From Bottleneck to Accelerator: How NiSource’s CIO Repositioned IT as a Growth Engine

What does it take to transform IT from a bottleneck into a business accelerator? In this episode, Waco Bankston, Chief Information Officer at NiSource, shares how he’s repositioning the IT organization to support growth, enable speed, and shift decades of technical and cultural inertia. Leading a 6.5-year enterprise transformation effort, Waco discusses the discipline required to modernize legacy systems while instilling a new execution culture. Key insights from the episode include: Building a modern tech foundation to support future acquisitions Restructuring outsourced/insourced IT mix through platform consolidation Shaping team behavior through leadership-by-experience Establishing unified governance across AI, cybersecurity, and innovation Leading with operational safety and customer-back design