Scott duFour joined Corpay, an S&P 500 global payments leader, as Chief Information Officer in 2019. Prior to joining us, Scott held technology leadership roles at McKesson from 2013 to 2019 including CIO for McKesson Europe, where he was responsible for all IT functions across 13 countries. At McKesson, Scott led several major IT initiatives including the consolidation of ERP platforms, infrastructure modernization, and transforming the company’s IT organization. Scott held IT and business leadership positions at two start-ups from 2001 to 2013. His early career includes roles at Accenture, Sun Chemical, and Covalex.com Inc. Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Scott shared his professional trajectory, insights on the evolution of the CIO role in the last 5-10 years, personal hobbies and interests, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview. Hi Scott. How did you first become interested in technology and what propelled you into it? Well, when I went to college, I wasn't seeking a computer science career. I majored in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan. After my junior year, I got an electrical engineering internship with a defence contractor, but it wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be. As I went back to my senior year at Michigan, I thought about different career opportunities, and I took some computer programming courses focused on chip design. That led me to the path of information technology, and I soon went to work for Anderson Consulting. What do you love the most about your current role? After a 30-plus-year career working for various types of companies from start-ups to public multinationals, the thing I enjoy most is the technology. At Corpay, IT is at the forefront of what we do. By developing and managing the products and services that we offer to our customers, my team and I can make an immediate impact on our business. It is really a strategic and integral part of Corpay’s business. How are you leveraging emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to drive innovation and improvement in IT services? When you look at newer technologies, we adopt them in a couple different ways. We leverage many third-party software products, especially for our back office. These are both on premise and SaaS-based providers. As those companies adopt new technologies into their products, most recently AI, we look at how we can best leverage that technology for ourselves. The second way we adopt new technologies is by integrating them into the products and services that we offer our customers. How have you seen the role of the CIO change in the last 5-10 years, and what changes do you see on the horizon in the years ahead? With technology, there is constant evolution. It is being leveraged more and more not just in the products and services, but in the back-office business processes. The pressure is on the technology group to continue to adopt new tools, develop new tools, and develop new products, and that pace continues to accelerate. Managing that change and managing cost efficiently is becoming ever more difficult. With that, the CIO has more of a seat at the table with the business than they've ever had. They’re not just a back-office support function, but rather they're a strategic partner to help drive costs down and revenues up. As for the horizon, the big question is how AI will be integrated into the many facets of the business. Companies are going to look to the CIO not only for adoption of the technology, but governance of the technology, as far as how and where to use it. The other evolving aspect is security, which is a more and more challenging space. As the bad guys get smarter and get newer technology, they can use that technology to infiltrate and hack companies. Companies will need to invest in security for all of their products and services to safeguard their wellbeing. How do you stay ahead of the curve in terms of technology trends and innovations? When we look at new use cases for technology, we work with our business partners to survey the landscape, look at what our competitors are doing, look at our pain points, then prioritize the use cases based on their potential value to the company. We then create a small pilot or proof of concept, measure the outcome, and then decide if it’s something we want to scale up in the business or apply it to other business units. The challenge is to explore and adopt the latest technology without letting costs spiral out of control, particularly with the SaaS model. For that, we make sure to have good visibility into all of our contracts and are ready to negotiate when they are up for renewal. We also look for cases where a new technology is already available from an existing vendor. Is there a particular person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? I've been fortunate in my career to have a lot of different mentors, starting with my father. He provided encouragement and counselling for my career and for life in general. Professionally, I've had several different mentors, both positive and negative, in the sense that I've had good bosses and bad bosses, and they taught me how to do things and how not to do things. Some of the most powerful coaching I received was just around the power of the organization, the power of your team. A boss I had back at one of my start-up companies had us read a book called Multipliers. It talked about the different types of leaders, the command and control leaders versus the leaders that really focused more on coaching and providing context to their team, to unleash innovation at multiple levels in the organization. That was some of the most powerful mentoring I got early on as I developed my leadership skills. I learned to be a multiplier. What does the term "authentic leadership" mean to you? I think an authentic leader is someone who would never ask you to do anything they wouldn't do themselves. I'm a strong believer in leading by example. Second, an authentic leader is transparent. Oftentimes as leaders, we have to deal with difficult situations, and if you're not transparent with your people and your organization, they can generally see that, and that'll lead to distrust, which can become a cancer on the organization. Third, I would say an authentic leader provides context. When I do my town halls, I always try to talk about how the company is doing and how IT contributed to that success. I get some of the most positive feedback when people understand the context of the company, the context of what we're trying to accomplish, strategically, and then how they can play a role in that. What are some of your passions outside of work? What do you like to do in your time off? First and foremost, will always be spending time with my wife and four children, whether it be on vacations or just spending time around the house or watching a movie with them. Second, I'm a competitive person, so I need an outlet for my competitive juices. Most recently, that has been tennis and golf. Third, one of the things I've learned about myself is if I'm not constantly learning, I become bored. So, I find myself reading up on topics that I'm interested in. Some of them work related, such as technology. Some not, such as history. I like to be learning all the time. What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now? I am very satisfied, excited, and challenged by my role here at Corpay. I want to continue making this a successful company, helping it evolve to the changing business landscape and opportunities that present themselves. I see myself continuing to work here with my team and with the leadership team to make Corpay successful. Outside of work, as I wind down towards the end of my career, I start to reflect and look back at how I can give back to my community or to my family. So, I'll probably start to look for outlets in that space as my children are older and getting out of college, and I find myself with more free time. What advice would you give to aspiring technology leaders who aim to make a positive impact in their organizations and the industry as a whole? If you’re early in your technology career, and you think you might one day want to be a CIO, I would say a couple of things. First, don’t chase titles or salary. Instead, always be continuing to develop your skill set. If you're an application developer, learn about infrastructure and networking. If you're in infrastructure, learn about application development. That will make you a more well-rounded technologist and leader. Second, look for leaders who have been successful and identify what makes them successful. The people I've seen be successful aren't necessarily the smartest from a technology perspective, but they are people who understand business challenges and how to apply technology to address them. The late Harvard University professor Clayton Christensen coined the term “disruptive innovation,” meaning an innovation that creates a new market or overtakes existing market leaders. Applied to technology, that means using innovation to solve customers’ problems as opposed to innovating for the innovation’s sake.