Interview: Clare Hickie, EMEA CTO, Workday
Clare Hickie, chief know-how officer (CTO) for EMEA at Workday, sits within the Buyer Expertise Centre within the know-how agency’s European headquarters in Dublin and displays on the traits which have helped her to succeed throughout her digital management profession.
“I’m a change maker; I used to be born as one,” she says. “A very powerful factor for me is that I’ve all the time received a realistic understanding of what must occur and the way it’s taking place, and that’s the one manner that I might help our prospects transfer ahead.”
That’s actually Hickie’s precedence at Workday, the place she’s serving to the cloud-based HR specialist to remain aggressive within the age of AI. As Pc Weekly found throughout a latest innovation media occasion in Dublin, Workday is growing a variety of data-rich and agentic companies to assist CIOs and different enterprise executives embrace digital change – and Hickie relishes the chance to assist different executives achieve the advantages.
“I genuinely imagine I’ve received one of the best job in Workday. It’s an unimaginable position to have the ability to assist our prospects get probably the most from their investments, however equally to encourage our potential prospects or prospects on their journey by way of selecting Workday as the best companion for change,” she says.
“I’m within the very lucky place to have the ability to try this day by day and to encourage, inspire and have the onerous conversations. We’re very candid in our roles. To have these sturdy conversations with CIOs is an unimaginable job to have.”
Taking over a brand new problem
Hickie joined Workday as regional CIO in June 2018 and was promoted to EMEA CTO in June 2021. Earlier than becoming a member of the agency, she spent 15 years at multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology firm GSK, latterly as world head of IT HR companies.
It was throughout her time with GSK that Hickie turned uncovered to Workday. She says the pharma large began working with the software-as-a-service (SaaS) specialist in 2011. GSK was an early Workday buyer, notably from European organisations. The enterprise was desperate to standardise companies throughout 135 international locations and 120,000 workers by working with a trusted transformation companion – and Workday proved a great match.
“I used to be requested to guide that undertaking from an IT perspective, and it was new know-how,” she says. “On the time, it was one of many first huge SaaS companies to come back in, as a result of we had been very a lot working on legacy infrastructure and structure. After main the implementation undertaking, I went on to arrange the whole lot from a shared companies perspective and to guide the groups.”
Hickie displays positively on her time with GSK: “I had an amazing profession at GSK that was very numerous and gave me an enormous quantity of growth alternatives alongside my very own profession path. However as soon as I received concerned on this know-how undertaking, I assumed the service Workday supplied was unimaginable.”
Whereas Hickie says she didn’t anticipate to hitch Workday throughout her time implementing the agency’s know-how at GSK, her interactions with the corporate left a great feeling. When the chance to hitch Workday got here, she already had first-hand information of its companies. As a values-driven skilled, she says the corporate’s individuals and its method to enterprise chimed along with her.
“It’s fascinating, as a result of lots of people thought on the time that it was a daring transfer, particularly leaving an organization like GSK. However from the day I joined Workday, I’ve by no means regarded again. GSK remains to be a serious Workday buyer. I’ve received enormous admiration for GSK and the whole lot it stands for in healthcare. However for me, on the time, I made the best resolution,” she says.
“I’ve by no means stopped growing – in my total profession and at Workday. As a digital chief, you’re on the coronary heart and soul of innovation and growth because it happens, and also you’re trying ahead to what might occur subsequent. To me, Workday is a good place to work, with tremendous colleagues.”
Managing know-how operations
Hickie says what’s clear from her CV is that she likes to get caught into the enterprise and develop new capabilities.
“I’m a really loyal worker, as you possibly can inform by way of my timeline,” she says. “I used to be at GSK for 15 years, and I’m now getting into my eighth 12 months at Workday. Although I used to be at GSK for a very long time, I had 9 totally different roles as I developed my profession.”
Throughout her time at Workday, Hickie has moved from a extra internal-facing place as CIO to an external-facing position as CTO. In her present position, which she assumed because the enterprise emerged from the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, she experiences to world CTO Joe Wilson. Every main area in Workday has a CTO.
“As a digital chief, you’re on the coronary heart and soul of innovation and growth because it happens, and also you’re trying ahead to what might occur subsequent”
Claire Hickie, Workday
Inner know-how at Workday takes a centralised method and is led by CIO Rani Johnson, primarily based within the firm’s US headquarters in Pleasanton. Whereas know-how continues to play an ever-increasing position in fashionable enterprise operations, Hickie says selections on the strategic route of journey and implementation of companies don’t must happen on the native degree.
