Marching General Electric into the Cloud Era

As senior vice president and chief information officer at General Electric, Jamie Miller has the daunting task of managing the sprawling industrial conglomerate’s transition to next-generation enterprise computing.

Part of the task involves moving the company’s internal computing infrastructure to the cloud. Part of it involves providing better collaboration tools for employees—the driving force behind the company’s recent deal with Box.

And then there is factory automation and specifically the development of sensor-equipped machines and productions lines that can bring real-time data to bear on every aspect of the manufacturing process.

Ms. Miller, 45, doesn’t have a computer science background. She cut her teeth in GE’s much-admired finance organization, serving as controller and chief accounting officer before taking on the CIO job 15 months ago.

The Information caught up with Ms. Miller on the sidelines of the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Aspen, Colorado to discuss topics including “infrastructure as a service,” how closing data centers can force change and the debate about women in technology. An edited transcript is below.