Keith Morrow - 7Eleven Inc - CIO and VP of IS

Profile of Keith Morrow

7-Eleven Inc.
CIO and vice president of IS

By Todd R. Weiss

January 5, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - When he initiated a project to bring a corporate portal to Dallas-based convenience store chain 7-Eleven Inc. in 2002, Keith Morrow, CIO and vice president of information systems, took one of the biggest IT risks of his career.

From the start, he says, "there were no clear business sponsors for the project at all" from within the company.

But today, despite the lack of executive endorsements, a learning curve for the new technology and some early cultural resistance from users, the portal is a huge success across the company's 5,300 U.S. store locations, Morrow says. And a long list of employees are eagerly awaiting access to it.

Morrow says the portal, which is used for training and communications, is one leadership challenge he's particularly proud of, in large part because he was able to visualize the eventual benefit for the company and its 70,000 workers early on. But the project has also offered some lessons, he says.

"The route I chose was to go it alone" in bringing in the new technology, "without significant executive support along the way," he says.

"I will never do it that way again and [will] always insist upon intimate involvement, participation and ownership by our executive team," Morrow says. "Culturally, it is too difficult and slow to reap the full benefit of the investment without this level of buy-in and sponsorship."

That ability to adjust and learn from his experiences helps make Morrow a leader at 7-Eleven. Another factor is what he describes as an "even-keel" approach to handling people and adverse situations. Morrow says his basic strategy is to "get the big picture [and] not get alarmed if something needs to [change]" to make a project succeed.

That calmness, he says, he learned from his grandfather, an entrepreneur who ran many businesses and made meaningful contributions to his community. "He gave me the view that people make business work," Morrow says.

Kathy Walsh, 7-Eleven's director of emerging technologies, says one of Morrow's greatest achievements has been to help get the business and its IT systems and workers aligned.

Keith Morrow, CIO and vice president of IS at 7-Eleven Inc.

Morrow has found technologies used in other industries and creatively adapted them to the needs of 7-Eleven, she says. "Keith has high expectations for us," Walsh adds. "But they're no more than what he has for himself."

• Whom he admires most in IT: "Michael Dell, because he's a Texan and because of his mastery of customers, manufacturing efficiency, competition, retail online sales andinnovation."

• Latest book read: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

• Favorite TV program: Monster Garage

• Dream job: Yacht captain for a well-known multibillionaire, who most of the time would let Morrow use the ship on his own