“I’m undecided that’s a necessity for an organisation like Workday,” she says. “Like many organisations which might be constructed out at a worldwide degree, we’ve received our personal know-how stack, which entails extra than simply Workday. We’re additionally Workday’s first buyer, and we’ve received the whole lot bedded down for the functions and know-how that’s out there.”
Whereas selections about know-how technique are taken on the world degree, Hickie says native groups mattress techniques down and handle their very own IT infrastructure, whether or not that’s in EMEA, Asia-Pacific or North America. She says the know-how stack is supported across the clock, with techniques and companies swapped out and in as a consequence of enterprise necessities.
“As an organization, we don’t must make totally different selections to assist the areas. There are actually areas that would function barely otherwise, however that variability is extra about tradition, languages and geographical places, not at a know-how degree,” she says.
“We come into work and we all know precisely what we’re working on. The stack runs rather well in our enterprise. We’ve received escalation traces when one thing doesn’t occur accurately, however we’re fairly slim in how we function.”
Main from the entrance
Whereas Hickie’s position is extra externally than internally going through, she nonetheless has to maintain a watchful eye on know-how developments behind the enterprise firewall. A powerful consciousness of Workday’s progressive actions makes it simpler to work with CIOs and different prospects.
“It’s about working with the product groups and understanding necessities from a know-how perspective,” she says. “We have now to know the structure, the infrastructure after which be capable of talk these capabilities out as an exterior perspective. Equally, we all the time want to know the roadmap and what we’re doing.”
Hickie says Workday advantages from gaining access to an enormous community of consumers and potential shoppers. Interacting often with these outsiders provides Workday’s insiders a way of the challenges that CIOs face and the product improvements they require.
“Most of my position is having one-to-one conversations with CIOs and CTOs,” she says. “We additionally work with digital leaders in giant boards. I used to be in London this week with 120 CIOs, together with some who had been prospects and a few who weren’t. We additionally deliver lots of our prospects into Workday to have these conversations and perceive their challenges.”
Hickie says her largest achievement since turning into CTO helps a few of the agency’s key prospects get probably the most bang for his or her buck. As one of the crucial senior executives within the enterprise, she additionally serves on the board of administrators for the Workday Ltd subsidiary, suggesting that one other primary focus space is supporting girls in science, know-how, engineering and maths (STEM).
Workday was named STEM Employer of the 12 months on the 2025 Ladies in STEM Awards in Dublin final October for the second consecutive 12 months. Hickie additionally leads Ladies@Workday, an worker belonging council that creates mentoring circles, encourages shared studying, and opens new alternatives for professionals to develop.
“A giant achievement for me is to see how numerous we proceed to be and that we’re shining a light-weight by way of encouraging younger females into know-how,” she says. “For the employees who’re right here at Workday, we’re mentoring and training them day by day by way of this know-how sector, which is usually a robust place to work but additionally gives an unimaginable profession.”
Growing new abilities
Hickie recognises that the IT career is present process basic modifications because of the adoption of synthetic intelligence (AI). It’s a metamorphosis that’s going down in Workday and externally, as the corporate rolls out new agentic AI companies to its prospects.
On the occasion in Dublin, her senior government colleagues mentioned the corporate’s product roadmap and the introduction of brokers that the agency hopes will take away repetitive duties from human sources, finance and different enterprise capabilities. Hickie says the human stays very a lot within the loop, even in an period of agentic AI and elevated automation.
“Expertise change into completely crucial,” she says. “Our distinctive capabilities have gotten the inspiration of how we function as individuals in our job roles and capabilities. Rising know-how brings change, nevertheless it additionally brings flexibility, because the enabler of latest and fascinating profession paths.”
Hickie means that many organisations are desperate to take a two-phased method to AI – they wish to enhance productiveness by way of automation, however in addition they wish to retain their expertise. Whereas some business specialists fear that the introduction of rising know-how might result in a jobs apocalypse, Hickie is extra optimistic.
“When it comes to coping with our prospects day by day, we’re usually requested how we see different organisations are managing these modifications,” she says. “It’s fascinating, as a result of as companies have continued to develop and achieve success, we’re seeing that different abilities are actually being created each single day. And you’ll solely see that trajectory accelerating.”
