 It's theCUBE, here is your host, Jeff Crick. Hi, Jeff Crick here with theCUBE. We're on the ground in downtown San Francisco at Blue Shield of California, and I'm really excited. You know, we talk to a lot of tech companies, but we really like to talk to practitioners, people, the tech athletes that are in the field using this technology, delivering it to their companies, to their clients and their customer bases. We're super psyched to have Devin Valenci on the VP of IT delivery, welcome. Thank you, Jeff. So we met years ago, and I have to say what really impressed me about you was your command of the room. We came in, it was a very complicated IT project, huge team of people, a lot of moving parts, old legacy stuff, new stuff, replacement stuff, and you came in and you really commanded the room and moved the project forward. I wonder if you could talk about the role of really commanding IT projects and how that's changing over time. Yeah, I mean, I think everything we do, particularly in the healthcare space, it's very complicated. I mean, it's the whole industry's transforming, our company's transforming. Technology's no longer, particularly in our industry, it's not a side exercise, it's at the core of our strategy and it will be fundamental to how we change what we do and how we make healthcare accessible and affordable for everybody. You know, I think part of it is just, particularly as IT professionals, almost everything we do all the time is gonna be new. Nobody knows exactly how it's gonna be done. There's so much new technology and integrating that technology in small ways but then in big ways and an enterprise level is complicated. So part of it is just one foot in front of the other, you know, giving people the confidence, let's give it a try, letting people fail and then reset and I think just, you know, have that can do attitude and get it done. So it's interesting because it's really almost like an agile delivery method, not so much in a pure software point of view, but really in terms of the way you look at these new things, give it a try, see how it works, do a limited test so that you can actually incorporate the myriad of things that are coming out. You must be like driving through a snowstorm with your headlights on at dark. I mean, cloud, mobile, social, it's so much stuff is going on. Yeah, and we're pretty, you know, I think it's important that you're intentional about the innovation and the failure on innovation. We have an innovation team, that's all I do is peer they invest and they try new technologies, they pilot them and then we bring them to market. So it's important that you're thoughtful about the skill, you know, and that skill set's very different than an enterprise architecture role where you're trying to integrate, you know, big system. So knowing where people can play the right roles and bringing in the right talents is really important. I wonder if you can dig in a little bit deeper. How did that kind of come about and how big is that team and, you know, kind of what is their charge in terms of the number of things they're looking at, the pace and how can they pilot it in such a way to know whether, okay, Devin, this is real, this is something we should consider and bring it on in. Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with our strategy, with our CEO, Parmar Kovic. I mean, his view of technology, in order for healthcare to really be transformational, I mean, healthcare used to be, there was, nobody knew what was going on as big black walls, nobody knew how to get to the data and our strategy is very intentional about bringing data out to people, out to the consumer and the provider so that we can all do this together. So technology is at the core and one of the first things that he did with our CIO Michael Mathias was to bring in an innovation team. So we have a chief technology officer, he runs an innovation team, we have about 20 people. That's all they do, they scan the market, they invest in companies, they prototype new applications and apps in the mobile space and the digital space and figure out what works and we're starting to bring some of those things to market now with our providers and partners. Right, so that's great, so that really validates what we hear over and over and over again, that really, IT now has a seat at the business table and it's really part of the strategy, it's not just keeping the lights on and the system's going. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big transformation for us as an IT organization, we used to be sort of the guys where you just had to go through them to get stuff done and we were kind of a cost center, if you'd say. Now we are literally at the table, driving the digital strategy, it's integrated with our marketing efforts, our sales efforts, our providers and the doctors and the whole community, so Michael, our CIO has a very representative space at the table, if you say and the technology piece is critical to how we go to market. So I want to shift gears a little bit, another trend we talk a lot about is the consumerization of IT and the consumerization IT meaning that what people do on Google and Facebook and Amazon really drives their expectations of what they should be able to do in all the applications that they interact with, whether it's at work or at play or any place else. So talk about how that trend is really impacting you guys and the other thing is this kind of post-Google world where we just expect to be able to get the information that we need right now, wherever we are. How's that impacting you guys, what are you doing about it? So, I mean, it's a big challenge for us, the consumer for us as an industry in healthcare wasn't at the center, it was the doctors and the employers who were paying for health insurance and it is now, the consumers are demanding that they're at the center and that means a whole new digital strategy for us. Data is big and not just data, but the big data is important but then the big questions and the big answers around the big data, what does it mean, why are people doing things, how do we help people with their healthcare, how do we give them the information they want in any, whether it's on the mobile app or their desktop or how do we text people, how do we keep them integrated in a way that they, it's meaningful for them and they can make decisions and it is, we have to play at an Amazon level and a Google level to stay competitive and I think it's exciting because I think the consumers will demand it. Yeah. But you're right on this front