Hands-On Shearan

One CIO moves on and a technologist moves up. This September, Kevin Shearan moved into the role of CIO of Mellon Financial in Pittsburgh after former CIO Allan Woods retired. Although Shearan says his buy-side firm believes in bringing in new blood, the technology side promoted from within this fall, as the head of data center operations filled Shearan's old role as director of technology strategy and information security.

Despite the new title, the 51-year-old Shearan has had little time to enjoy the perks of his new office. Not only is he in charge of 2,500 to 3,000 IT staffers, but depending on the day, he has to deliver technology to the firm's more than 16,700 employees worldwide. If that weren't enough, the firm is realigning its core technologies in pursuit of greater efficiency and lower costs. If this is heady stuff for a man who chose not to pursue a college degree and stared working in the computer industry at the age of 16, he doesn't show any signs of stress.

"I have between 50 and 150 large projects going on at any one time. I provide governance and oversight on the top 50 projects on a monthly basis," he says.

Shearan is leading the charge on what Mellon calls Infrastructure Strategy, where the firm is looking at how it delivers technology. "We made a number of business changes recently, which included divestiture of the human resources business. That was a catalyst for thinking, 'Are we as flexible and adaptable in the tech environment as we'd like to be?'" he says, referring to the sale of HR services to Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS).

The firm has broken this project into four parts: determining an "infrastructure technology point of view (POV)," organizing the technology, raising pricing awareness, and a implementing a site model approach to technology.

For the infrastructure technology POV, the IT team will look at the makeup of the computer and network environment, and changing and upgrading technology, be it storage or processing capabilities.

In terms of organization, Shearan is examining whether to reorganize or plan a production and support environment, where Mellon Financial has multiple technology disciplines in a given unit. "Today, we go to multiple technology silos to resource and process a new technology for business requirements," he says. "We are moving to a model that says, 'Let's have a function whose role is deployment and we will have the requisite skills within that team, whose goal is to deploy that technology.'"

In essence, "it's moving from a technology silo to more of a functional focus for our infrastructure environment," Shearan says.

Does this mean that silos will disappear? Unfortunately not, Shearan says. "Now, we are focused on a functional perspective as opposed to a pure technology perspective. Unfortunately, you always end up with some form of silo."

Shearan says he aims to educate the rest of Mellon on the cost and usage of technology inside the firm. His ultimate goal is to change business behaviors. "I think being effective and adaptable, we are looking to move that model. The reality is I doubt that will dramatically change what we're spending on technology," he says. "But it makes a closer ownership between business and technology."

This is so the business can see what it's getting for its dollar, he says.

The last component of the Mellon technology overhaul is a site model. "Along with the main campus, we have many locations and we have a much crisper character of each site. [We also decide] what technology should be local and what should be provided from the main campus."

One wonders if shearan has time for lunch.