Discover: Technology & Cultural Transformation – Insights from Ed Calusinski

At Cloud Nirvana's recent conference, Edward Calusinski, VP of Enterprise Architecture and Technology Strategy at Discover Financial, shared an inspiring story of how the company transformed both its technology and culture. His session, titled "Discover: Technology & Cultural Transformation," shed light on the company’s journey of embracing change during a time of global upheaval—beginning its transformation just as the pandemic shifted the way employees worked worldwide.

Key Takeaways:

1. Embracing Transformation Amidst Crisis Ed emphasized the challenges of launching a major transformation initiative while navigating the onset of COVID-19. Discover's transformation began in 2020, focusing on leveraging technology such as cloud, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to create a world-class customer experience. As a pioneer in the fintech space, Discover, which was founded in 1985, needed to evolve from traditional banking methods to cutting-edge digital solutions, including mobile platforms and cloud technologies.

2. Talent-Driven Transformation One of the core elements of Discover’s strategy was a focus on talent. Ed stressed that you cannot transform an organization without first focusing on its people. The company took deliberate steps to empower their technology teams by providing them with the tools, autonomy, and a supportive culture to innovate and work at speed. They also adopted an agile, product-centric approach that allowed for greater velocity and creativity in delivering solutions.

3. Open Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Strategy Discover’s technological shift was grounded in a clear cloud strategy. The company adopted a hybrid multi-cloud approach that focused on open technologies, primarily Kubernetes. This flexibility allowed them to leverage the strengths of different cloud providers and run critical applications across multiple environments, ensuring resiliency and security. Their ability to choose the best-fit platform for each workload was a major differentiator in their transformation.

4. Building Resilience Without Sacrificing Speed While speed and innovation were key to the transformation, Discover never compromised on security and resilience—two critical aspects for any financial services company. Over five years, Discover improved its security posture, reduced mean time to recovery (MTTR), and delivered faster, more reliable services to its customers.

5. Automating to Empower Employees A significant aspect of Discover’s journey was the automation of manual processes. By removing administrative burdens from their teams, Discover allowed its engineers, architects, and developers to focus on their craft—innovating and solving technical challenges. This move to automation, alongside the establishment of a unified pipeline, ensured a smooth and efficient application deployment process across multiple clouds.

6. The Discover Technology Academy: Fostering Innovation One of the most impactful initiatives in this transformation was the creation of the Discover Technology Academy. This platform enabled employees to collaborate, share best practices, and build a culture of continuous improvement. The academy fostered innovation, helping the company stay ahead in a competitive industry while empowering its team members to grow professionally and personally.

7. Achieving Large-Scale Success A key achievement for Discover was migrating 1,200 applications from its on-premise data center to a cloud environment powered by Kubernetes. This transition, made possible by the standardized pipeline, was completed in just 24 months—an impressive feat that highlighted the success of the company’s transformation.

We want to give a big thank you to Ed! Ed's insights into Discover's journey were both practical and inspiring. His emphasis on the importance of talent, culture, and technology in driving transformation provides invaluable lessons for any organization navigating a similar path. We extend a heartfelt thank you to Ed for sharing his expertise and experiences with our community.

For those who would like to connect with Ed and continue the conversation, you can find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-calusinski-0292307/

By focusing on people, technology, and a strategic approach to cloud adoption, Discover’s journey serves as a powerful example of how organizations can evolve to meet the demands of tomorrow’s technology landscape while staying true to their customer-centric mission.

Rackspace Technology | Varonis | Sigma | Trace3 | AZTRA | Big Kitty Labs | The Dayhuff Group | Encova Insurance | Expedient | Gravity IT Resources | Presidio | RWX | Turnberry Solutions | Veeva Systems