My Digital Transformation Playbook
This is the digital transformation playbook I've been refining since my first engineering leadership role. I call it eUSA. Three minutes — or if you'd rather read than watch, the breakdown is below.
I used it at adidas to unify what was effectively six separate engineering teams into one global platform serving 50 markets. At Sweetgreen I used it as my CTO playbook to build a tech function from zero. The underlying problem is usually the same: someone made a bunch of decisions optimized for the moment, and now those decisions are a wall. This is how I think about knocking that wall down without burning the building.
The framework
Easy
Friction is a tax your team pays every day. A new engineer who can't be productive in week one is a systems problem, not a people problem. I've seen billion-dollar platforms grind because six teams couldn't deploy without stepping on each other.
Ubiquity
A platform decision made for one market becomes a cage for the next fifteen. I watched this at adidas — choices that made sense for Germany took 18 months to undo before we could roll out across Asia. Build for the hardest case first.
Security with Speed
Security teams that slow delivery get bypassed. Security built into the process from day one doesn't. There's no tradeoff to manage if you set it up right — that's the whole thing.
Accountability through Analytics
What gets measured gets managed, and that's usually where accountability goes sideways. Story points go up, customer satisfaction falls, nobody connects the dots. Measure outcomes. Build the instrumentation before you think you need it.
Read the full transcript
Hello, I'm Thomas Prommer, and thank you for taking the time to review my profile today.
I'm a technology executive with over two decades of experience building and scaling enterprise platforms, products, and the cross-disciplinary teams behind them. In recent years my focus has shifted heavily toward pragmatic AI application for enterprise — from-scratch machine learning, data analytics, and a lot of automation, all applied to real-world problems in real operating environments with real clients.
I've been privileged to work at the frontier of digital innovation across three different contexts. First, embedded in teams as a consultant and advisor inside the headquarters of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nike, and Hulu — helping those teams make better architectural, product, and execution decisions. Second, as an executive in-house with companies like adidas, Sweetgreen, and Bain Capital, where I ran billion-dollar e-commerce platforms and up to nine-figure IT budgets. And third, inside digital transformation powerhouses like the WPP agencies and Huge, where I led the technology disciplines that shaped client offerings — while also serving on partner advisory boards for adidas, Sweetgreen, and Bain Capital.
Working across those three sides of the spectrum allowed me to extract a practical playbook for running innovative technology teams in 2026 — what I call eUSA.
E for Easy. Technology should be intuitive. Obsess over the 20% of use cases that drive 80% of the value, make those seamless and anticipatory, and get out of the user's way.
U for Ubiquity and User-focus. Meet users where they are. Pay attention. Combine your strong digital products with a customer data platform to bring users into your own ecosystem, and own the relationship long-term.
S for Security and Speed. Build on modern, zero-trust, secure foundations — and within that enable fast experimentation, real-time options, and decisive pivots when they're needed. Late governance and retakes are fatal for engagements in these times of fast-moving development.
A for Accountability and Analytics. Measure what truly drives the business. Allocate resources to the KPIs that support those outcomes. Apply frameworks like TBM for full transparency, and hold your teams accountable — because only what's measured can be improved with confidence.
With this brief introduction, I look forward to meeting hopefully in person soon — to dive deeper into my experience and the lessons I learned working with these companies, but most importantly to talk about you and the challenges that lie ahead.
It's been great to meet you through this channel today, and I'm looking forward to connecting in person soon.
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