Alvarez & Marsal ( A & M ) is improving employee experience by deploying leading technologies and transforming existing systems
ALVAREZ & MARSAL
Alvarez & Marsal ( A & M ) is improving employee experience by deploying leading technologies and transforming existing systems
Supporting a global professional services firm that enables world class organisations presents many opportunities and challenges for an Information Technology function . Supporting such an organisation requires intense focus and high flexibility . These environments leave little time to be introspective and require a CIO to make instantaneous decisions and constantly evolve their thinking . Working in such a highly dynamic and fluid environment has never been a problem for flexible CIOs such as Jeremy Zung , Chief Information Officer ( CIO ) for Alvarez & Marsal ( A & M ).
“ When I joined A & M during COVID , there was no playbook or manual to tap into ,” he says . “ It became very clear , though , that our primary focus needed to be about stabilising the core – this included not just technology , but our staff . We had a lot of technical debt that had built up , similar to many companies .”
As global CIO , Zung is responsible for all internal IT matters including all backoffice technologies and systems . Once the core was stabilised , it allowed the focus to quickly move to improving services to A & M ’ s growing base of global professionals . Transforming the IT department required a change of mindset to operate IT as a business .
Founded in 1983 , A & M provides advisory , business performance improvement , and turnaround management services to a diverse range of clients – from corporates and government agencies to private equity firms and law practices . The business has been expanding rapidly of late and now boasts more than 7,500 people , who provide services across the world .
Based in Florida , Zung joined A & M in July 2021 following a 30-year career at professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers ( PwC ). After college , Zung ’ s first job was as an actuarial associate with Coopers & Lybrand – where he could never have imagined the diverse jobs he would hold during his career . Those roles included multiple client-facing and internal roles including being the US Advisory IT leader for 12 years , leading 13 acquisitions .
It was a big career move when he made the switch to A & M – but Zung himself is not afraid of change , given that his career has been about continuous improvement and transformation , and his 30 years at PwC had prepared him for this opportunity .
“ One of the things that really attracted me to A & M was its history based on relationships and not relying on commercials or TV ads ,” he explains . “ It ’ s a people business . That really stuck with me – that its work is through referrals , word-of-mouth , people saying what we ’ ve done for them .”
90 August 2023