Sumit Johar

Vishal Gupta

Profile summary

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Sumit Johar is the Chief Information Officer at BlackLine, where he drives enterprise-wide IT and AI strategy for finance automation. With over 25 years of experience, Sumit has held leadership roles at Automation Anywhere, MobileIron, and TIBCO Software.

He is known for operationalizing generative AI, championing an "Automation First" culture, and serving as the "Customer Zero" for internal deployments to improve product-market fit. His career is defined by scalable digital transformation, cyber-secure innovation, and data-driven leadership across high-growth technology organizations.

Connect with Sumit on: Linkedin

Career highlights

2024

Chief Information Officer

2021

Chief Information Officer

2016

Chief Information Officer

2007

Sr. Director of Business systems

2006

Project manager

2001

Project manager

Claim to fame

Innovation Labs for safe AI experimentation

Sumit’s team launched an in-house conversational AI agent, "Buckie", using internal data on a secure platform without depending on third parties, ensuring data privacy and regulatory compliance. He passed through the internal innovation labs, a controlled environment where AI tools and models can be tested safely, refined iteratively, and aligned with business priorities before enterprise-wide deployment. The rollout included employee awareness campaigns about AI limitations and the importance of human validation.

Championing Customer Zero' strategy

At Automation Anywhere, Sumit adopted an "Automation First" philosophy by rolling out bots internally before they reached customers. As Customer Zero, his team piloted generative AI to streamline operations and improve product readiness.

Digital transformation at MobileIron

While at MobileIron, Sumit built a 360° customer data model that integrated systems across the business and pioneered the ‘Moving to Cloud’ program by migrating 95% of IT infra to Cloud. He drove cost reduction by consolidating tools and redirected savings into security modernization and AI-driven automation programs. He also led his team to invest more in the in subscription business by focusing on digital channels, automation and Data.

Sumit’s AI philosophy

Sumit Johar

CIO, Blackline

"Generative AI and other emerging technologies have put fuel on the fire for IT innovation, creating endless opportunities for CIOs to transform business operations." Source

" SaaS applications won’t just integrate—they’ll actively participate in broader, multi-agent workflows, autonomously orchestrating tasks, adapting to context, and continuously learning from interactions across organizational and platform boundaries" Source

“I see AI as a catalyst for a profound job and skill reset." Source