In this week's Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast I'm talking with John Sullivan, who is an award-winning and transformational CIO. John has worked in a number of senior roles for well known organisations such as Virgin Trains, the Gondola Group, Laura Ashley, the Disney Store and HMV.

Learn more about how John has helped to implement data driven solutions across various retail environments that has helped to increase gross margins and customer satisfaction.

John talks about his experiences of developing strategies to implement both regional and international technology solutions and how to target the right products for the various global markets.

Hear about how John helped to drive forward transformational projects such as the Pizza Express customer database, which reached 19 million customers. We discuss how John used analytics and automation to offer enticing incentives and vouchers for customers and how that helped to increase the overall revenue for the group.

As a modern CIO, John relays his interactions with customers while working with Virgin Trains and how he led the project to automate ticket refunds for late running trains and the overall positive impact for customers, staff and shareholders.