Growing up the son of actress Mia Farrow and Academy Award-winning composer André Previn, Fletcher Previn expected to follow in his family’s footsteps and go into entertainment. But a funny thing happened while working on movie sets and interning for David Letterman and Conan O’Brien: Previn became fascinated with the equipment.
“I remember being on a movie set and being more interested in the camera setup and the visual effects and the phone system than the storytelling,” says Previn, who is now Cisco’s chief information officer. As the person who leads IT at a company that has built the IT infrastructure for much of corporate America, this puts Previn at the forefront of digital transformation.
Now, the guy who once built computers is interested in using technology to build culture. “People’s technology can be stolen over time. It’s very difficult to steal someone’s culture,” he says, “and the shortest way to attract people is what’s in their hands or on their desk.”
Previn spoke to me Forbes about how Cisco is using technology to transform the hybrid work experience using and what he learned from his famous parents that helped him become a better leader. He also talked about the best AI use cases today.
“A lot of the initial use cases were about knowing the language,” he says. . “There have been some interesting tests of getting better response rates on follow-up emails we send to potential candidates from AI than from real human recruiters.”
The next wave of change may be in areas such as business development: “Instead of figuring out how to spend less money, AI is very useful for learning how to earn more.”
Click the video above for the full interview.
