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May 25, 2021

Resilience in Tech Leadership with Liana Bailey-Crimmins

In February 2021, Liana Bailey-Crimmins was appointed State Chief Technology Officer for the California Department of Technology. Leading up to this career achievement, Liana has had a successful career spanning multiple positions with CalPERS. These positions include: Chief Information Officer, Chief Health Director, and Chief Information Security Officer. Previously, she was CIO and CIS for the California Correction Health Care Services, California Prison Healthcare Services, and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;03

Narrator

We're in an era of rapid change where resilience is vital. The Davood for Thought podcast dives into the most important topics in government and technology today. Our host, Davood Ghods, sits down with his vast network of colleagues to dish on the tech challenges that affect us all. Follow this podcast on your favorite platform and join the conversation by sharing it on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

 

00;00;23;05 - 00;01;00;25

Davood Ghods

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Direct Technologies, the Davood for Thought Podcast. I'm Davood Ghods and I will be your host today. The way I stay up with the pressing topics of tech and government of today is to tap into the panel of experts I've had the honor of connecting with over the years. Today we have Liliana Bailey-Crimmins on the podcast on February 23rd of this year, Governor Newsom appointed Liana as the state's chief technology officer at the California Department of Technology.

 

00;01;00;28 - 00;01;43;04

Davood Ghods

Congratulations, Liana. Previously, Liana was chief information security officer at the California Public Employees Retirement System from 2019 to 2021, and she was also chief health director from 2017 to 2019 and Chief Information officer from 2013 to 2017. Prior to CalPERS, she was the chief information officer at the California Correctional Health Care Services. Liana, without going into too much of your background, I want to welcome you to this episode of the Davood for Thought Podcast and ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself. And for someone who may not know about your background, please give us a brief overview of what you have done and what you're currently working on. Welcome.

 

00;01;43;04 - 00;02;19;02

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to join you and your audience today, David. You and I have similar past and so it's wonderful to to join you in direct technology today. As you had mentioned, I proudly serve the state of California for over 30 years, which includes the honor of working shoulder to shoulder with technologists and top leaders across the state.

 

00;02;19;04 - 00;02;50;07

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And I've worked in eight different departments and I've implemented digital high schools, I've implemented technologies from Oregon border all the way to two institutions near the Mexico border. And I've really just had a very rewarding career overall at the Department of Technology. I have two important roles. The first is the chief over the Office of Technology Services, and the other is the state chief technology officer.

 

00;02;50;08 - 00;03;16;16

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So I wanted to just break this up a little bit because they have two different focuses. First, as the chief over Otec, I lead a talented group of technologists and administrative team members. We support the state's technology strategic vision of 2023. We deliver and manage and secure data center services to approximately about 300 city, local and state departments.

 

00;03;16;18 - 00;03;45;25

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

Our vision is that we deliver innovation with purpose. So being a public servant, it is about never forgetting that what we do is about the delivery of service to the residents of California. So we have a very important purpose. And when we think of innovation is delivered through multiple channels, it's culture making sure our culture embraces innovation, a mindset so people have creative ways of solving today's problems.

 

00;03;45;28 - 00;04;09;17

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

Processes are lean so that a great, innovative idea doesn't get lost through the bureaucracy. And of course, technology. So a few years back, I reached out to a few business partners and we sat down and it was very interesting to talk to them about innovation because what I think of innovation and what they thought of innovation was actually fairly, fairly different.

 

00;04;09;20 - 00;04;41;21

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And so the business partner said that it wasn't about the new shiny object, it wasn't always about the latest technology, but it was about looking for optimized processes and utilizing what we already had, but doing it in a creative way. So what our tech what I do is I establish strategy, I plan for the future. I want to make sure that the organization is is organized in a way that is most efficient and provides value to our constituents.

 

00;04;41;23 - 00;05;07;06

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

We want to deliver leadership to make sure that the team members are successful because we're are only as successful as the people that we lead and then obviously oversee other controls to make sure that we're mitigating risk, overseeing compliance and obviously performance. And as I shift to the second, obviously, you know, my title as the state chief technology officer.

 

00;05;07;08 - 00;05;39;29

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

That role is really building bridges across the state. There is amazing centers of excellence happening at the city, local and state agency levels and how I can connect the dots and make sure that we're highlighting success and bringing services together to benefit the state of California. And then obviously, I also chair peer advisory groups where CIOs, CTOs and CEOs, we develop standards and we look for ways to future proof IP solutions. Because I have the saying that I want the residents of California to thank us in two three, four years from now for the decisions we make. So those are the two important roles that I currently sit in right now.

