Ricki Koinig
CIO
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Dr. Ricki Koinig has been an IT executive for 25+ years, leading full-scale strategic, operational and cybersecurity teams in a variety of industry sectors from big pharma, oil and gas, and the public sector. Her background has predominantly been in the global private organizations across Europe, CEE countries, Scandinavia, and Asia, with her most recent years in US state government. In her spare time, she is an avid horseback rider and competitor, and she also is a fluent German speaker– Servus!
Learn more about the Milwauklee CIO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
After starting my career in southeastern Wisconsin, I spent 17 years overseas. Throughout those years, I collected an abundance of professional experiences, best practices, lessons learned and connected with a wide network of business and IT professionals that support each other to this day – across countries and cultures. I was excited to bring these experiences and connections with me to my career back in the Midwest. Being a Wisconsin native, I was interested in working for organizations with a local footprint. The CIO role at the DNR gave me an opportunity to support my state and truly give back through the civil service sector.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Having a strong transformational leadership style puts people at the core of my leadership principles in order to make positive change happen and thrive. Optimizations, modernizations and increasing productivity and ROI requires a concentration on the professional superpowers that individuals contribute together to advance the organization with me. Respecting new perspectives, challenging old models, inviting new ways of problem solving, inspiring participation, embracing the contributions of all and a tolerance for educated risk taking allow for constructive and innovative paths toward success.
What is the greatest challenge CIOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
Accomplishing more with less isn’t necessarily a challenge restricted to the public sector. Nevertheless, notable funding requirements and limitations in state government do greatly affect how those challenges are mitigated and navigated. Designing integrated solutions that leverage talent development, embedded compliance and security into daily work and integrated business and IT objectives together is essential in light of limited available traditional resources.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CIO?
Reach out and listen to stakeholders at various levels of your organization, and not just in the beginning of your tenure. Listen to inputs from trusted external strategic partners. Gauge the consistency of expectations from internal and external parties and compare them with the actual resources and options you’ve been provided. If expectations meet reality, great! If not, be sensible, pragmatic and honest with leadership so they understand what you will do and won’t do in your first phase of accomplishments.
How do you measure success as a leader?
Success as a leader isn’t just about delivery and deadlines. Having a definition of success that extends beyond a bonus to include the whole organization helps create a stable, sustainable, and scalable foundation for the future – even long after you’ve moved on in your professional career. The legacy of your leadership success becomes clear with the confirmation these four questions:
- Has the real challenge been uncovered? Leadership may tell you to improve a poor delivery metric, but in reality, there are organizational culture and historical factors hindering progress. Address all facets of the challenges you’re faced with to move forward.
- Was your value justification and vision clear? Present concise reasoning for your way forward that caters to individual, team, department and organizational needs. Set realistic goals and milestones that help stakeholders adopt and embed the vision into their daily work. The long-term gains of a solid direction far outweigh fragile quick wins.
- Are folks motivated and empowered? Long-term leadership success includes leveraging diverse ideas and inputs. This can be noted as stakeholders find new paths and opportunities yet uncovered that support your vision. As organizational functions mature, stakeholders organically strengthen communication lines, leverage cross-team modernizations and accelerate improvements that positively affect delivery and organizational culture.
- Were improvements sustainable? Successful leaders embrace regular healthy reflection to guide their path of lifelong learning. With each professional experience, there are opportunities to recognize best practices, lessons learned and collect tools for your toolbox that can help you and your organizations grow. Looking back on what you’ve helped optimize, and seeing what elements continue to evolve is a telltale kudos to your successful leadership.
What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?
I’ve participated in and presented at summits and conferences around the world. What is unique to the Evanta community is how they have cultivated a trusted culture that allows for open conversations around challenges, issues and even mistakes. Participating members engage and support each other at – as well as outside of – formal events, and there is no hesitation to lend an ear and exchange ideas that help each other along our way.
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