Location: Zoom
Title: Land O’Lakes Technology - Product/Software Development: “The Human Element”
Speaker: Gary Hicks
Abstract: Land O’Lakes is an agri-business cooperative that leads with Technology products/services to best serve our members/owners and customers. We have recently completed a digital transformation to move from a project/services model to a product/agile model. This transformation has allowed us to be more successful in meeting our member’s/owner’s digital needs and in adding value to their businesses. However, we still were not seeing the adoption and value our customers needed. It was not until we took a Design Thinking approach, focusing on the human-element of product/software development, that we achieved our goals. This discussion will share what that human-element is, what it means to product/software development, and how we made the transition to make Design Thinking a core part of our Technology culture and processes.
About the speaker: Gary graduated from Iowa State University in 1987 with a BS degree in Computer Science and minors in Business & Meteorology. Gary spent the majority of his career working for Cargill, Incorporated in multiple businesses and technology leadership positions. His main areas of focus at Cargill were in their Grain & Oilseeds Processing, Ag Retail and Animal Nutrition businesses. Gary retired from Cargill in 2018. Gary then spent one year working as the Vice President of Application Development for Long Term Care Group (LTCG), a leader in the long-term care 3 rd -party administration business. Gary currently works for Land O’Lakes as a Director in their Ag Retail IT Solutions Team. In this role, Gary leads a team working directly with Land O’Lakes Ag Retail and Cooperative members/owners to help develop and strengthen their Technology and IT capabilities. Throughout his time at Cargill and Land O’Lakes, it’s been a passion of Gary’s to stay connected with Iowa State University. Gary has acted as IT Recruiting Lead at Iowa State for both Cargill and Land O’ Lakes. Gary currently acts as Land O’Lakes’ IT Recruiting Partner Lead at Iowa State.