Hong Sae has been chief information officer for the city of Roseville since January 2010. He began his career as the manager of information systems for Tenet Healthcare, then entered the public sector in 1993 as director of information management for the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. He subsequently served as director of information services for the city of Farmers Branch, Texas, and then as chief information technology officer for the city of Irving, Texas, his last stop before coming to Roseville. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science engineering from the University of Arkansas; he received his Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from Texas A&M University; and was an honors graduate in Rutgers University’s Certified Government Chief Information Officer (CGCIO) program. He is active in a host of industry and leadership associations.
Techwire: You’ve been chief information officer of Roseville for more than 11 years, and you’ve previously led technology departments in other cities and states as well. How would you describe your role in city governance in two or three sentences?
Sae: As the CIO of the city of Roseville, I play a strategic leadership role that is more important today to form collaborative partnerships in many of our innovative projects and invest in team members with the right skill sets — to deliver cost-effective solutions to support citywide operations and provide excellent services to our community.
The city of Roseville is an innovative, progressive, digital city, and technology continues to drive the future infrastructure around us. But now we’re facing unprecedented levels of uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so another aspect of my role is to find the balance between what our city needs and what my team can accomplish during these times; and I would say we’ve done an excellent job so far.
Techwire: Roseville started down the path of digital services for residents even before the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything a year ago. How did you, as the city’s technology leader, adjust to “change in the midst of change?”
Sae: Flexibility and adaptability: We need to build on our successes achieved during the pandemic, continue to be flexible and further expand our technology capabilities and civic responsibilities in the challenging years ahead. Over the past year we’ve given our residents stability due to our ability to go virtual in a short amount of time. The city has been able to not only keep services “status quo,” but we’ve also been embracing these changes by adding more ways for our residents to interact with the city online.
2021 brings CIOs and many organizational executives unfinished challenges from 2020 along with new challenges that may never have crossed their minds before. Digital business acceleration and resiliency are both keys to success towards our Smarter City objectives. You can find Roseville’s smart city information on our IT webpage.
Techwire: The city of Roseville’s robust, award-winning digital services include a wealth of online resources, databases, links and tutorials for residents, developers — just about everyone. How has the city realized a return on investment (ROI) of resources?
Sae: Roseville is a full-service city — providing both water and electric utilities, public safety, public works/transit, planning/development, parks and rec/libraries and general government programs (both in-person and online).
Beyond the typical key metric of project closure and overall system uptime, we measured our ROI based on business values, such as: voice of our customer feedback, targeted service-level agreement, diversified service portfolio, enterprise technology adoption rate, e-gov activity, customer experience and satisfaction, etc. We share portfolio dashboard and business intelligence reporting through quarterly service-level review, monthly and annual reporting to the organization, City Council and department head teams.
Because of these, Roseville IT has grown in the past 10 years from systematic reactive approaches to one that is strategically aligned with our business partners: We Are Roseville/We Are Pre-Active (predictive and proactive).
Techwire: What big initiatives or projects are coming from your department in 2021? What sorts of RFPs/RFIs should we be watching for in the next six to 12 months?
Sae: Roseville is committed to evolving into a smart city through the use of technology. Becoming a “smart city” means that game-changing technologies and data-driven decision-making will drive continuous improvement in how we serve our community, and promote concrete benefits in safety, sustainability, economic opportunity, and quality of life for our residents, businesses and visitors. Building a deliberate and focused strategy will also allow us to stretch limited public dollars to be more cost-effective and productive. Being smart is just part of the continuous improvement process in performance and is a journey of maturity in being digitally inclusive.
Having said that, citywide IT RFPs are all focused on the above strategies; some of the notable ones to be released are part of the Human Resources Information System (HRIS) program, and our applicant tracking and performance measurement. The city is looking into an inclusive approach on recruitment, digital equity, workforce development and organizational performance.
Our Citywide Technology Work Plan has been released annually on the city website. Be on the lookout for more projects on cybersecurity improvement, augmented intelligence, robotic process automation, business intelligence and customer resource management (CRM) technologies.
Techwire: You’re active in a host of professional and industry organizations, perhaps most visibly in your role as president of the Municipal Information Systems Association of California (MISAC). How does this involvement benefit the city?
Sae: I am honored to serve as the president of the MISAC organization this year, but I believe the 1,200 members are actually the ones leading this organization. The board, committees and members all embrace the four pillars: Partnerships, Membership, Education, and Advocacy/Legislation. The four pillars are all about the responsible use of technology (how do we have a responsible partnership, how do we enrich the value of participation, how do we use our technology platform more efficiently, and how do we innovate and yet not lose control).
