Featured Speaker(s)

Barbara D. Carlini
Senior Vice President/Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Diageo North America

Barbara D. Carlini, North America CIO of Diageo, sees technology as a key driver of organic growth at the world’s leading premium drinks business. Drawing on a career that spans nearly 20 years, Barbara leads more than 300 information systems personnel throughout the United States and Canada to streamline revenue-generating business processes and support global standardization initiatives for Diageo.

Barbara is positioning technology to serve as the fundamental backdrop of Diageo’s core business. Since joining the company in early 2001, she has transformed its technology organization to align more strategically with the business by spearheading projects that enhance essential processes and relationships that correlate to the sales, marketing and distribution of Diageo brands such as Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Guinness.

The CIO of a company that has grown rapidly through acquisitions, including the purchase of most of Seagram’s brands in 2001, Barbara believes the ability to standardize common technology platforms is critical to facilitate communications, expedite administrative functions and cut costs across the business. She also promotes the role of business intelligence technology in Diageo’s work with distributors to develop marketing campaigns and target sales to specific demographics.

Barbara joined Diageo from Nabisco, where she most recently served as Senior Director of U.S. Sales and Marketing Systems, IT. In this capacity, she built integrated solutions to support sales and marketing for Nabisco’s snack food businesses, opening up communications and consolidating redundant data sources. Her previous role at Nabisco was Project Director, Biscuit Sales, IT, where she directed a SAP project to improve the retail supply chain.

Barbara started her technology career in 1987 as a programmer and analyst at Berlex Laboratories, a specialty pharmaceutical company. She later joined Automatic Data Processing (ADP) as a senior programmer, rising to Director, IT Project Management in 1996. While at ADP, Barbara, a true self-starter, completed her bachelor of science degree in business administration at Montclair State University.

Throughout her career, Barbara has used technology as a powerful instrument to further the greater goals of the companies she has served. Her years of leadership and experience qualify her as an expert on using technology to make business more connected, agile and cost-efficient. Barbara’s secret to success is that she has always known that technology unlocks many doors �"opening lines of communication, expediting delivery channels, and consolidating information sources �" to improve the critical processes that are the lifeblood of all successful companies.