Adam Frumkin, CIO of Franklin County, Ohio

What have you accomplished in your role that you want people to know about?

Cultural change through emotional intelligence and building a team that has not only changed the technology of the county but the culture and direction of the county as a whole. What we did was we stepped back when I first got in my role and started with the principal of “Why?” Our why statement is that we believe by providing exceptional technology solutions, agencies can provide better services to the businesses and people of the county.

How does emotional intelligence fit in?

One of the things I worked on was creating [business relationship managers]. They are the product owner. What those BRMs are supposed to do is truly understanding the business of our partners — agencies we support — and speaking on our behalf. We’ve created an alliance between the BRM and the executive director. By doing that we’ve created a relationship of respect and trust.

What’s the next thing you’d like to work on?

We are not even close to being done with the transformational change of technology. And our job and the way we see things is to truly lead in a different way.