocrity, because we have to make really hard decisions. We’re never going to make everyone happy in AOP, and what I need to do is the right things for the business.
I’m very focused on, “How do we do internal technology so our employees can serve our customers better?” The challenging part of being the CDIO is my job is to do the right thing for the company, to elevate and scale ServiceNow, and to support our customers. I hope that everyone understands the trade-offs and the value. We don’t have to 100% agree on decisions, but I want them to understand the decision.
The Hard-Won Lesson
What didn’t go as planned recently — and what did it force you to rethink?
When we think about AI in general, I’m always looking at both AI adoption and sentiment and value. How do we hone and tone our technology for the users, for the people we are serving? How do we become human-led and AI-enabled?
I look at those AI numbers — adoption, sentiment, efficiency or productivity — regularly. We were reading [the stats] out to our executives on a monthly recap, but they said it’s changing so much, it was not working for them.
We now have people looking at the data every single day. We’re breaking it down, and not just showing [our executives] that big monthly number. We’re showing daily active usage, daily adoption, daily efficiency for the ServiceNow AI Platform and third-party tools like Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Zoom.
The Talent Trade-Off
Where are you investing in talent right now — and what are you consciously not investing in?
We are consciously prioritizing AI fluency, culture and culture adaptability. Culture adaptability is really important, because we are living in an ever-changing world. People who want it a certain way and who are binary in their thinking — that’s not going to work. I need flexibility, thinking outside the box, and listening to and understanding other people’s points of view. I’m not trying to drive consensus. I’m trying to drive understanding.
I’m in charge of working on this AI transformation internally, so it’s my job to redeploy the human potential. I was able to take 85% of my IT service desk, and I have reskilled them and redeployed them to something else. We do that through ServiceNow University, we have our AI learning series. We’re doing AI skills assessments and offer so many certifications. We have our “Use AI” day, and we just had an AI innovation hackathon with local high schools. It was amazing to see what they did.
So now to the hard part of your question. Things I’m not prioritizing are basic automation or basic single-purpose skills. If they’re narrow, manual technology skills or single-purpose — those are the things I really struggle with. I really like the multi-faceted talent — broad technical aptitude with AI, big curiosity and flexibility. I’m really focused on adaptive, innovative skill sets.
The External Signal
What external development this week is most likely to change how your organization operates, even indirectly?
I have a retail background with Walmart and Hilton. The CIO of Target spoke the other day in a Fortune [interview] about how AI is impacting the retail organization. I was also listening to some podcasts the other day that talked about how if shoppers landed on a site with an AI assistant, they were about 38% more likely to convert than anyone else.
Instead of going to retailers’ front doors, consumers are using AI to target, curate and define searches both for shopping and travel. We’re seeing this transformation that I think is going to change the industry overall.
What we have to think about it is how do we serve these businesses that are moving this way and applying AI to all their internal functions, whether it’s customer support, or HR or finance? How can we remove the friction, because if their customers are using it, their internal people need to be using it, right?
The Perspective Shift
What have you read, watched, or listened to recently that changed how you think about leadership or technology — even slightly?
A book I read a few months ago that I found really helpful is “Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence.” The book highlighted that as we think about the power of prediction and the economics that are happening with artificial intelligence, there’s no business that won’t be impacted. That book really resonated because it helps me think about the transformation that we’re making in AI overall, and how far-reaching the impacts are and will continue to be.
For podcasts, the one I think is really helpful is called The Markets. It’s a recap of everything going on in the market today and what’s going on in business. It’s a daily podcast, so I always look forward to listening to it at night for a recap.
