Global CIO
W.L. Gore & Associates
Karla J. Viglasky serves as the Global CIO for W.L. Gore & Associates, leading the Global IT team and Gore’s Digital Transformation, a position she began with Gore in October of 2018.
Karla has a hybrid skillset, with experience in both business and IT positions, and her sweet spot is at the intersection of technology and business. Her background is a blend of both, which creates a unique perspective on developing and implementing digital strategies.
Karla has held leadership positions in both business and IT at The Dow Chemical Company, Honeywell International and ITT Corporation where she served as the Global CIO. After ITT, she spent two years in the startup world to help emerging companies scale and grow. She rejoined the corporate world with Axalta in 2015 as the Americas CIO to build and lead global IT teams, strategies and platforms for digital, data, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), human resources, and research and development technology. She has led large system (SAP) deployments at Dow Chemical, Honeywell, ITT and Axalta.
Her areas of expertise are in large Digital, ERP and SAP S4 HANA transformations, business driven IT strategy, customer facing applications and big data analytics. She has worked for large corporations, carve outs, startups and new IPOs, giving her experience that enables a balanced and tailored approach to speed, stability and scalability in IT strategies.
Karla earned a bachelor’s of science in industrial engineering from Purdue University and a master’s of business administration with an area of specialty in eCommerce from the University of Michigan
Karla is a native of Hawaii and currently resides in Kennett Square, PA with her husband Rich, her son Trey and their two Great Danes. Her hobbies include spending time with her family, Dungeons & Dragons, Mahjong, and travelling, mostly back home to Hawaii.