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Taking the helm as CIO is a significant transition for any IT chief, however Lauren Woods’ expertise at Southwest Airways stands aside.
Two months earlier than she was formally named CIO in February 2023, Southwest skilled one of many largest operational disruptions in aviation historical past, proper in the course of the busy vacation journey season, with outdated software program programs on the middle of the meltdown.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan later attributed an imbalance within the firm’s development mindset and a scarcity of funding in digital transformation as central causes of the journey disruptions the airline incurred throughout the December 2022 holidays. Centered on development, the corporate’s management had deprioritized modernizing inner programs, hiring IT employees, and updating inner processes to maintain tempo with its development agenda. The end result was a PR firestorm with greater than 15,000 cancelled flights, unprecedented refunds and reimbursements, a $220 million income loss throughout This fall, and a $140 million civil penalty when the mud settled.
Woods was thrown instantly into that deep finish, with little time to regulate to her new management place. She calls it an “accelerated studying alternative,” noting that while you tackle a brand new function, you sometimes count on round six months to be taught and develop into the place.
Woods didn’t have that luxurious. As a substitute, she discovered herself dealing with not solely an accelerated studying curve, but additionally “accelerated visibility.” Virtually instantly, all eyes had been on her as she sought to proper Southwest’s operations.
“That was fascinating as a result of I feel a number of the prime management who knew of me and supported me into this function actually hadn’t seen me,” she says. “So now they obtained to see me in motion.”
Main throughout turbulent occasions
Woods’ background main transformative initiatives at Southwest, in addition to her method to management that she has developed all through her tenure main IT groups, suited her properly in taking up IT because the airways was plunged into chaos.
Leaning on these bona fides, Woods rallied and guided her groups to overtake Southwest’s technical operations with a shared dedication to doing proper by the client. In truth, buyer options is the place Woods started her tenure at Southwest 14 years in the past, having signed on to handle Southwest.com throughout a time when the corporate was transitioning from C++ to Java, and adopting agile growth methodologies.
Woods spent the following decade studying the ins and outs of Southwest’s business facet, supporting the transition to a brand new reservation system, integrating new programs when the corporate purchased AirTran, and finally transferring into extra integration work throughout the corporate, earlier than coming again to the front-end a part of the enterprise as a director.
When Kathleen Merrill, then SVP of know-how and CIO, tapped Woods to work on operational programs, Woods was hesitant as a result of the majority of her expertise was on the business facet. However Merrill acknowledged that Woods understood software program growth and had each a robust working data of the airline and deep area experience — all of which singled her out as a robust candidate to make the shift.
“I ended up leaning on my companions within the enterprise and studying a lot from them about how our airline labored and what it was like on the operational facet,” she says. “It gave me insights into how necessary knowledge, cloud applied sciences, and different issues had been that we actually wanted at the moment.”
As Southwest launched into its cloud transformation, Woods was promoted to vice chairman of know-how platforms and structure, taking over bigger digital transformation and modernization tasks alongside the way in which. And in September 2022, Woods was introduced as incoming CIO, set to take over the IT mantle from Merrill in February 2023.
Woods says the expertise navigating Southwest IT via that turbulent interval was a time of maximum private development, forcing her to dig into the manager function and establish what was wanted from her, displaying up for her group, and main them to higher organizational footing. Whereas the occasions that led to Southwest’s most up-to-date modernization had been regrettable, Woods and her colleagues are happy with what has come of their efforts.
“We’re a greater airline for it,” she says.
Woods benefitted from the truth that Southwest IT had already launched into a modernization journey when she was named incoming CIO. The December 2022 meltdown merely pushed the corporate to speed up that course of, with a concentrate on updating outdated and irregular operations all through the enterprise.
One key difficulty Southwest confronted throughout the 2022 vacation meltdown included mass flights cancelations on account of operational programs struggling to get well from the preliminary weather-related disruptions, rendering the corporate unable to find crew members at occasions to employees flights. Woods and her groups addressed this difficulty by constructing a device known as Crew and Plane Built-in Restoration and Optimizer (CAIRO).