 

00;05;40;02 - 00;06;05;05

Davood Ghods

Wow. Eight different departments. I thought I had been to too many different departments, but eight that gets gives you a perspective that you understand the state's business much better.

 

00;06;05;07 - 00;06;36;11

Davood Ghods

Thank you for mentioning innovation. I have a question later about that as well. And bridge building across the state, This is a great role for you because I know you do a great job at that. And not only that, because you deal with so many departments, other tech, you would be the perfect person to be reaching out and building those bridges with different departments in the state or with your other partners in the local government or federal government even. Bottom line, I'm glad Otec is in good hands. My next question, Liana, is what emerging trends are you seeing in your field that that we should all be paying more attention to?

 

00;06;36;13 - 00;07;07;04

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

The pandemic has created it's both challenges but also has really changed the way we deliver public services. And I believe it is forever. So looking at a distributed workforce, it's here to stay.

 

00;07;07;07 - 00;07;38;04

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

75% of state operations are now working remotely. And I know from the governor's perspective that is still a goal, but that creates also challenges. So leveraging the zero trust security framework, looking for ways that since the workforce is no longer behind the, you know, the moat and all the security features that you have within your own buildings, they're now delivering those public services from their homes.

 

00;07;38;05 - 00;08;08;16

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

It's important that we look and embrace the framework of zero trust and ensure that when people are delivering those services, that they're doing it in a secure manner. So that that I see is an emerging trend and it's going to continue to mature from this point forward. The other is a hybrid cloud. So we've typically had a cloud first strategy, but I see where now that we've got I mean, I was at CalPERS, we have over 100 cloud solutions.

 

00;08;08;16 - 00;08;44;00

Liana Bailey Crimmins

And so there's just some technologies or some processes that we're either not developed for the for the cloud. So they need to be refactored. So you're looking at a hybrid cloud, figuring out where compute storage, where is it most efficient, making sure that technologists have a single pane of glass that when they're looking at supporting their infrastructure and creating uptime availability, that regardless of if the service is in the cloud or on premise, that that we have that visibility into our business model and our service model.

 

00;08;44;03 - 00;09;18;20

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So hybrid cloud is is also something that I see as emerging. And I can't get away from artificial intelligence. The machine learning, as you're aware, or I was the chief health director at CalPERS for several years and just listing about predictive medicine and and be able to look at prescriptive medicine, predictive analytics and that that the artificial intelligence is out there can actually detect and predict from a health perspective cancers, all sorts of diseases.

 

00;09;18;20 - 00;10;05;28

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And that is a positive side of artificial intelligence. But there's also the dark side that we hear about and in some cases artificial intelligence can predict human behavior. Social engineering looking for what is the most common type of video someone would click on and then use that as a way to backdoor a get into your your systems. And so I see artificial intelligence as an emerging technology, not only to create the automation within systems and the predictive analytics, but also to defend against threat actors that are constantly looking for ways to get into public service and into systems to to which impersonate our team members or create damage.

 

00;10;05;28 - 00;10;32;11

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

As we've seen recently on the East Coast, that was recently in the news about the energy sector. Yep. And then robotic business process automation all about automation. So I look at possibilities. I also see that as an emerging trend looking for ways we do. We really need to do 50 steps or can we automate our business processes and increase that speed of delivery to our constituents?

 

00;10;32;13 - 00;11;08;23

Davood Ghods

Excellent. Thank you. Definitely Distributed workforce, hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence, robotic automation. These are all areas and trends that some of our other guests also have mentioned. But something that we are working on in the direct technology is supporting hybrid clouds also for some of our clients. But your comment about distributed workforce is a great lead in for my next question regarding the pandemic, I think you would agree that adjusting to the pandemic was challenging for many organizations, if not all.

 

00;11;08;26 - 00;11;36;20

Davood Ghods

And now everyone is thinking of what the next major disruption could be and how can we better be prepared for it. So resiliency is a big topic of conversation these days. We, for example, direct technology to offer a resilience as a service. What are some examples of resilience you have seen in your business in recently or in the in the past year? And what is the one thing organizations should be doing to improve resilience?

 

00;11;36;22 - 00;12;02;03

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

Excellent question, Davood. So as you are aware of, I've been in my role or practically two months, so I will give you my perspective against resiliency just from my my years of experience. I think when we think resiliency, we we focus on technology just because we're in the technology field.

 

00;12;02;03 - 00;12;30;18

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

But most of us know resiliency requires people process and technology. And so on the technology side, obviously highly available as as you're aware, since you work at Department Technology, our mainframe environment actually has six nines. And so that's very difficult to find out in the private sector. So highly availability. You know, we always talk about being a utility when residents of California are using our service, they really shouldn't be thinking about us.

