Governing Body Spotlight

Reetal Pai, Ph.D. is the Chief Information Officer for Teichert, a 137-year-old multi-billion-dollar infrastructure company, where she drives IT and data investments from predictive analytics to operational automation that directly impact operational excellence, competitive positioning, and bottom-line results. Her career began as a computational biologist at Dow, building predictive algorithms for agriculture. This experience taught her that technology creates value only when it solves real business problems and when you deeply understand the workflows, pain points, and economics of the people doing the work. She's carried that business-first mindset across agriculture, consumer care, packaging, and infrastructure industries, where technology adoption can lag but the ROI of getting it right is transformational. Her approach to driving measurable business value through technology has earned recognition, including a 2024 nomination for CIO/CTO of the Year by WomenTech Network.

Learn more about the San Francisco CIO community here.
 

Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.

I began my career as a computational biologist at Dow, building algorithms that helped R&D scientists make faster decisions. But the technical work was only half the equation. What mattered was whether scientists would use the tools and whether they improved yield predictions and shortened time-to-market. That's where I learned that technology leaders must be bilingual, speaking the language of operations and finance as fluently as we speak about APIs and data pipelines. Every role since, across agriculture, consumer care, packaging, and infrastructure, has been an exercise in translating business strategy into technology roadmaps that deliver measurable impact.
 

What is one of your guiding leadership principles?

Make the invisible visible. Too often, IT and data teams focus on keeping systems running and cleaning data. But our real job is to surface insights and capabilities that change how decisions get made. Whether it's analytics that reduce asset downtime and operational risk, insights that improve project profitability, or automation that redirects talent from administrative tasks to strategic work, I push my teams to make our impact tangible and tied to business outcomes. We measure success not in uptime percentages, but in cycle time reductions, cost savings, revenue enablement, and competitive advantages created.
 

What is the greatest challenge CIOs face today, and how are you addressing it?

The greatest challenge is proving technology's value in industries built on physical assets. The competition isn't just other companies; it's the inertia of "we've always done it this way." I address this by starting small with high-impact pilots that target our highest-cost operational challenges. Once teams see ROI, they become champions for broader transformation. Success isn't about having the most advanced tech stack. It's about sequencing investments so each win funds and builds momentum for the next.
 

What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CIO?

Stop waiting to be invited to the strategy table. Earn your seat by bringing business understanding. In your first 90 days, become fluent in the business: what keeps your peers up at night, where competitors are winning, and which operational bottlenecks are costing customers or cash. Then translate those business problems into technology solutions with quantifiable ROI. When we tie technology investments to business value or risk, we drive partnership, not just budget approval. The CIOs who thrive are the ones their peers call first when exploring new markets or solving complex operational challenges. Because they've proven they understand the business, not just the technology.
 

How do you measure success as a leader?

I measure success by the questions my team gets asked. When business leaders come to IT only when something breaks, we're a cost center. When they come to us early and say, "We're entering a new market, what technology do we need?" or "How can data reduce safety incidents?", we know we're a strategic partner. I track whether we're in the room when strategies are being formed, whether my team can explain our competitive positioning as clearly as our tech stack, and whether we're consistently delivering 3-5x returns on technology investments. If my team is seen as order-takers, I've failed. If they're seen as problem-solvers and multipliers who energize the business, we're winning.
 

Governing Body members share their insights and leadership perspectives to shape the agendas and topics that address the top priorities impacting business leaders today.