In keeping with Woods, CAIRO is “the primary of its sort,” enabling Southwest to automate, prioritize, and reset the crew and plane networks concurrently and flag potential flights which may have to be cancelled, whereas minimizing the potential affect on crew members.
Woods’ group was additionally supported by work they already did in response to COVID-19, which pushed them to concentrate on core knowledge basis adjustments. These made it simpler to implement real-time knowledge streaming, decreasing the time to drag knowledge from an hour or extra, to simply minutes.
Authenticity and braveness
Woods additionally credit firm management with serving to her group efficiently speed up the work, noting that she had the total assist of the manager group, who had been open to listening to what wanted to be modernized, what wanted to be improved, and the place the most important investments wanted to be made.
“In order that’s the place we’re centered — ensuring we now have these dependable and efficient programs so we are able to create that aggressive benefit the place we wish to be centered on with the ability to produce a extremely good product, as a result of we now have actually nice prospects,” she says.
As CIO, Woods oversees a “broad breadth of labor and focus,” as know-how performs a task in each a part of the enterprise, from airline bookings, to employees scheduling, to the monetary programs that hold the corporate afloat, she says.
Previous to coming to Southwest, Woods labored in consulting, an expertise she feels helped make her the chief she is at this time. As a part of that work, Woods turned very accustomed to navigating conditions during which she was the one girl within the room — a actuality she says she has by no means shied away from. As she has superior her profession, Woods has made a degree to establish leaders she will be taught from, in addition to these she doesn’t wish to emulate. Regardless of working in a male-dominated business, Woods says she’s additionally been lucky to have a number of girls leaders who got here earlier than her at Southwest, together with Kathleen Merrill, who was VP of technique when Woods joined 14 years in the past, in addition to EVP and CFO Tammy Romo, Chief Administration Officer Linda Rutherford, and SVP of Buyer Expertise Teresa Laraba.
“What was wonderful about Southwest was that once I got here in, there was an excellent quantity of feminine management. That was a beautiful alternative for me as a younger chief to come back in and say, ‘Okay, I see myself there.’”
That illustration proved to be a cornerstone as Woods developed her management fashion, and seeing different girls leaders within the group helped her envision an analogous path ahead for herself. She discovered herself drawn to genuine leaders, particularly girls who weren’t involved with being “good,” and who confirmed up as their true selves at work.
“A variety of occasions once we are arising in our careers, we see individuals who appear very skilled,” she says. “You get the elder statesman, the very quaffed feminine chief, and I didn’t relate to any of these. I wish to be very genuine. I prefer to lean into being very brave, however I’m additionally very a lot not good.”
In creating her management fashion, Woods has recognized authenticity and braveness as her major values. To Woods, authenticity is necessary as a result of she feels it’s the one approach she will present up as her finest self; braveness in the meantime allows her to deal with the tough facets of her management roles successfully, whether or not it’s having tough conversations or being essential of processes and platforms.
“I all the time wish to lean into that braveness, however I wish to do it in an genuine approach that matches my values. I wish to be sort and respectful, even when I’ve to be powerful and exhausting. I wish to discover readability in my function, and my group wants that readability from me. After which I would like to hunt that readability from my stakeholders and government leaders,” she says.
These values served Woods properly as she navigated one of many hardest transitions a CIO can endure.
Whereas Woods acknowledges that management approaches may be formed by those that got here earlier than you, in relation to mentors, Woods advises aspirational leaders to make sure that they aren’t solely wanting above them for mentorship. Whereas it’s necessary to be taught from and make connections with leaders within the group, you may be taught simply as a lot from friends in your group, or individuals exterior your division or profession path, she says.
“I feel there’s lots of people who search for mentors to be your boss, or someone who’s already in these positions,” she says. “And I’d actually encourage girls to search for individuals prepared to put money into them no matter their place, as a result of a number of the individuals who had been most influential to my profession aren’t executives.”
Digital Transformation, IT Management, Journey and Hospitality Business
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