Kevin Cornish is the recently arrived chief information offer at Covered California; he replaced its seven-year CIO Karen Ruiz, who retired at the beginning of August. He describes himself on LinkedIn as a “passionate leader delivering transformational value in competitive and challenging environments,” and highlights his work creating “pioneering cloud-based enterprise solutions at DigitalThink and Aravo,” where he was director of engineering and IT, and chief technology officer, respectively. He also cites his work building “high performance teams to support growth and solve complex operational challenges” at Bechtel and Monster, where he was director of enterprise systems, and CIO and vice president for global supply chain, respectively.
Cornish joins the state from the Office of the President at the University of California, where he was chief technology officer from August 2017 through July, and led “cloud transformation, technology convergence and Oracle Financials Cloud implementations.” It’s “a little bit like working for the state, but in many ways not,” he told Techwire, describing part of his work so far as being “on a listening tour and a reach-out tour.” He holds a bachelor’s degree in human information processing from the University of California, San Diego.
Techwire: As CIO of your organization, how do you describe your role; and how have the role and responsibilities of the CIO changed in recent years?
Cornish: So, I’ll start with, I have really big shoes to fill. Karen Ruiz as the previous CIO had been here almost since the beginning. And she was, as I kind of jokingly refer to her, the godmother of CalHEERS (California Healthcare Eligibility, Enrollment and Retention System), our eligibility and health plan enrollment platform. And understanding that, I’m just really impressed with the amount of work that her position does. We’re going 100 miles an hour, seven days a week. Obviously, my two-and-a-half months has been spent on kind of your typical leadership transition, getting to know the organization, understanding what our strategy is, understanding where we’re exceeding expectations or where we’re being challenged to meet some expectations. One of the best things that I realized very quickly when I came in was that we have transitioned 1,600 or so employees including two big service centers to … work from home in a couple short weeks in March and we’ve been refining the solution and the support for those folks ever since. But that went really well at Covered California, which was just a great thing.
And so, as I came in, I heard a lot of stories about Covered California … as sort of a startup. And, I’ll be honest, that kind of intrigued me because we’re eight or nine years old. And so, I don’t know if we’re a startup as much as we’re a very entrepreneurial state agency. There’s a can-do attitude and that permeates everything … . It has a real feel and an affinity for the mission and a very can-do attitude. There aren’t any (obstacles) that we can’t get past.
Techwire: How big a role do you personally play in writing your organization’s strategic plan?
Cornish: I’m already hip-deep in a number of really strategic areas. CalHEERS is the platform that we leverage to manage the state health-care exchange. It’s our bread and butter, but there’s a lot of work going on there. We’ve recently been through a transition of system integrators, from Accenture to Deloitte. And that’s a team that I co-manage with my partners at DHCS (the California Department of Health Care Services) and also in partnership with CWDA (County Welfare Directors Association of California), the county eligibility analysts.
That’s a primary platform for us and a primary focus and the beauty is, we went through a year-long transition from our original system integrator who created the platform with us to Deloitte, and we’re now well past that and we’re in place to begin some really interesting innovation. We’re a very consumer-focused organization and we’re doubling down on some innovation in that (area) that we think would help our customers’ journey as they select their health-care benefits. So that’s a big focus.
A couple other areas just to talk about … we are evolving and extending our Enterprise Program Management Office. We’ve got a healthy number of projects, obviously, in Covered California, and we’re evolving beyond providing PMs (project managers) that make sure that project commitments are delivered. Making sure that we have a portfolio of projects that really support — back to your question about the strategic plan — that support the strategic objectives of the organization. To ensure Covered California is successful.
I think you’ll hear a lot from any CIO these days about a couple other areas that I’m focused on: data and analytics. We’ve got a data and analytics team that is building our information strategy, and they are really focused on delivering insights that inspire great decisions and actions and outcomes. They’re essentially taking data and making it into information that people can act on.
Information security is obviously a focus for most folks as well, and so we are doing a lot in the information security realm, both with our Covered California platform and across our enterprise.
We’re looking for a CISO right now, so we just advertised for a chief information security officer opportunity this week. We’re looking forward to beginning to see some candidates for that role in the next couple of weeks.
Techwire: What big initiatives or projects are coming in 2021? What sorts of RFPs should we be watching for in the next six to 12 months?
Cornish: The other (topic) that, again, I’m sure every IT leader statewide both public and private is thinking about is what happens after the current pandemic eases. And for us at Covered California, we’re predicting some form of a “work from wherever you are.” So, as I said earlier, we did a heroic job moving people out of the office at the beginning of the pandemic in mid to late March. And that’s a high-energy kind of heroic effort. We’re now optimizing the experience for all those folks as they learn to work in their home with their kids on Zoom school sessions and dogs barking in the background and everything else. Our task there is to figure out, how will we envision a workplace where working from home isn’t just a response to a global pandemic, it’s a normal thing. And what are the tools and the technology, and what’s the culture and behaviors that we need to support as we ease into that long-term vision. That’s definitely going to be top-of-mind for us in the next year or two.
The other biggie for me always at Covered California— so, open enrollment is the period of highest demand both at CalHEERS and at our organization as a whole. And that starts up on Nov. 1. That’s about a six-week period where the bulk of our statewide consumers sign up or renew their health-care options for 2021. So, it’s a bit of a crazy time and we spend a lot of time preparing for it and we spend a lot of time managing and supporting it as it occurs. And we’re right in the middle of that. So, that’s obviously the tools and network and servers and things like that. But it’s also the people. So, it’s a big burden on our talent, too.
Techwire: How do you define “digital transformation,” and how far along is your organization in that process? How will you know when it's finished?
