Executive Vice President, Chief Supply Chain & Transformation Officer, Gap
Search every verified Sally Gilligan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2021 conversation, Sally Gilligan, then Gap Inc.'s Chief Information Officer and head of Strategy, Sustainability, and Government Affairs, discussed the company's digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. She stated that Gap Inc. moved 140,000 employees remote overnight, which she said was feasible due to prior modernization and adoption of productivity tools. Gilligan noted that the company built curbside pickup in four weeks, a project she said would normally have been on a two-year roadmap. She also said that Gap Inc. ran all its stores and frontend e-commerce site in the Cloud for the first time during the pandemic, describing the scaling and momentum as "really fun to watch." Gilligan spoke about the acceleration of innovation, saying she did not see the pace of change slowing down. She described data and personalized shopping experiences as areas where the company was "scratching the surface," and mentioned that privacy would continue to be a requirement for CIOs. On leadership, she distinguished between mentorship and sponsorship, advising that individuals should assume they can succeed and "make sure you fill" their seat at the table. She predicted that consumers would re-engage with fundamental changes in how they live, rather than returning to pre-pandemic behaviors.
“Gap Inc. has 140,000 employees remote overnight, that was only feasible based on the modernization our teams had gone through and the productivity tools that we had chosen to adopt and making sure that groups could do their jobs and what that looked like.”
“The speed and the agility to your point of sort of what you're truly capable of and you're an incredibly modest person, and in many ways you laid those tracks and you create the digitally from a technical perspective early, because you had that vision, but you also have empowered your teams that it's okay not to be per...”
“We built curbside pickup in four weeks, normally that would have been two years on our roadmap. That is what I get excited about and all that the potential of the teams.”
“I think the pace of change you've often heard quoted, many people have said the innovation was accelerated three years and I don't see that pace slowing down either. Once folks have a taste of that, how do you keep up with it?”
Join us for episode 15 of Taking Stock Live – a conversation with Shelley Bransten as we welcome GAP Chief Information Officer ...
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