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

27/11/2025 27 min

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

Episode Synopsis

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


More episodes of the podcast Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)