We had the privilege of speaking with Kevin Noll, a leader with over 25 years of experience in IT and technology management. As the Global CTO at Bata — a company with over 30,000 employees across 30 countries — Kevin has led one of the most significant Infrastructure and Security Transformations in retail. His focus has been clear: unifying technology, people, and culture while driving innovation and resilience. Kevin has built a truly global technology ecosystem that blends structure with agility and turns complexity into opportunity.
When he first joined Bata four years ago, he discovered an organization rich in legacy but fragmented in execution. Each country has its own IT manager, its own way of working, and its own local strategy. “I realized quickly that we didn’t have one strategy—we had thirty,” he said with a laugh. Instead of diving straight into solutions, Kevin began with understanding. He launched a detailed assessment—a kind of SWOT analysis—to uncover the company’s strengths, weaknesses, and untapped potential.
“What I wanted to find”, he recalled, “was our superpower. And I discovered that Bata’s size was both its challenge and its greatest advantage.”
The result of that study became the foundation for what he calls his three-step transformation programme: know your assets. Secure your assets. Transform your assets. Those three lines became a rallying cry, a simple yet powerful framework that guided every change that followed.
One of the first examples of this approach in action came from something as fundamental as antivirus software. When Kevin began his review, he found that Bata had nine different antivirus solutions running across the globe. “It was a nightmare,” he admitted. “Nine systems, nine vendors, nine ways of managing risk. It wasn’t sustainable.” His team built a business case, evaluating each country’s spending and assessing the best global solution. The decision wasn’t about enforcing change; it was about enabling smarter collaboration. Instead of forcing countries to adopt a new platform immediately, Kevin’s plan allowed each to transition naturally when their existing contracts expired.
The transformation took just over a year to complete, but by the end of it, Bata had something it never had before: one global cybersecurity platform, the center of excellence team in India managing it, and one unified security posture. “We went from chaos to control,” Kevin said. “Now we have a single pane of glass across the organization. We can set policies, detect threats, and make decisions faster. The complexity disappeared, and clarity took its place.”
But even as the systems changed, Kevin knew the bigger challenge lay elsewhere – inside the people who used them. Change, he admitted, is rarely about technology. “It’s about people and emotions,” he said. “When someone has used a tool for years, it’s part of their comfort zone. You can’t just take it away. You have to bring them along.”
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His method for change was built on empathy and small wins. “Small victories create momentum,” he said. “Momentum builds trust. And once people see results, they start believing in the journey.”
Instead of keeping IT work behind closed doors, Kevin encouraged open communication with users. “A lot of IT teams only talk to people when something breaks,” he said. “We decided to change that. We started talking to users about why we were changing things, what motivated us, and how it helped them.” Bata’s size—once a source of complexity—became its greatest asset. By negotiating as one, the company reduced costs while improving its level of protection. “When people realize they’re getting better tools and paying less for them, they start smiling,” Kevin added with a grin.
To deepen awareness, he introduced weekly phishing simulations and monthly training sessions, designed not to test employees but to empower them. “It’s not about catching people off guard,” he said. “It’s about uplifting their understanding. Cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting the company; it’s about protecting their own digital lives too.”
Through every initiative, Kevin kept repeating one message: make it hard for attackers to enter and make it easy for the organization to recover. That, he said, is the heart of cybersecurity.
Leading a team spread across the globe comes with its own challenges—different languages, the common thread that ties everyone together. “We’re all human,” he said. “We all work to support our families. That’s our shared motivation. And at the end of the day, we’re not selling gold—we’re selling shoes. We’re here to support the business.”
It’s this grounded perspective that has helped him turn a collection of local IT departments into a single, global organization. “What makes Bata special is its people,” Kevin reflected. “They put politics aside, collaborate across borders, and support each other. We’ve built a culture based on kindness, collaboration, and respect. That’s non-negotiable for us.”
One story he shared revealed just how far that culture has come. Kevin was on vacation in Turkey when his phone rang. The team in India was reporting that the servers were down. At first, he thought it was a local issue. Then the scale hit him —It wasn’t just India. It was global. “We had 6,000 devices and 400 servers offline,” he said. “We’d never practiced for a global outage before.”