 

00;12;30;21 - 00;12;51;16

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

That's when we're doing the job right is when things are up, when they need it. And we do that by having, you know, backups and disaster recovery fell over minute by minute. Data is crossing between us and our backfill data center and then making sure that our equipment doesn't get too old. You know, that is age. So having great policies.

 

00;12;51;16 - 00;13;23;11

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

But I would say those are great things from a technology perspective, a resilience. You want be bulletproof. You want not to be of the focus because it really is about all about the delivery and the business function of the technology. But I will tell you, and I'm sure you're aware, is that the recent bank related data breaches because coming from CalPERS as a financial institution, I kept up quite a bit on that and the data breaches weren't necessarily technology related.

 

00;13;23;11 - 00;13;46;20

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So we think of resiliency. They spent millions and millions of dollars on technology, resilient technology. But the root cause was a process of failure for the process. There was a breakdown where they were logging this behavior, but an individual or individuals did not pay attention, and that's how the data breach occurred. So resiliency also has to be process.

 

00;13;46;20 - 00;14;22;13

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And people at my worst and last resiliency tip is in. When you think about incident response plans at the end of the day, if you you manage what you practice and it's important that you have an incident response plan, business continuity plans, disaster recovery plans, and that it just don't become software. It's about practicing making sure that you're making having the executives, the technologists and the business areas all involved in that decision making because you don't want a crisis to happen and then figure out what you're going to do.

 

00;14;22;16 - 00;14;48;10

Davood Ghods

Exactly. I completely agree with you about non-tech breaches and disruptions, things like power outages. What if there is a regional power outage? I know that you guys have redundancy at the data center and you have covered that, but organizations need to think about that kind of a disruption or what if there is another civil unrest that we experienced in the recent past? And how will that impact the day to day business of the organization no matter what the organization is?

 

00;14;48;10 - 00;15;16;09

Davood Ghods

So business continuity planning and not letting get sitting on the shelf becomes key and more through our resiliency service. Those are the services that we provide with our clients and direct technology. Liana We always talk about how we are going to help the client or how we are going to get the project done. But we also ask, why are we doing what we are doing? What is your why? What motivates you in your work?

 

00;15;16;11 - 00;15;45;08

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So Davood, you are a retired public servant and so you like me. I would say that public service doesn't always get the recognition it deserves, but I would say the Y is about people. It's about family, friends, community making a difference and serving a higher purpose.

 

00;15;45;11 - 00;16;18;21

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And recently, three years ago, sometimes each of us face a circumstance which tests our life. And so three years ago, you know, I've gone about serving a higher purpose and have for over 30 years. And I was like, I've got a PET scan before I got on a plane and flew to Palm Desert to present about our health programs and some benefit designs modeling for CalPERS and an employer event.

 

00;16;18;24 - 00;16;50;04

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So I got the PET scan the following day. I had several presentations before, about 30 minutes before the I had to go on stage for about there was about 7100 people that I was going to present to. I received the call that no one wants to hear. It was I was told I was stage four and that I had a 14% chance of living in five or more years.

 

00;16;50;07 - 00;17;17;23

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And you know, our purpose, our why is what gets us up on that stage and allows us to move forward. And I went on that stage after I got that news and deliver the best presentations that I've ever given. I was surrounded by amazing coworkers and board members, and that just filled me full love and supported me in a major event in my life.

 

00;17;17;26 - 00;17;54;29

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And even though I was struggling through chemotherapy and I couldn't even open my refrigerator and touch things in cold without gloves, I only missed one board meeting and there was 100 degree day and I was unable to breathe in air conditioning without my lungs freezing up. If anybody's ever gone through physiotherapy and I will tell you, sitting there in front of the board members talking about health breaks, which is never an easy conversation to have, if you've ever been in that situation.

 

00;17;54;29 - 00;18;24;29

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And it was 100 degree day, the lights were down on the board members and they were fanning themselves and sitting there and their you could tell that the perspiring, it's very uncomfortable for them. And I quietly apologized to them. And you know what they told me, all 13 of them on that stage is that Liana? If that if if turning off the air conditioning is what we can do to support you, it's the least we can do.

 

00;18;25;02 - 00;18;55;03

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So I will tell you there is a why of a higher calling for serving the public. There is a why and in public service and the people that we are colleagues, our peers. And I don't I don't think people appreciate it as much as they they should or could. And so I will just say my why is really to make a difference, regardless of what personal and professional challenges that we overcome in life.

