Rob Zelinka to Springfield Tech Council: Challenge Yourself to Embrace Emerging Technologies
Rob Zelinka
Chief Information Officer & Vice President, Jack Henry
Rob Zelinka, Chief Information Officer & Vice President at Jack Henry, discussed embracing emerging technologies. Read the article and watch video of the full presentation from the recent Springfield Tech Council event.
Article written by Matt Wagner, Corporate Communications Senior Specialist at Jack Henry.
Saying that the chief information officer’s job at a $2 billion financial technology company is always in flux is a bit of an understatement.
Associates are constantly seeking ways to work more efficiently and modernize the client experience. Old technologies and assets are nearing obsolescence while new ones are coming online. And the challenges of managing, transmitting, and protecting data are always present.
Welcome to Rob Zelinka’s world.
Rob is the CIO at Jack Henry, a Monett-based S&P 500 company that helps financial institutions – a group that includes banks, credit unions, de novo banks, and fintechs – innovate faster, compete strategically, and meet the evolving needs of their accountholders.
So, what’s the key to keeping Jack Henry competitive and helping the company’s financial institution clients drive innovation? The willingness to embrace emerging technologies, Rob told Springfield Tech Council’s audience of approximately 80 attendees at the September 12 Learning Over Lunch event.
“We have a real big challenge on our hands. We have to act boldly, but we also have to act responsibly,” Rob said. “That intersection is really hard.”
Tech has the greatest impact when viewed as a teammate that’s there to support Associates and deliver a consistent, high-quality experience for clients, Rob said. And while technology can solve a lot of our problems, it isn’t a replacement for human interaction, he noted.
“At the end of the day, humans buy from humans – no matter how much technology there is,” Rob said. “People still buy from people. To that end, people are our differentiator.”
Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, Jack Henry’s modernization journey never ends, Rob explained. Managing enterprise services and tech assets across the company is a mammoth undertaking, and ServiceNow is the cloud-based platform that makes it all possible.
Under Rob’s leadership, Jack Henry’s IT department launched an ambitious mission to document tens of thousands of assets, most of which were being managed with spreadsheets.
“We knew that we had to get our house in order,” Rob said. “You cannot manage assets unless you know you have them.”
Every asset now has a lifecycle and disposition plan. Risk management plans are in place for hardware in case it breaks, and roadmaps have been adopted for all the different software the company employs.
Rob has also been instrumental in carrying out Jack Henry’s data center strategy, which prioritizes reliability, scalability, cost, focus, and connectivity. The company has embraced colocation, reducing the number of data centers and increasing their security and durability in the process.
Looking ahead, Rob said some of the biggest challenges include integrating legacy tech with the modern stack, bridging skills and training gaps, and managing stakeholder expectations while keeping up with the pace of change. The only way to overcome those challenges is together, he added.
“The key word is together,” Rob said. “My peers … are coming forward and challenging my team and I to think differently. We believe in strength in numbers – that we’re better together than we are as individuals.”
Watch the Pioneering the Future with Emerging Tech Presentation
Livestream from September 12, 2024 at the Springfield Tech Council Event on Emerging Tech Modernization with Rob Zelinka, CIO at Jack Henry.
Jack Henry is a proud sponsor of the Springfield Tech Council. Learn about new STC sponsorship opportunities or contact us now to discuss becoming part of our the vibrant Springfield tech community!
