I was reminded of that one-of-a-kind meeting this week when , as part of a broader management shakeup, that the 60-year-old Szygenda is retiring on Oct. 1. Szygenda joined GM to become its first CIO in 1996.
Szygenda, who joined GM at a time when EDS dominated its IT operations, was an outsourcing and business process re-engineering maverick who cut billions from the company's IT budget and who negotiated a $15 billion deal a few years back that was often described as the biggest in history. Szygenda's was designed to get outsourcing providers to compete with each other while also streamlining their operations by cooperating on standards. During his tenure, Szygenda's team also developed systems key to GM advances such as its OnStar vehicle safety system.
The GM CIO also joined with peers at other organizations, including the U.S. Department of Defense, in for buying software and services.
Szygenda was often sought out by industry organizations and the press to share his views on IT strategy and industry news ( about a $1 billion contract GM signed with AT&T).
In 2000, he told us, for a story about , that: "I have always been a businessperson first and a technologist second. And even though I've been in technology jobs, my work had to change the bottom line of business." Simply, the technology didn't interest him unless it affected change to the business process.
Network World named him one of its "Most Powerful People in Networking" numerous times, and Szygenda also belongs to CIO Magazine's CIO Hall of Fame.
Szygenda joined GM in 1996 from Bell Atlantic, where he was vice president and CIO. Before that, he held a slew of IT jobs at Texas Instruments.
The group vice president is being replaced as CIO by Terry Kline, currently GM's process information officer for product development.