 

00;18;55;05 - 00;19;21;17

Davood Ghods

Thank you so much. I'm touched. Thank you so much for sharing this personal matter with us. We all wish you good health for many, many years to come. And that's a great motivator, that's for sure. But I guess that's what inspires you also. But next question is about what inspires innovation on your team. You've worked at different departments, you've had different teams. What inspires innovation?

 

00;19;21;20 - 00;19;49;12

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So technologists are natural problem solvers. I think that's why we get into the I.T. field in the first place. So it's about as a as a leader that is here to to build a culture of innovation. It's about inspiring your team members to see the very best in themselves, to be challenged and to deliver services, but also look at creative ways.

 

00;19;49;15 - 00;20;11;09

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

The status quo is not my my. One of my pet peeves is if people if I ask them a question and I ask them why we're doing something, the last thing I want to say is we've always done it that way. I want it to be we. We're doing it because it's the best way to do it. And if it's not, then they and I need to be looking at that solution differently.

 

00;20;11;11 - 00;20;46;03

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And it's about mitigating the technology barriers and improving the speed of delivery that we need to be focusing on for the people that we serve. Excellent. What is something that would surprise people about your background or interest DNA other than what you've shared already? Well, I'm a continual learner. I believe in beauty, in art i.t. We have this whole logical part of what we do, but using both sides of our brains is very important, especially as we get older, I will attest.

 

00;20;46;03 - 00;21;37;24

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

And so I paint and multiple mediums watercolor, oil and acrylic. I've actually obtained local and state recognition. I when we used to have second Saturdays, I've had several arches so that that's the artistic side. But also for about 12 years I've held a black belt. And Campbell karate. And so when you're on the mat with a £200 male and you have to wrestle them down, you learn a lot about yourself physically and mentally and really how to overcome challenges and the mental resiliency that you need to have to stay focused and not to let fear overcome you.

 

00;21;37;24 - 00;22;07;18

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

So I do a lot of giving back and teaching self-defense to women and to children. I think it's important that we all know how to take care of ourselves. Yeah. Wow. Those are fantastic extras about you that I didn't know either. How long have you been painting? I've been painting. I was since I was little, but professionally, I've been painting since about 96.

 

00;22;07;20 - 00;22;33;19

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

Okay, This was mixed with that black belt. Those deputy directors that I watch out. Well, I actually. So I used to work the institutions, right? And they give you a little whistle. That was all you had to defend yourself. Obviously, you had people around you, but so I used to have a boss and he used to put me between himself and me, between the inmates. So he knew that I could defend them. I guess if something that could.

 

00;22;33;19 - 00;23;01;26

Davood Ghods

Yeah. Yeah. I think I've been to at least one or two of those institution visits with you. My last question, Leona, Where can people find you and keep tabs on what you're working on? How can people support your work?  

 

00;23;01;26 - 00;23;32;28

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

Well, the California Department of Technology has a LinkedIn and Twitter page, so the employees visit. See that? You don't see that. They're not sure if everyone's aware, but our downtown headquarters at 13th and J is moving to the Zagat Building over Sacramento. So there's a lot of updates on our website regarding the project information. And I would also check out our State Technology Strategic Plan Vision 2023. Typically when vendors want to come in and have a conversation, I would always urge them to seek to understand what our priorities are.

 

00;23;33;01 - 00;23;58;15

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

You know, we don't try to boil the ocean all at once. There are strategic initiatives and priorities that are out on that website. So, you know, come in and talk to us about how there are services or their products can help complement the direction that we're going. And then there is the 2020 state annual report, which is also available on our our home page.

 

00;23;58;18 - 00;24;31;20

Liana Bailey-Crimmins

But I would just say in closing, I know this is my last question, and I would I would just leave you and your audience with that. Regardless of your good or bad, every aspect in life, it's important that we use our personal, professional experiences to shape us where we are and and where we're going. And so I just look forward to working with you and to working with the community of technology vendors and specialists to partner and continue to shape California's future. And I leave you with one favorite leadership quote that I have is that there's no such thing as ineffective leadership. If it's not effective, it's not leadership. Thank you, Davood.

 

00;24;31;20 - 00;24;57;20

Davood Ghods

Thank you so much for joining us today, Liana, for leaving us with those words and thoughts and for giving us a human side of yourself. Thank you to all the listeners out there also for joining us as well.

 

00;24;57;22 - 00;25;11;11

Davood Ghods

We will see you in the next episode of Davood for Thought, Where we will shed more light on the human side of tech.

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