Meet Ravi Malick, Box's Chief Information Officer

This summer, Ravi Malick joined Box as our new Chief Information Officer. Since then, Ravi has hit the ground running, leading the company’s global information technology strategy, compliance practices and customer advocacy. We met with Ravi to get to know him better, and to discuss the biggest challenges and opportunities facing CIOs today.

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

You played baseball in college at Brown University. How do you think the skills you learned balancing a college sport with your education prepared you for your role as CIO?

I’ve learned so much about life from playing baseball. At its core, baseball is a sport of failure, as success is defined by just hitting the ball more than 30% of the time. As a result, baseball requires a lot of patience and teaches you that you’ll undoubtably face challenges, but that the key is perseverance and learning from failure to overcome them.

What drew you to Box?

I’ve been a long believer that content is the heartbeat of the enterprise, so I was excited for the opportunity to work at Box. Work begins with the exchange of information, most often with a note, a document, or a presentation. As a platform built for the entire content lifecycle, Box is uniquely positioned to redefine how organizations collaborate on that content. In addition to a strong product offering and technical roadmap, it was also clear from the start that Box has a unique and values-driven culture, and one I wanted to be a part of. 

What is your favorite part about working in the tech sector?

I love the pace of this industry - the pace of change, the pace of problem solving, and the pace of innovation. It feels like a big jigsaw puzzle and we’re all trying to figure out how everything fits together. Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen incredible disruption across the board, and it’s only accelerating with no sign of slowing down.

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing CIOs today?

A major challenge is that many CIOs are pressured to keep costs down. However, that is starting to shift as the role of the CIO expands far beyond traditional IT initiatives and “keeping the lights on”. As we face new challenges presented by hybrid work including a widening security threat landscape, the role of the CIO is also changing. Today’s CIOs must combine business and technology expertise to drive digital transformation and protect against cybersecurity threats at all levels of the enterprise.