Kurt De Ruwe is CIO at AkzoNobel, leading the company’s digital transformation and IT strategy. With 20+ years of experience, he drives innovation, process intelligence, data management, and cybersecurity. Prior to AkzoNobel, he held leadership roles at Signify, Philips Lighting and Bayer Material Science. Kurt is a digital leader focused on business value, sustainability, and customer experience. He is active in industry forums, sharing insights on digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. As a collaborative leader, Kurt fosters a culture of innovation and empowers teams to drive business growth through technology.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Kurt shared his insights on digital transformation, AI, and leadership, emphasizing the importance of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. He also mentioned his favorite book, personal hobbies and interests, future plans, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Kurt. What sparked your interest in IT and business process management?
IT is something that happened along the way. I studied quantitative economics. As a financial analyst at Mobil, I had to work the first 6 months in IT to understand how to get relevant data out of the ERP. I liked it, I learned a lot and never got out. The fact that I did a lot of activities myself still helps me today as CIO to ask the right questions.
Today to get the maximum impact you need to combine data and AI with process intelligence. By understanding how the people work you can identify a lot of opportunities to either improve the process and the underlying system or to go for intelligent automation using AI Agents. To see what this enables drives a continuous drive to do more.
What do you love the most about your current role?
I like to improve and work with new technology. The rate of change with the introduction of AI has accelerated tremendous. In AkzoNobel we have opportunities, and we get the means to step up. Some of the things we do are quite innovative, but the support is there to introduce technologies and concepts that are leading edge.
What role do you think artificial intelligence and machine learning will play in shaping the future of business?
In AkzoNobel we have deployed several capabilities that have direct impact on how we work. AI will change what people do and it will change how we work with information. On the one hand you have the intelligent automation. This year we will likely have 1.5m AI Agent executions that happened without a human in the loop. People do not see it but it is there.
We have automated credit block checks taking internal and externa data and then update the relevant back end systems with the result. The impact on speed of the e2E process is significant and as such our customers get a better service.
The biggest breakthrough I see for the moment is to have advance LLM models on top of our transactional data. You do need a different mindset. Giving this solution to people that want to do the same query as finding what normally site is cell 5C in Excell does not make sense. The initial LLMs were SQL generators but recently the analytical and recommendation capabilities have significantly improved, and the results are scarry.
How do you stay current with the latest industry trends and advancements, and what sources do you rely on for information?
I go to the office 2 to 3 times per week with a total travel time of 4 hours or more. Most of it I spend on the train, so I have a lot of time to read or even to try things out. For AI we focus on fail fast or scale fast. We tried a lot of things and we also stopped a lot of things
Currently I get a lot of what various people post on LinkedIn. Often this is about what people do and not about what companies claim that they can do and thereafter it is a question of common sense. I am not into Gartner or other big research institutes because often they run behind the facts.
Is there a particular person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are?
Sounds like a topic to mention when you go on retirement. There are 4 people that had a big impact on who I am and what I do. Carlos De Bakker, who was one of my professors at the university. Graham Knaggs, my manager when I still was young Kurt, Patrick Thomas, CEO in two companies that I worked for. Harley Lovegrove, who I worked with in several companies over a period of more than 20 years and still a personal friend.
How would you describe your leadership style, and how has it evolved over time?
That’s a very difficult question. For me, the status quo is absolutely a no-go. I always want to move forward, I always want to innovate. People sometimes tell me that I want to move too fast, too far, and too radically. So, my biggest challenge is getting people on board. I always look at how things can be improved. I don’t celebrate successes enough; that’s one of my weaknesses.
Over time I have learned to be more patient. So take more time to explain and when going from 1 to 10, no longer do 1, 3,7,10 but 1,2,3,…, 10.
Can you share a book or resource that inspires you and why?
I do not read many books. It takes too long. One of the books I did read quite some time ago, is from Kevin Mitnick, the Art of Deception. It fuelled my passion for security.
What are you most proud of accomplishing in your career, and why?
It is not one thing. In the various companies I work in, I managed to make a big impact in term of digital innovation on being able to lift capabilities to a much higher level. I also focus on good thorough costs management and am involved in nearly all contract negotiation where each time there has been a significant impact. The focus here is not just on price but also on changing how the supplier works with us.
What are some of your passions outside of work? What do you like to do in your time off?
Outside of work I have my family and our 3 dogs. I like working in the garden. Once or twice a year with my wife we do offroad trips to the explore rough terrain far away from civilization. The desert is the only place where my mind comes to rest, so we try to fit this in once a year and when the occasion arises, a motor bike trip to places like Nepal. I believe that you need to have a life next to work and enjoy that as much as you can.
What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?
My biggest goal is to stay healthy, have fun at what we do and continuously seek for opportunities on how we can provide better capabilities to support the business.