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1. Reflecting on your career, what pivotal milestones and experiences have uniquely prepared you for your role as CIO at the City of Los Angeles and how have they shaped your leadership philosophy?
Ted Ross, Chief Information Officer, City of Los Angeles
My career journey has bridged the private and public sectors and prepared me well for my current CIO role at the City of Los Angeles. Pivotal experiences, like Project Manager of the citywide ERP system or Deputy CIO over Applications & Data Center Infrastructure, taught me the critical importance of communicating the value of IT, project delivery and stakeholder management. These experiences have shaped my leadership philosophy centered on three core tenets: responsive, responsible and excellent information technology. Responsive, in which I need to deliver real business outcomes for stakeholders by leveraging agile, flexible services that digitally engage residents and employees. Responsible, in which I must promote sustainable choices and offer opportunities for a highly skilled, diverse and representative workforce. Excellent, in which I must achieve excellence in core IT infrastructure, digital services, innovation, and cybersecurity to protect the City’s digital assets.
2. With emerging technologies like AI, automation and IoT reshaping industries, what innovations have you successfully implemented to optimize business processes?
By definition, emerging technologies represent brand new opportunities to innovate services, solve age-old problems and deliver brand new capabilities to our customers previously unimagined. The City of Los Angeles has successfully been using emerging technologies to deploy earthquake early warning systems providing 5 to 30 seconds of advance warning of a coming earthquake, LED streetlights that save $3 million a year in electricity, AI that proactively identifies graffiti and illegal dumping on our streets and much more. But, the best is yet to come.
“Regulatory compliance is more than a checkbox; it’s an ongoing process that requires continuous education and building a culture of accountability"
3. Delivering IT services to 50,000 employees across 45 departments is a massive undertaking. What are some of the best practices you’ve developed to foster collaboration and efficiency across such a diverse ecosystem and how do you empower your team to excel?
To foster collaboration across a large, diverse ecosystem, I've found a shared governance model to be most effective. This approach balances centralized platforms and standards with departmental flexibility, empowering "experts in the trenches" to tailor solutions that meet their specific needs while still maintaining a cohesive overall city-wide strategy. This ensures both central planning and localized adaptability. To accomplish this, communication, trust and shared mission become very important. Departmental & centralized teams need to appreciate each other’s perspectives and then work to maximize benefits for both. Everyone must check their personal ambitions so the organization as a whole can perform. Fortunately, we have Los Angeles elected officials and department leaders that appreciate the importance of this.
4. Given the challenges of budget constraints, how do you build a compelling case for IT investments and what methods do you use to demonstrate their tangible impact on organizational performance?
Every government has increasing budget constraints. In my experience, we must build a compelling case for IT investments by directly tying them to strategic organizational goals and demonstrating a clear return on investment (ROI), whether through cost savings or improved service delivery. This requires trustworthy metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) on efficiency gains, reduced operational costs and enhanced resident satisfaction to show tangible impact.
5. What key performance indicators (KPIs) do you track to assess the success of IT initiatives in Los Angeles and how have those metrics evolved since 2015?
Great question. If services are what we do and projects are what we build... then KPIs are how well we do it. We are passionate about the measurement and active management of key services through performance management. In 2015, I established a performance management program modeled after the successful LA Police Department COMPSTAT program. Since that time, my department has experimented with and refined a monthly, collaborative program, known as ITAStat (IT Agency Statistics). By shortlisting key goals and targets, identifying Key Performance Indicators, reviewing accurate and timely data and active management of results, we have made considerable improvements to our operations. Today, we have over 322 KPIs across 73 service areas. Each year, we re-assess metrics for strategic priorities and daily operations. The key is to do it by service area since a Data Center has very different KPIs than a social media team.
6. How do you stay ahead of evolving data protection laws and regulatory requirements while ensuring that your IT initiatives continue to drive innovation and compliance?
I have found that staying ahead of laws and regulations requires cross-functional teams, with collaboration between IT, legal and operations experts. We have found the need to monitor legislation like the California consumer privacy act and other emerging regulations. Compliance needs to be a core consideration from the initial planning stages of any new project, rather than an afterthought.
7. What key advice would you offer to emerging IT leaders who are focused on modernizing their systems while maintaining strong security practices and regulatory compliance?
First, build a culture of security-first at the beginning of a modernization effort. Instead of treating security as a separate layer to be added on later, integrate it into core architecture and systems design (“security-by-design”). Next, prioritize policies and training among your teams. Every team member needs to understand their role in upholding these standards. Regulatory compliance is more than a checkbox; it's an ongoing process that requires continuous education and building a culture of accountability. By embedding these practices early, I have found that you can build a resilient, secure and compliant foundation for long-term innovation.
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