Cornish: I don’t think it will ever be finished; that’s an easy one. I define digital transformation as moving people out of an organization where the expectation was that you will be counted in your seat at your workstation every day, fulfilling your role. Where there’s a lot of importance placed on relationships, physical relationships, right? To come into an organization like that, right, that recently transitioned everyone out of their offices, has moved us all into a Microsoft Teams environment and comfort level with webcams and video conferencing and — I think that’s a massive digital transformation. Something we’ve been talking about in IT for 10 years that happened in two weeks in March. I think the silver lining of this awful, global pandemic is that we’ve really learned how to leverage technology that we’ve had at our fingertips for a long time. And we’re doing it well. There's a significant amount of collaboration and productivity that I’m seeing in our organization based on the fundamental tools that we’re giving folks — like Teams and Zoom, those sorts of things — and I think we’re just scratching the surface. The beauty is, we’ve built an expectation that we will be productive in this new world and we will leverage these tools to their fullest extent. I mean, that’s a heightened set of expectations for IT to continue to evolve the tools we support the enterprise with. I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be fun.
Techwire: What is your estimated IT budget and how many employees do you have? What is the overall budget?
Cornish: I don’t know either of those numbers. Probably should, budget-wise. But I’ll tell you we manage IT with a group of about 100 employees. And that does not include a ton of support that we share with DHCS, which is a much larger team that’s co-owned and co-managed by Covered California and the DHCS team.
Editor’s note: In July, Covered California approved a $440 million budget for Fiscal Year 2020-21.
Techwire: How do you prefer to be contacted by vendors, including via social media such as LinkedIn? How might vendors best educate themselves before meeting with you?
Cornish: I’m not a big fan of cold calls. I obviously anticipate and expect that a vendor will understand something about our organization before they would reach out to me. And I’m not a big fan of vendors, let’s just say that. I’m a big fan of partners. So, for me, the important thing is for a potential partner to identify what’s in it for them. So, why are you talking to me, why am I a target, why do you see an opportunity here? Because I’m obviously going to let you know what it’s doing for me. I think the best vendor relationships are partnerships, where it’s clear to both sides what the mutual benefits are. And hopefully, those are more than just your typical exchange of revenue or expense.
An opportunity for me, and again, I think this is pretty typical of most IT leaders, is I’d like to reduce the number of solutions that we have. I’d like to have fewer things that do more for me. Data analytics is a great example of a space that is growing by leaps and bounds for us. And I’ll be honest, we kind of have one of everything there. We’re using multiple database tools, we’re using multiple visualization platforms, we’re using multiple analytics platforms and I’d like to leverage fewer of them to better support our environment. I think … that’s a philosophy that I’d share with a vendor to say, “Part of what I’d like to do is I’d like to … analyze data with one platform. I’d like to visualize data with one platform, I’d like to store and manage data on one platform.”
Techwire: In your tenure in this position, which project or achievement are you most proud of?
Cornish: I would say two and a half months in, I’m most proud of the fact that I don’t think I’ve broken anything since I’ve been here.
Techwire: Can you talk a bit more about what you hope to accomplish with data via data analytics?
Cornish: We’re an organization much like many others, where there is literally data dripping from the ceiling and down the walls. And part of our job is to turn … enough of that data into information that can drive decisions, right? Inspire people to take action that can change an outcome. Part of that is to make sure that we’ve got a single source of truth, that there is an ease of access to the data, that we’re securing the data that is confidential or sensitive. And to me, all of this means creating a level of trust that these are facts and figures, which in a future isn’t just data, but it’s information that allows me as a consumer of that information to go in one direction or another. I think that’s sort of the grand objective.
I’m new to state service. I came from the University of California, which is a little bit like working for the state, but in many ways not. So, for me, part of the two and a half months that I’ve been here has just been — I’ve been on a listening tour and a reach-out tour. So, I’ve spoken with a couple dozen folks in similar positions to mine in other divisions in the state and I’ve learned a lot already just by connecting and listening. I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface there. There’s this fabulous network that I’m just trying to figure out and so, I’d put it out there that that’s obviously a key objective for me. Particularly for someone who didn’t grow up in state service, but is coming in from the outside at a reasonably senior level. And I quickly assimilated some of the means for pulling on that network. Both pulling some of the ability to bring solutions into Covered California that work elsewhere in the state, and to promote things that we’re doing here that others might want to hear about and maybe leverage as well.
Techwire: If you could change one thing about IT procurement, what would it be?
Cornish: I’m going to admit I don’t know enough about the procurement process here at the state level to probably (offer) a good opinion there. Procurement is a balancing act between trying to find the best solution and spending the least amount of effort. I don’t know enough about our process to know whether that’s something that’s happening — I’m sure it is at some level. I don’t have a good answer because I don’t have enough experience yet.
Techwire: What do you read to stay abreast of developments in the gov tech/SLED sector?
Cornish: I just became this week a subscriber to your publication. I’m a big fan of leadership material and so I spend a lot of time reading leadership books. Again, the objective for me … right now is just to identify and build a good network of folks who are facing similar challenges and opportunities as I am. I don’t like inventing anything; I like begging, borrowing and stealing. And in an organization like the state, where we are all very mission-minded and all have similar objectives in mind, we’re not competing with anyone. I don’t have a competitor, I hope. I really plan to leverage that to my benefit, to beg, borrow and steal from everyone else and invite them to do the same with me.
Techwire: What are your hobbies, and what do you enjoy reading?
Cornish: My hobbies are following the paths of my two young adult daughters; one’s a freshman and one’s a sophomore in college. And then, just about anything else that doesn’t put a roof over my head. As long as I’m outdoors, I’m enjoying it.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for style and brevity.
