My CIO Career: Rob Zelinka, CIO Of Jack Henry, On The Difference It Can Make In Business And Life
Heller Search Associates, Wednesday, January 8th, 2025
A self-taught technologist and leader, Rob Zelinka finds lessons everywhere: about business, leadership, teambuilding, and life. In this interview for the My CIO Career series, he recounts his experiences and how he looks for independent thinkers to enhance his teams.
Rob Zelinka first recognized the power of technology when, in the early 1990s when he started selling touchscreen point-of-sales systems to restaurants to replace their conventional cash registers. It showed him, he said, 'how technology could uniquely affect the lives of business operators.'
That recognition was a turning point. Zelinka started learning as much as he could about computers, networking, and IT infrastructure. Soon, he was studying business and leadership, inspired in part by his first CIO who had become a mentor. Using technology to solve business problems became his calling.