Jack Broughton, Head of IT at King Living, has been named CIO of the Year at The CEO Magazine’s prestigious 2020 Executive of the Year Awards.
Building his knowledge of the company from the ground up was an invaluable lesson for Jack Broughton, which enabled him to fulfil a vital role in the company’s international success.
As Head of IT, he has established an IT department that provides an integrated and seamless system for every area of the business as it grew from 10 stores in Australia to 26 stores in six countries.
“I was very shocked,” said Jack of winning the CIO of the Year Award. “I’d looked at the calibre of the other nominees and saw they were very decorated, and I’m honoured to be in that conversation. I worked very hard, and it’s very good to be recognised at this sort of level. It gives me even more passion to keep going down the path I’m on, especially with the changing nature of IT, and it gives me some confidence that I’ve got the company on the right path, and in my own career I’m heading down the right path.”
Jack began working at King Living eight years ago in the warehouse but progressed through customer service and production as he completed his Bachelor of Science in IT. He subsequently became the company’s first IT employee, and used his inside knowledge of the business to build an IT infrastructure that helped to propel the company’s growth in sales and production.
He leads a team of 11 dedicated people driving the company’s ERP development with a “can-do” attitude. King Living now boasts a transformed ecommerce platform, customised software systems, seamless international integration of its IT infrastructure, state-of-the-art security management, cyber security monitoring and a disaster recovery plan.
Jack points out that establishing SAP through the company was a major undertaking in the past year, and was achieved within tight budget constraints.
“The implementation of SAP across our retail, warehousing, logistics, customer service and finance departments has been a mammoth feat in 2019–20,” he says. “Since inheriting the project in a dire state, my team and I have worked incredibly hard to implement an ERP system that is not only successful but that has also been achieved at a small cost in comparison to full scale ERP rollouts.
“The return on investment is now endless, and we are able to leverage that to automate repetitive and redundant tasks between our systems.” – Jack Broughton
“My team has rapidly upskilled during the process to allow the business to grow through the system without the need for continual head count additions.”
Jack’s work ethic drives his team to deliver more with less, and he has fostered an infectious “can-do” attitude that lifts his team to do more than they thought possible.
“What I’m doing for the company and the direction I’m steering our IT strategy in is recognised as industry leading, so I’m deriving a lot of confidence from that. Our CEO said that it’s proof that her trust in me is well filled and to keep doing what I’m doing, and she’ll put more trust and more expectation behind me.”
Integration and automation are the keys in King Living’s world-class ERP system. “The return on investment is now endless, and we are able to leverage that to automate repetitive and redundant tasks between our systems,” he says.
Jack confesses to a fascination with Elon Musk. “His projects and end goals are very different from mine but extremely captivating. When I think of my own role and how I want to be seen, his commitment and his drive and passion I think brings out the best in the people around him. This is something I certainly aspire to and work hard to replicate with those around me.”
