Episode 29: Maya Leibman & Ross Clanton

About

Maya Leibman and Ross Clanton

Maya Leibman

Maya Leibman is Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. She is responsible for all technology efforts including software development, infrastructure, operations and security. In this role, Maya led the systems integration of American Airlines and US Airways. She also leads the organization’s next generation strategic initiatives including transitioning to the cloud, advanced analytics, machine learning and the advancement of DevOps tools and principles.

Prior to her role as CIO, Maya was president of the world’s largest loyalty program – AAdvantage. There she led efforts including member acquisition, retention, marketing, co- branding, and analytics. Maya joined the airline in 1994 in the Revenue Management department and led a variety of pricing and yield management teams focused on optimizing airline revenue.

Maya serves on the Dallas Theater Center board of trustees and volunteers for a number of local organizations, including the So SMAART program, where she works with minority girls ages 9 to 12, teaching them about technology and life. She is the executive sponsor for Living Green – American’s Employee Business Resource Group that explores new ways for us all to "reduce, reuse and recycle."

Maya earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from the University of Chicago and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ross Clanton

Ross Clanton is the Managing Director of Technology Transformation at American Airlines, leading delivery transformation and technology strategy, as well as leading the organization that builds and runs the core infrastructure that powers American Airlines.

He has led multiple technology transformation and innovation initiatives during his career. He is passionate about shifting from Project to Product and DevOps delivery models and is an influencer across the technology community.

His passion stems not only from the fact that Product and DevOps improves business outcomes, but also improves engagement and overall happiness of the people delivering technology as well as their customers.

About this episode

In this episode, Mik is joined by two IT leaders from American Airlines: Maya Leibman, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, and Ross Clanton, Managing Director of Technology Transformation.

Mik, Maya and Ross delve into American Airlines shift to digital innovation, including insights into:

  • Changing and influencing leaderships approach to IT, innovation and software
  • Working with finance to enable them to better understand software products and IT value streams
  • How American Airlines delivered touchless kiosk in six weeks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Some of the missteps and failures where things didn't go as planned
  • Ensuring IT delivery is connected to business outcomes to create a rapid feedback loop
  • Celebrating success, having fun and increasing the happiness and engagement of employees

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Additional Resources:

To download the transcript for this episode, click here.

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