No IT Strategy or Direction - Anonymous employee Seattle Children's Employee Review

1.0
Jul 30, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Doctors, nurses, and researchers working hard to provide quality care and cures for sick kids.

Cons

The new CIO is a train wreck. For some crazy reason the CEO felt it necessary to hire an MD into this role. Whatever logic he had behind that decision blew up with the selection of this particular "doc CIO". Because he has no vision, can't articulate a strategy, and has no clue how to assess the capabilities of his team(s) the CIO defaults to what he knows - vendor management and outsourcing. He has abdicated organizational alignment, leadership and coaching to the Associate CIO, Chief Data Officer, and PMO Director. None of these three could lead or coach a team to run a lemonade stand. The Associate CIO is just "checking the box" of a C-level position on his desired career path to a CEO position. The CDO is an egomaniac who is all sizzle but no steak. The PMO Director will do and say anything to protect her position for fear of being RIF'ed. Lack of leadership starts at the top but isn't limited to these four. Take a look at previous Glassdoor reviews; "From and overall IT perspective, Architecture is nonexistent, filled with sysadmins and network technicians. The Program Management Office has been dissolved and has turned into a project management free-for-all with no prioritization. Infrastructure has been gutted of leadership. Application teams are chasing their tails and duplicating effort. Operations leadership has no operations experience. IT finance is completely out of touch with the requirements of running an IT organization. There is literally no aspect of IT that is running well under the new leadership." SPOT ON!!

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5.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good Benefits, overall good working environment

Cons

Limited opportunities for growth at the PhD level

2.0
Jul 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Front line staff genuinely care and are committed to the organization, even though it has changed dramatically for the worse.

Cons

Leadership under new CEO (Longhurst) has quickly become toxic. Long time employees and leaders are exiting quickly. Return to office mandate is going into effect in October 2026 and has caused massive upheaval and unproductive work for months as employees seek answers and get none. This comes after years of successive waves of layoffs and financial struggles that have damaged trust in executive leadership and the board. SCH used to care about mission and now it cares about keeping up with tech company trends and petting CEO’s ego.

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