Amy McPhillips is Vice President, HR IT and Employee Experience at Kyndryl, where she focuses on making it easier for employees to get work done in a digital and increasingly AI-enabled world. She is passionate about simplifying the employee experience by reducing the “navigation tax” and orchestration burden so employees can focus on meaningful work. With more than 25 years of experience across Intel, Medtronic, and Target, Amy has led large-scale transformation across HR systems, digital workplace systems, and IT strategy and operations. At Kyndryl, she supports the mission to design, build, manage, and modernize the world’s critical technology systems, bringing a relationship-driven leadership style grounded in trust, connection, and empathy.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Amy shared insights into how 25+ years of experience shaped her mission to cut the “navigation tax” employees pay daily. She sees AI as the shift from improving interfaces to reorchestrating work itself, where employees state intent and workflows move end-to-end across systems. Her advice to rising IT leaders: protect empathy and trust, pause anything that adds complexity without clear value, and focus on translating tech into meaningful business outcomes. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Amy. Most leaders don’t start with “digital transformation” on their business card. Thinking back to your first role leading engineering teams, what problem made you realize technology could change how thousands of people work, and what did you do about it?
My early career in retail shaped how I think about experience design. Every decision was grounded in consumer behavior and conversion, where even small changes in layout, product placement, or checkout flow could influence millions of customers and billions of $. Everything was intentionally designed to reduce friction, guide decisions, and make purchasing seamless. That same mindset applies to IT and employee experience. Employees aren’t thinking in terms of systems they’re trying to get something done, just like customers completing a purchase. Applying retail principles like orchestration, personalization, and friction reduction is critical to driving productivity and adoption.
One example was a learning management system implementation in a medical device environment, where we eliminated a single unnecessary sign-off step. While minor on its own, with over 5 million learning records annually, even seconds saved per interaction scaled significantly. In a regulated environment where compliance training keeps operations running, that efficiency matters. Just as friction drives cart abandonment in retail, it drives disengagement internally. When workflows are complex, employees avoid or work around them. By simplifying the design, we improved efficiency, increased adoption, and strengthened compliance.
What do you love the most about your current role?
What I love most is the opportunity to improve how work feels for employees at scale.
Today, many organizations are dealing with what I describe as a daily ‘navigation tax’ of employees jumping between systems, searching for information, and stitching together workflows just to move work forward. At a broader level, that creates an orchestration burden where employees are effectively coordinating work across systems and functions instead of focusing on business outcomes. Being in a role where we can address that holistically is incredibly energizing. And even more exciting right now with AI, we now can move beyond improving interfaces and start rethinking how work happens. That’s a much more meaningful problem to solve than deploying another system because it’s about giving time and energy back to employees so they can solve business problems.
Digital employee experience is now board-level. Looking five years ahead, what part of the employee tech stack will move from “IT support” to “talent retention metric,” and why?
I think the biggest shift will be in how work is orchestrated across systems.
Today, most of the employee tech stack is still evaluated as individual tools such as systems of record, collaboration platforms, service tools. But employees don’t think that way, they just want to get something done quickly and easily. Take a simple IT or HR request like ordering a new PC or resolving a payroll issue. Today, that often means jumping between Workday, ServiceNow, external payroll provider systems, email, and multiple approval steps. The friction isn’t in any one tool it’s in the handoffs between them. It’s already possible with Agentic AI for that experience to be orchestrated end-to-end. Employees will state their intent, and the workflow will move across systems automatically. The organizations that reduce context switching, eliminate unnecessary steps, and design this way will have a real advantage. Ultimately, employees judge their experience by how easy it is to be productive, and that directly shapes engagement, retention, and culture fit.
Workforce demographics and remote models are shifting. What capability will companies need to own natively by 2030 to attract and keep talent, and what should they finally stop outsourcing?