My role in the Greater Sacramento CIO/CTO Roundtable and being the president of MISAC gives me a chance to lead and collaborate with many talented CIOs within the state, and more importantly in 2020, the team formed the State CIO Advisory Team, with state CIO Amy Tong; the California Special Districts Association (CSDA) and the California County Information Services Directors Association (CCISDA). These organizations, along with many of the advisory roles we have with the League of California Cities, the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA) and local colleges and universities, are all about growing talents in the field of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), to share experience, and to improve the state’s overall IT maturity (example: cybersecurity, GIS, business analysis, project management, leadership, legislative issues, etc.).
Techwire: Please provide a “by the numbers” overview of your department: How many employees are in the city’s IT organization? What’s the city’s annual IT budget?
Sae: A team of about 50 centralized IT team members and about 50 Business IT team members. We’re managing $11.7 million in operating expenses (keeping the lights on), and $30 million in Strategic Capital Expenditures. We maintain an approximately $118 million citywide technology infrastructure.
I’m also fortunate to have a great IT leadership team. Our managers and team members from all IT divisions came from diverse backgrounds with innovative thoughts, and are continuously challenging each other. The best part of all this is how we come together on a constant basis to make the city and the state a more sustainable community — a place where people want to come to play, work and live.
Techwire: How do you prefer to be contacted by vendors? What should they know about you before they reach out?
Sae: The city IT website provides a wealth of information on IT strategic initiatives. Sign up at the cooperative purchasing website (PublicPurchase.com), read the 18-month workplan (it includes IT Vision Mission Values Statements), and when reaching out, avoid product features/industrial buzzwords and company profile/competitors’ info. Instead, establish business credibility and understand our organizational goals and specific challenges.
The city has a few strategic and traditional vendors in place today, and with emerging technologies, CIOs like myself have to “constantly transform the organization” accordingly. This is where Greater Sacramento CIO/CTO Roundtable and MISAC teams oftentimes come into play: New vendors are invited to the CIO tables for peer discussion, and our city utilizes a team decision-making process to review new products through our matured IT governance process.
Techwire: If you could change one thing about IT procurement, what would it be?
Sae: With today’s environment, vendors have become more agile in solution delivery. However, having said that, if there is one thing we can continuously improve on, it would be to install a vendor performance management and rating program, a system where the vendor would be evaluated at each stage of the project implementation (similar to a Lean Six Sigma gate review). The vendor is held equally accountable in both values — delivery and risk management.
Techwire: In your tenure with the city, what project or achievement are you most proud of?
Sae: If you’ve known me for any length of time, you would know my personal leadership philosophy is all about the Three P’s — People (our workforce/IT family); Process (continuous business process improvement); and lastly, Performance (utilizing technology to drive performance and innovation culture).
Our city manager, Dominick Casey, and the mayor and City Council have always embraced an “HPO” (High Performance Organization) mindset. HPOs need a strong infrastructure and business IT team. I am so proud of this team for its immediate and impressive decision-making process while taking this organization to a complete remote workplace environment in less than a week; and I’m so proud of what this team has done (I call them our “digital first responders”), taking home many awards and recognitions in 2020 (for example, the MISAC Excellence Award, the Digital Cities Survey, national recognition from Money magazine, etc.). And I am impressed at this team for utilizing this pandemic to accelerate the adoption of even more smart technology.
Techwire: Can you tell us a little about you personally? Do you have a family? Hobbies? What was the last book you read?
Sae: I grew up in Malaysia and Singapore. I’m proficient in multiple languages and Chinese dialects, have had the opportunity to travel in most of the Asian countries, and settled down in America for the past 30 years. Because of my Chinese heritage, cultures and traditions, family is my No. 1 priority (The Sae Family of six, and The Roseville Family of ~1,500: We Are a Family).
For many years in the past, the social conflicts, racial clashes and gender inequalities for many Chinese in part of Southeast Asia taught me to be a better person, an understanding parent, and an inclusive leader, especially in today’s environment in our world.
I like to surround myself with great people. Because of my background and my leadership experience with private industries, state/local/federal government, I was able to be held accountable to our community and our society. I truly believe that we all can be better if we are authentic, inclusive and transparent to each other, which is the best way to live our lives.
This pandemic taught our team many lessons, from globalization of supply chains to constantly reinventing ourselves, and we are more focused on our vision, more creative and more resilient today.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for style and brevity.
