Making Technology a Company Capability at Foot Locker Adrian Butler, CTO of Foot Locker, tells Martha Heller in this article for CIO.com how the $8 billion specialty athletic retailer approaches its ongoing digital transformation into an omnichannel retailer that builds on its customer base and promotes the spread of "sneaker culture." The company's strategy centers on "enabling data, analytics, and insights" to support decision-making and deepen relationships with customers and partners.

Saeed Elnaj, CIO at RELI Group, advises organizations experimenting with generative AI to provide strong governance on the technology’s use while also leaning into the user experience. “Skilled professionals that are experienced in both business domain and prompt engineering techniques are essential to the success of GenAI projects,” he writes.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to John J. Hopefield of Princeton University and Geoffrey E. Hinton, of the University of Toronto for their “foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” The October 8 announcement recognized Hopefield’s work creating systems that can reconstruct images and other patterns in data, and honored Hinton, known as “the godfather of AI” for inventing ways to perform machine learning using artificial neural networks.

Heller Search was recently retained by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) to recruit a Chief Information and Technology Officer. Established in 1931, GIA is the world’s foremost authority on diamonds, colored stones, and pearls. A public benefit, nonprofit institute, GIA is the leading source of knowledge, standards, and education in gems and jewelry. For this role, we identified Neil Jadhav who most recently was Chief Digital Officer for Neology, Inc. Prior to Neology, Jadhav was Vice President, Business Transformation and Advanced Analytics for Cubic Corporation. He earned a BE from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Best of luck, Neil!