Growth Talks

Julie Fitton didn't take the usual path to becoming a CISO. She started as a mainframe programmer, spent a decade at EMC navigating the hardware-to-cloud transition, and has since led security across some of the most complex environments in enterprise technology, cloud infrastructure, IoT, healthcare, and manufacturing.In this episode of Growth Talks, Shruti talks with Julie about what actually shifted cybersecurity from an IT concern to a boardroom conversation, how AI is simultaneously empowering attackers and defenders, and why the "office of no" framing for security teams is both wrong and avoidable.Julie also teaches cybersecurity at Boston College, which shapes how she thinks about the next generation of talent, especially as automation changes what an analyst's first few years on the job looks like.If you work in technology leadership, sit on a board, or are building a career in security, this one is worth your time.

Everyone wants to deploy AI. Almost nobody wants to do the work that makes AI actually function.Manjula Mahajan has spent 25 years doing that work — first as an integration architect making enterprise systems talk to each other, then leading data and AI transformations across Symantec, Brocade, Broadcom, NetApp, and Model N. Today she is VP of Enterprise Technology, Data & AI at Roller, a global venue management platform operating across 30 countries.Her point of view is direct: AI doesn't fix broken systems. It exposes them. And the organizations that learn that lesson after the fact pay a much higher price than the ones that build the foundation first.In this episode, we cover how a GenAI implementation generated over 100,000 hours of productivity gains — not by building AI features first, but by fixing the knowledge base underneath them. We get into her value-vs-risk matrix for prioritizing AI use cases, why she reframes governance as the guardrail that lets you move fast rather than the rule that slows you down, and what 11 years at one company taught her about watching architectural decisions actually play out over time.The throughline across all of it: find the business problem. Everything else follows.

What does it actually take to lead transformation — not talk about it, but do it repeatedly, at scale, across some of the world's most complex technology organizations?Chandra Callicutt has had the word "transformation" in her last three job titles for a reason. From IBM in 1996 to VP of CRM Engineering and Transformation at Cisco today, she has built a career across sales, marketing, IT, and engineering — and developed a sharp point of view on why transformations stall, where real resistance lives, and how people can stay relevant when the ground is constantly shifting.In this episode, we cover her framework for moving fast without a roadmap, why she calls perspective the number one career multiplier, how the +D leadership program is helping her team define their legacy, and what she would say to anyone quietly pulling back from their career because they are waiting for the AI wave to pass.Spoiler: it won't.