CIO who transforms organizations into profitable, efficient Centers of Excellence.

As a Chief Information Officer, founder of "Information Systems Leadership of Oklahoma" (a state wide CIO forum of 100+ members), with 20+ years of leadership experience, I have helped companies improve their bottom line, reach new markets, and build teams. From Strategic planning processes which supported hyper growth or contraction, to providing Interim or Contracted leadership for “getting the train back on the tracks” or raising the strategic value of technology/current IT leadership and delivering Project management of mission critical system deployments all with better results, in less time, with lower overall cost and risk. I meld business focus with technology insight to get the job done while consistently delivering 3 to 5 times the return on investment in my services.

How may I help you extend your company’s return on investment in Technology?

Curtis J. Matthes            

What my Clients & Colleagues say about my service (LinkedIn Skill Endorsements) (LinkedIn Recommendations)

Fortium: “He is an energetic leader with a winning style, rallying teams to achieve results.” Roger Buss, CIO, UAC

ISLOK: “Curtis is one who gets things done” Mark Brewer , SVP and CIO , Seagate Technology

Tatum: “Curtis was one of the best decisions I've made.” Joan Leonard, CFO, Borders Media

eV21: “Curtis was thorough and effective with his recommendations.” Russ Hester, CIO, Francis Tuttle

A sampling of the achievements my teams and I have accomplished are:

v Spearheaded architecture/deployment of fully compliant ITILv3 service management department-wide process

v Relocated $5.2M data center of 250-bed hospital while maintaining 100% continuity of care to patients

v Provided Project Management for multiple ERP and CPM deployments, always within budget and timeline targets

v Increased capacity to drive concurrent deployments for $20M speciality hospital build outs from 2 per year to 4 per year.

v Spearheaded building the world’s largest fingerprint identification system at $27M dollars for the State of NY.

My core leadership attributes and examples: Coalition; Innovation; Perseverance; Leading under Pressure

Ø Coalition Building: Successful leadership requires building consensus

1. Founded and continue to lead Fortium’s first nation service practice in Healthcare where partners share their passion and expertise to develop/deliver go to market strategies and better serve our clients.

2. Formed and leading for 20 years Oklahoma’s first CIO forum, ISLOK (Information systems Leadership of Oklahoma) comprised of 100+ CIOs from public, private and governmental organizations. Honored by being awarded the first state-wide Achievement Award for “Selfless dedication and service to the greater community of IT Professionals” of Oklahoma in 2016.

3. 15 years as HIMSS membership board chair: Turning individual challenges in to shared successes

Ø Innovation: Rather than asking why, ask why not.

1. Transformed leadership style of “command & control” to “thinking outside the box” by augmenting recognition awards i.e. “Squeaky Wheel of the month”.

2. Evolved business model as sitting CIO for information aggregator (like Lexus-Nexus) to expand from “answers to questions” to “questions being asked”.

3. 1^st day on job I was required to give presentation to Director of NY Criminal Justice service on how my company was going to reduce previous upgrade time of all 43 state-wide police workstations from former 2 months. Team inspired idea of partnering with vendor (IBM) for golden disk replacements. Completed in 2 weeks.

Ø Perseverance: Success requires stick-to-itiveness

1. First 2 attempts to create Fortium’s healthcare practice failed. Third time is now going on it’s 3^rd year.

2. ERP vendor insisted an “undocumented feature” of blank Help search results couldn’t be resolved 5 days prior to go-live. Canceled go-live and suddenly a “last minute” update resolved issue.

3. Took over five-year project of building the world largest fingerprint identification system (AFIS) for NY, 2 years into the project, with 5 years still to go! Completed $27M project within allocated time. Quote from responsible EVP upon my departure after having gone through 2 previous program managers “You turned out to be a 4^th quarter player”.

Ø Leading under Pressure: Panic never inspires solutions, Leadership is being the lighthouse in the fog.

1. Two hours after assuming interim CIO role, power was cut to the hospital and back-up generator failed. Communication, focused efforts and calmness (with urgency) restored services within 4 hours while maintaining continuity of care.

2. Clinical engineers (former position) must respond to all “Code Blues” (life critical events). Patients were not served if the guy fixing the deliberator was in panic mode.

3. First public demonstration for client of new mobile CT scanner, control monitor (not image) failed moments before demonstration. I knew program well enough to operate without it (i.e. blindfolded) so successfully the blank monitor wasn’t even noticed.