edge of really these conflicting priorities of access versus privacy and not only kind of the standard privacy and security but the healthcare-related HIPAA regulations and a whole different level. So I think the healthcare industry often gets knocked for kind of lagging but really in our experience, we've had a ton of healthcare companies on. So how are you kind of managing those, that constant dichotomy? It's complicated and it's complicated if you think about your employee base, like how do you make it a great place to work and still to keep security at the center? Security is very serious for us. We are really thoughtful about it and everything we do and sometimes that requires that we go a little bit slower but at the end of the day, a security breach for a company like us can really make the difference in the company as a whole. So we take it very seriously and it's part of our core. We've hired a lot of new talent around security. We use a lot of third parties to really make sure that we're doing things correctly. Right. But I still want my own healthcare records and if I move cities or move jobs or whatever, I want to be able to take that with me so it's got to be a challenge. It is. It's complicated. One of the things that we've just recently done is created a nonprofit called CalIndex that we've launched with some of the other healthcare companies in California and it is a way to get people to have a common channel that we don't own. It's a private entity, that not for profit that we've sponsored and we are giving people their information and there's a huge security framework around that. So how do we make people, can they get to their information securely? It's not shared. So in everything we do, particularly as we expose data, clinical data and things, people's private information, it's complicated but we take it very seriously. So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about you. Obviously we love women in tech. We feature a ton. That's part of the reason why we're here and it's really, I think, helpful for girls, young women to hear about your journey amongst many journeys. You were actually a finance degree, I noticed, on LinkedIn. So how did you get here from there? You know, if you had asked me 20 years ago, what would you be doing? I'm sure I wouldn't have explained it like this because I don't think I understood technology and the careers in it. I think, especially in the Bay Area, but really everywhere and particularly in California, there are so many opportunities in technology, in the core of technology, engineering roles, but also in the periphery and how people, how do you implement technology and how do you, there is a lot going on. I think for me it's just sort of following the path. What's exciting for me, I'm a big problem solver so technologies, it's constant change, constant problem solving. And at the end of the day I just sort of found people that were sort of I kind of connected with, people sponsored me and I found some people that sort of, hey, here's an opportunity, give this a try, and got deeper and deeper into technology and it's just, now it's my passion and love doing it. And it's great because I have three daughters and there's a lot of opportunities for them to start doing coding themselves and learn about technology, whether they choose it as a career, but understanding how technology is embedded in everything we do, I think it's a really important skill for everybody. I was just having the courage and just, you know, say you didn't have somebody to tell you, I've had people in my career which has been really impactful, say you got this, go give it a try. So that's also helpful, mentoring and coaching and I try to give that back. I'm very thoughtful about it, I have a mentor group and we do that at Blue Shield, giving other people, other women a chance and give that boost like you got this, go give it a try. So just to be clear, can you code? I can code. Oh you can't, okay. I can't code some of the newer technologies but yes, I was a coder, right? Yeah, yeah. Well I think it's important, obviously, Girls Who Code and Black Girls Who Code and there's a lot of great organizations that are out there to help girls. But also as you said, there's a lot of roles in technology that aren't coding that are still technology involved and in fact now most companies are really technology companies that just happen to have it wrapped around a particular product or service. Yeah, I think that's right. So before we close out, just kind of last comments about what, again, you talked about mentorship and what are some of the programs that you guys are doing here to help kind of underrepresented classes. So Blue Shield's been really, I mean I think for us we say okay, we want to basically be represented of our customer base and I think we found a few years ago that we really weren't. And particularly in the Bay Area when you want to have talent, having a diverse employee base means you can represent your customers in a very different way and we think about innovation. You have to know what people want. So we've been very intentional about women, about the black community and the organization and gay and lesbian. We have all those diversity groups and it's a very intentional process for us. I think it helps us, it's created a whole different kind of energy at the company and it also makes us all realize that we're all people at the end of the day. Our customers are people that have needs and wants and aspirations and we do too. So I think we're being pretty intentional about it. We just started, we're about two years into it but it's been pretty successful. Certainly for me in the women's space and then also in the African-American space. Awesome, so final close, you've got three daughters for the young girls and young women and families with young women. Last little piece of advice that you'd give them. Just try it. I mean, I think people look at technology like, oh, it's this big scary thing but at the end of the day, it's a couple lines of code. It's not complicated. If you break it down into small bits and give it a try, I think it, understanding technology will make, you know, it makes you, it gives you different context for how things work. I think it's a great experience and just give it a try. Give it a try. Pretty simple, raise your hand. Awesome. Well Devin, thanks again for taking time out of your busy day. I'm Jeff Frick, we're on the ground. You're watching theCUBE. We are at Blue Shield of California in downtown San Francisco. Thanks for watching.