Cristina Caballe Fuguet

Cristina has more than 25 years experience in the public sector, contributing to large transformational projects with different central, regional and local government clients in the US, EMEA, APAC, and Japan. She is the lead executive sponsor of the “Preparing Governments for Future Shocks” thought and action leadership initiative, which is a collaborative program between IBM, NAPA (National Academy of Public Administration) and key government agencies and partners, to help government leaders develop a core set

Building future ready governments - Transformational lessons learned from a global shock

From its origins in late 2019 until May 2023, when the World Health Organization declared the end of its pandemic phase, COVID-19 was an extraordinary stress test for governments around the world. It revealed strengths and weaknesses of organizational response and resilience in ways that will be studied for years to come.

Vice President, Global Public Sector
IBM

Cristina has more than 25 years experience in the public sector, contributing to large transformational projects with different central, regional and local government clients in the US, EMEA, APAC, and Japan. She is the lead executive sponsor of the “Preparing Governments for Future Shocks” thought and action leadership initiative, which is a collaborative program between IBM, NAPA (National Academy of Public Administration) and key government agencies and partners, to help government leaders develop a core set of capabilities to be better prepared for disruptive future events. The core capabilities of the program include the following domains: cyber resilience, climate resilience, emergency management, workforce transformation, supply chain resilience, enhanced international co-operation and resilience to new emerging disruptive technologies.

She has led the development of the IBM Garage for Defense and Public Sector which is an end-to-end model for accelerating digital transformation and innovation for governments, focusing on how to generate innovative ideas and how to rapidly turn those ideas into business value. This innovation management model focuses on helping government clients build a core set of capabilities to be better prepared for future shocks (black swan events and emergency situations). The model also provides strategies, plans and resilience methodologies aimed at helping governments build climate and urban resilience.

Cristina is an established and externally recognized industry authority who works closely with key industry decision makers. Her strong reputation and deep expertise encompasses the following key segments: Defense & Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Sustainability, Energy Transition, Climate Change and Journey to Cognitive Government enabled by Hybrid Cloud, Data and Artificial Intelligence.

Before joining IBM in year 2000, she performed as Senior Researcher and Consultant at Siemens AG in the Berlin headquarters (Germany). Cristina received with Cum Laude distinction her Telecommunications Engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain). She successfully completed her MBA from Henley Management College in London (UK), two masters degrees in Innovation Management at the Silicon Valley Innovation Center (US) and she is a worldwide IBM Certified Senior Consultant in the Business Strategy competency segment. She is a member of several industry boards and committees, including OECD and European Commission Initiatives around Digital Transformation, Cybersecurity, Workforce Transformation, Sustainability, Energy Transition and Climate Resilience. She is a Member of the IBM Industry Academy for Government Industry. She is the Ambassador in Europe for the WW Society of Women Engineers and a member of the Global Government Forum. She speaks Spanish, English, Catalan, German, French, Italian and Hungarian.