By 2030, organizations will need to own the ability to design and continuously evolve the employee experience across a more diverse, multi-generational workforce where people are working longer and expectations around flexibility, technology, and career growth vary significantly. That requires a deeper understanding of employee personas, because a frontline worker, a digital-native hire, and a senior leader all experience work very differently. You can see this today in environments where SaaS tools serve as the system of record, but the experience is fragmented and siloed by department or function, not by persona. When organizations introduce universal ‘AI front doors’ employees can simply ask for what they need and have work orchestrated across systems for them.
At the same time, companies should move away from outsourcing fragmented service models that break the experience. The most common employee complaints in these environments are slow response times, being passed between teams, inconsistent answers, and not knowing where to go for help or find information. Over time, that erodes trust and makes work harder than it needs to be.
What are three skills you now look for when hiring or developing leaders that you didn’t prioritize five years ago, and what skills have you intentionally de-prioritized?
What I prioritize most now is AI fluency, and process/orchestration mindset, and a business value mindset. Most importantly, leaders need strong business acumen, and they must understand the business deeply and be able to translate technology into meaningful business outcomes. From there, adaptability is critical, because IT leaders need to be comfortable operating in constant change and ambiguity, and guiding their teams through that. What I’ve intentionally de-prioritized is deep specialization in a single tool or specialty area. Expertise still matters, but it’s no longer sufficient. Today’s leaders need to think holistically, evaluate across a rapidly evolving landscape, and lead through transformation not just rely on depth.
Leaders are shaped outside the office too. What is one book, not about technology, that fundamentally changed how you lead people through change, and what idea from it do you use with your teams?
A classic leadership book that had a lasting impact on me is StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. Earlier in my career, I experienced feedback cultures that focused heavily on fixing weaknesses. While there’s value in addressing gaps, focusing only on them misses a much bigger opportunity to build confidence, energy, and sustained performance. This book reinforced that people grow fastest when they build on what they naturally do well. It also made me more intentional about understanding my own strengths and where I need complementary partners around me. One of the most impactful leaders I’ve worked for took a chance on me for a role specifically because I brought a different style and set of strengths from his own and he valued those differences. That experience shaped how I build teams today which is building a team of diverse strengths and perspectives and creating the trust that helps people thrive through change.
Accounting and HR trained you to see both numbers and people. What is one piece of music, art, or sport that mirrors that balance of precision and empathy for you, and what did you learn from it?
My background is also in photography, specifically portrait art. I once co-owned and operated a professional photography studio, and it really shaped how I think about the balance between technical precision and creativity. Photography is a very technical art form, you must understand lighting, composition, digital editing, and all the mechanics behind getting the shot right. But what really makes an image powerful is how well you connect with people, understand their story, and bring out something authentic in the moment. Likewise, in leadership, I’ve learned there is always a level of structure, discipline, and management oversight required, but you can exponentially amplify your impact by understanding people and creating the conditions where they shine bright.
What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?
My biggest goal, both personally and professionally, is to have a meaningful impact on people, whether that’s my family, the teams I lead, or the employees we support. Their success is what motivates me. I want to help create an environment where people can do their best work and feel good about it, where work and life is productive, fulfilling, and not weighed down by unnecessary complexity. If 5 years from now I am still making a difference in how people experience and achieve their best, I’ll consider that a success!
You’ve led through economic cycles and industry shifts. What advice would you give a rising IT leader who has never managed through major disruption, and what should they protect versus pause?
Especially in times of disruption, lead with empathy (protect) and intention (pause). It’s easy to focus on tools and solutions, when the real challenge is understanding how those changes are experienced by people. Outcomes aren’t driven by technology alone, but by how people engage with and adopt it. This is especially true right now with AI, where there’s a mix of excitement and fear for employees. Staying close to your teams, listening, and grounding your leadership in relationships and trust is critical for helping employees navigate change and build confidence in adopting new ways of working. These are also leadership skills that AI can’t replace as the human experience of work is built on connection, understanding, and trust. And what I mean by leading with intention is to pause anything that adds complexity without clear value. Not everything needs to move forward at once. Often, the most impactful thing you can do is simplify focus on what matters most, reduce the noise, and remove the friction that makes change harder than it needs to be.