Scott Mason is the IT Chief Operating Officer (COO IT) for Novartis and leads the IT Operations, Strategy, Transformation and Change Management functions.
Scott is responsible for execution of Novartis’ IT strategy and future proofing the IT operating model, comprising ~3’000 internals and over 7’000 externals operating across the globe. Major goals of this multiple year Transformation journey include generating a 50% throughput increase from IT focusing on standardization/lean and enabling the company’s digital agenda.
Key dimensions Scott is accountable are developing cohesive and business aligned strategies, standardizing and operating all IT processes, tools and service delivery excellence methods, maximizing investments, driving the innovation portfolio, developing the workforce including a network of global service centers, supplier and software management and driving sustainable elimination of architectural debt from the IT environment.
Prior to this position Scott was Novartis Chief Technology Officer (CTO) where he was responsible for global technology functions including global infrastructure and platform services. He led transformation of infrastructure operations via modernization and centralization, fostering a cultural and competency shift towards predictive operations and service ownership, accelerating new technology introduction such as software-defined services, and driving expansion of hybrid cloud. He and his team delivered with these efforts three-figure million-dollar in productivity.
Scott joined Novartis in 2005 from Accenture, where he had consulted to major enterprises operating in multiple industries including banking, insurance, wealth management, consumer products and postal. Originating from Australia, he has lived and worked in 4 continents and 6 countries. He is presently based in Basel, Switzerland’s biotech hub.
He holds a PhD. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich on artificial intelligence applied to precise metrology, an MSc. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and a B.Surv. (Hons 1) from the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is author of 21 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has presented research findings at over 30 international conferences.
Scott is keenly interested in the potential and impact of technology disruptors in healthcare, including the resurgence of AI and potential of block chain, as well as gearing large-scale transformation for executional certainty.