Rahul Jalali

Executive VP & Chief Information Officer, Union Pacific

Search every verified Rahul Jalali interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Rahul Jalali, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Union Pacific, discussed the company's modernization efforts in a July 2022 interview on the Technovation podcast. He described Union Pacific as a 160-year-old railroad that was established by the Pacific Railway Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Jalali noted that the railroad connects 23 states in the western two-thirds of the United States and plays a role in the global supply chain. He stated that rail is an environmentally responsible method of moving freight, with emissions about 75 percent less than trucks, and that the industry invests approximately $25 billion annually in infrastructure, with Union Pacific investing about $3.3 billion the previous year. Jalali outlined his vision of transforming Union Pacific into a platform company, noting that it processes about 5.7 billion API calls per day and aims to create a plug-and-play platform architecture to connect with supply-chain partners and customers. He said his team rebranded from "IT" to "Tech" and implemented an "IT swear jar" to discourage use of the old term. Jalali identified cybersecurity as a primary concern, citing the need for a cybersecurity mesh and flexible architecture across 32,000 miles of track and numerous IoT devices. He also discussed diversity and inclusion goals, including a stated aim to double the number of women working in field and operations roles.