What followed was chaos—but it quickly became something more powerful: unity. Teams from Africa, India, Latin America, APAC, and Europe jumped into action. They didn’t wait for instructions; they created them. In Kenya, store managers personally carried their point-of-sale devices to the head office by taxi so they could be repaired faster. Engineers rewrote standard operating procedures on the fly, translating them into multiple languages so every region could act in sync.
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For two days, Kevin coordinated across continents, guiding the team through recovery. “It wasn’t about titles or hierarchies,” he said. “It was about people coming together with one mission: get Bata back online.”
When the systems finally came back up, Kevin didn’t talk about the downtime. He talked about collaboration. “It was one of my proudest moments,” he said quietly. “We faced a global crisis, and it turned into a story of resilience and creativity. That’s what leadership is all about.”
As the conversation turned into the future, the topic naturally shifted to artificial intelligence. Kevin’s view on AI was refreshingly balanced—excited, but cautious. “AI is a game changer,” he said. “But it’s not something you just switch on. You need to understand what it means for your business, for your data, and for your security.”
Bata has begun laying out the foundation for AI adoption through governance, training, and education. They’re creating an internal toolkit—the “Do’s and Don’ts of AI”—to help employees use emerging tools responsibly. “We’ve seen companies turn on AI too quickly and end up with data breaches or compliance issues,” Kevin explained. “We don’t want that. We’re building an AI culture before we build AI systems.”
That measured approach has ensured progress with control, allowing innovation to advance without compromising security or compliance. In cybersecurity, Bata already uses AI-powered tools that detect and isolate threats in near real time. “The difference is staggering,” he said. “In the past, identifying a breach could take 27 days. Now, with AI embedded in our tools, it takes about three minutes. That’s not evolution—it’s transformation.”
To Kevin, AI doesn’t replace people—it empowers them. “AI amplifies human potential,” he said. “It lets us focus on what really matters: staying ahead, learning faster, and protecting better.”
When asked about the experiences that shaped his leadership philosophy, Kevin paused, as if rewinding through decades of lessons. “There’s one moment I’ll never forget,” he began. “In the ’90s, we had a client issue that went unresolved for days. A senior engineer flew from California to help us. I remember watching him call his CEO at ridiculous hours for guidance. It struck me—if it’s important enough to send someone across the world, it’s important enough to stand behind them.”
Another moment came from his time in banking. “We nearly had a massive loss on the trading floor,” he said. “We fixed it just in time. My mentor told me, ‘Mistakes happen. The key is not to repeat them.’ That stuck with me.”
Those experiences taught him that leadership isn’t about hierarchy—it’s about humility. “You can’t lead from a distance,” he said. “Sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and work alongside your team. Mistakes are inevitable; what matters is what you do next.”
For young professionals aspiring to lead digital transformation, Kevin’s advice is simple yet profound. “Start by knowing what you have,” he said. “Understand your assets, your culture, your risks, and your people. Then, challenge everything. Don’t accept ‘this is how we’ve always done it.’ That’s where innovation begins.”
He believes the secret to success lies in small victories. “You build momentum one win at a time,” he said. “Those wins compound into transformation.” He also champions consistency over perfection. “Even if you’re wrong, if you’re consistent, you’re only a few steps away from making it right. Inconsistency breeds chaos.”
And above all, he added with a smile, “Be kind. Always. Kindness is the most underrated leadership skill. It builds trust, and trust builds great teams.”
As our conversation ended, Kevin reflected on how far Bata had come—from a cluster of local systems to a unified global organization. Yet, for him, real success isn’t in technology but in the people who power it. “Technology will always change,” he said. “But what doesn’t change is our purpose—to support our people, protect our business, and move forward together.”
In Kevin’s story, the word “synchronization” takes on a new meaning. What began as an effort to secure infrastructure grew into a movement of collaboration and trust – proving that synchronization isn’t about systems or uniformity, but about people working with shared intent. And that, he says, is what turns a global company into a global family.
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Editor Bio
I’m Isha Taneja, serving as the Editor-in-Chief at "The Executive Outlook." Here, I interview industry leaders to share their personal opinions and provide valuable insights to the industry. Additionally, I am the CEO of Complere Infosystem, where I work with data to help businesses make smart decisions. Based in India, I leverage the latest technology to transform complex data into simple and actionable insights, ensuring companies utilize their data effectively.
In my free time, I enjoy writing blog posts to share my knowledge, aiming to make complex topics easy to understand for everyone.
