Interview: Stephen Conley, IT Director, Boston Red Sox

This interview is part of ITworld's regular "How I got here" series which focuses on the career path of successful IT professionals.

Steve Conley credits his combination of technical and management skills as a marketable combination for an IT Director's job. What he didn't imagine when he first started his career was that he would be heading IT for major league baseball's World Champions!

How did you start your career? I majored in computer engineering at Northeastern University and they had a "coop" or internship program where I would work for periods of several months in real-world companies doing IT. I did extra coops to pay my way through school, and one of these jobs involved converting Ernst & Young's tax department to a local area network at a time when there weren't many people doing that yet. It was a case of being in the right place at the right time.

How did you get introduced to the Red Sox? There was a change of ownership there, and one of the things the new owners wanted was someone who would reshape their IT department. One of the Ernst & Young partners I had known during my internship years had joined the Red Sox organization. He remembered me and asked me if I would be interested in the job.

What were some of the skills that you think made you an attractive candidate? By that time, I had held several progressively responsible positions for various firms in networks and IT management. I also had a background in companies going through acquisitions. This was useful to the Red Sox at that time since they were in an ownership transition.

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