Ian Eslick is Chief Technology Officer, Enterprise Architecture and Engineering at U.S. Bank. He started there in 2019 after spending years leading a team of 180 people at Amazon. He and I spoke about leader development at U.S. Bank, and he had so many fantastic observations about what can enable it, what hinders it, and what we can do as a community to bring teachable skills to bear.

He gave advice you would give technology leaders who feel like they’ve hit a ceiling and aren’t able to progress their career, to either make a bigger contribution to the organization or to achieve their own personal goals.

Of particular interest to me was the emphasis at U.S. Bank on succession planning — after all, one can’t move to a different role (laterally or up), without having someone to replace you. He shared advice that he’s given his team on how they could replace him.

Ian provided a laundry list of skills and competencies senior technology leaders need to have and things they need to care about. It was fantastic insight and perspective about what it takes to be successful as a senior technology leader.