Top 8 Digital Transformation Thought Leaders to Follow

By this point, most organizations don’t have to be convinced about the need to go digital. Technology trends like the Internet of things (IoT), big data, and machine learning are reshaping entire industries and companies need to evolve with the digital era to stay relevant. The more pressing question is how to make digital innovation a reality.

The CIO’s biggest challenge driving digital innovation is not technology, but leading change. According to Gartner, the biggest barriers to leading this change are:

• Skills and resources
• Funding
• Culture and the structure of the organization
• IT-business alignment

Digital transformation requires new approaches and ideas. The eight digital transformation influencers below will help you join the right conversations and learn more about how to implement a successful digital transformation strategy for your business.

1. Brian Solis

Brian is a futurist, digital anthropologist, and the VP, Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce. He is also an award-winning author of X: The Experience When Business Meets Design and a keynote speaker where he shares his vision to help organizations understand the dynamics and rise of digital transformation.

He studies disruptive technology and its impact on business and society. Brian is unique in that he tends to humanize technology, thereby providing new insights to executives. His focus is on digital transformation, customer experience, culture, the future of industries, trends, and behavior. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

2. Ronald van Loon

As CEO, and Principal Analyst of Intelligent World, Ronald helps data-driven companies generate value. He is considered a Top 10 influencer in Big Data, Data Science, IoT, and AI. He frequently writes articles and hosts webinars on big data, IoT, data science, analytics, and other digital transformation topics. Ronald has a LinkedIn group called “Awesome Ways Big Data is Used to Improve Our World”. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

3. Holger Mueller

Holger is a VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research with a focus on fundamental enablers of cloud, IaaS and PaaS, and big data, Analytics and SaaS development with an emphasis on applicability to the practitioner. He is also a frequent blogger on Enterprise Software Musings by Holger Mueller, where he writes about all things enterprise software and how it furthers digital transformation. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

4. Rob Llewellyn

Rob is CEO and Founder of CXO Transform, a platform designed to help leaders increase their ability to steer their business into digital economic success. Rob provides advice and guidance to multi-national business and technology leaders, enabling them to successfully orchestrate large-scale digital business transformation. He has spent over two decades helping some of the most well-known companies globally take commercial advantage of technology. Onalytica has ranked Rob as the world’s third most influential digital transformation individual and Red Hat has listed him as one of the top 20 digital transformation Twitter accounts to follow. Learn more about Rob on the CXO Transform website and follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

5. Greg Satell

Greg is a bestselling author, speaker, and advisor who frequently contributes to the Harvard Business Review and other A-list publications. He helps leading organizations overcome disruption through impactful programs and powerful tools he developed by researching the world’s best innovators. Prior, he spent over two decades as an accomplished senior executive and CEO. He currently advises companies on designing their own innovation playbooks to overcome disruption and crush the competition. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

6. Michael Krigsman

Michael is an industry analyst, keynote speaker, and the host of CXOTALK. He is ranked the #1 CIO influencer among all industry analysts according to Apollo research and is the fourth most mentioned influencer by IT leaders on Twitter.

As a columnist for ZDNet, Michael has written over 1,000 articles on topics related to innovation, digital disruption, and leadership. His work has been mentioned more than 1,000 times in major newspapers, television, radio, trade publications, presentations, academic dissertations, blogs, and other media. Michael has been quoted in about 50 books, published in the Wall Street Journal, and is syndicated on important technology websites. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

7. Dion Hinchcliffe

Dion is a digital thought leader, CXO advisor, IT expert, professional speaker, and author. He also frequently participates on ZDNet as an analyst. As a veteran of enterprise IT, Dion has been working for more than 24 years with leading-edge methods to connect business and technology. He is an internationally recognized thought leader, IT expert, business strategist, and enterprise architect. Dion is a prolific author on the convergence of business and technology and frequent keynote speaker.

He works with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 leadership teams to drive successful change with emerging digital methods including cloud computing, data centers, digital business models, Internet ecosystems, and the future of work. Recently he was identified as one of the top 20 people IT leaders mention most, according to research by Robert Half. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.

8. Michael Fauscette

Fauscette is the founder, CEO, and chief analyst at Arion Research. Previously, at G2 Crowd, he led the research department by analyzing trends from their data set of nearly 400,000 software reviews including his Digital Trends of 2018. Prior to joining G2 Crowd, Michael was a lead senior analyst at the technology market research firm IDC. He also held senior consulting and services roles with technology vendors such as Autodesk and PeopleSoft. Michael is also a published author, blogger, photographer, and established industry thought leader on emerging trends in business software, digital transformation, and customer experience strategies. Follow him on LinkedIn for more information on digital transformation.