Yvonne McGill, Dell Technologies

Clips
More from Dell Technologies World 2025

Yvonne McGill

Chief Financial Officer

Dell Technologies

play_circle_outline Dell's Impressive Growth in AI Leads to $10 Billion Revenue in Last Fiscal Year

play_circle_outline Importance of simplifying, standardizing, and automating processes

play_circle_outline Balancing priorities while enabling AI within the organization

play_circle_outline Goals for FY '26 and focus on innovation and growth at Dell

Info
Transcript

Yvonne McGill, Dell Technologies

Yvonne McGill

Chief Financial Officer Dell Technologies

Yvonne McGill, chief financial officer of Dell Technologies Inc., joins theCUBE’s Savannah Peterson and Dave Vellante at Dell Technologies World 2025 for a candid conversation on the company’s strategy and growth. Their discussion highlights Dell’s evolving AI portfolio, operational discipline and commitment to long-term innovation.

McGill outlines how Dell simplifies, standardizes and automates processes to drive both agility and control. These efforts support scalable innovation while fostering a culture of continuous learning across the organizati... Read more

explore Keep Exploring

What were the highlights of last fiscal year for the company? add

What program is Dell running and what is one of the key focuses of this program? add

What are the current priorities for the company in terms of AI and how are they being integrated into various aspects of the business operations? add

What are the plans and goals for the future at Dell? add

bolt Powered by CUBE AI

Yvonne McGill, Dell Technologies

Savannah Peterson

>> Good afternoon, Dell fans and welcome back to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We're here midway through day two of our three days of coverage at Dell Tech World. My name's Savannah Peterson, bringing you all the insights and all the executives here with Dave Vellante this week. We've had a day.

Dave Vellante

>> Dell fans. I'm a Dell fan. We're independent, but I'm a Dell fan, I got to say.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah, I'm a Dell fan too, man. We share this. This is another thing we have in common. Speaking of Dell fans, there's probably not a bigger Dell fan than Yvonne. Thanks for coming back on.

Yvonne McGill

>> Thank you. I'm absolutely a big Dell fan. Yeah.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. Number one team. And your husband works for Dell too? It's all-

Yvonne McGill

>> He does. He does. Dell. Dell. Dell.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. It's Dell all the way down. I love to hear it. So I'm very excited. Big year for Dell since the last 12 months since we had you on the show. Give us the high level overview of all the progress you've made.

Yvonne McGill

>> Yes. It was a wonderful last fiscal year. Obviously, we're in our first quarter right now of the new fiscal year, but last year, we grew the top line, we grew the bottom line, all while spending less from an operating expense level, driving more earnings per share. It was one of those just phenomenal years where things went as we outlined, things went as we intended. And then just the massive growth in the AI portfolio. Just remarkable, our fastest growing business in history, delivering $10 billion of revenue last year.

Savannah Peterson

>> Wow.

Yvonne McGill

>> Right.

Savannah Peterson

>> Wow, wow.

Yvonne McGill

>> And on the journey to more.

Dave Vellante

>> Then rhe stock's up.

Yvonne McGill

>> Yes.

Dave Vellante

>> It's a good thing. I mean, look, it's the stock market. It goes up and down.

Yvonne McGill

>> It does.

Dave Vellante

>> But it's heading in the right direction.

Yvonne McGill

>> It does. Up is the right direction.

Dave Vellante

>> I mean, but the street gets the story. When you guys had VMware in the P&L, there was always the VMware penalty and everything and it was confusion. But now that you cleaned up the balance sheet, I think the street really gets the story and it shows and it shows in the momentum and you're leading in the AI world.

Yvonne McGill

>> That's right. And we did lay out our long-term framework. We're delivering against that. And to your point, it's really leveraging the value of Dell Technologies holistically, the expansive portfolio. It's more than... I feel like historically, because I've been at the company for a long time, there was a period where we didn't get credit for the expansive portfolio that we have, and now we're seeing the benefit of it. From AI, we spend a lot of time talking about AI and technology there, but it's the entire portfolio and that's what makes it so exciting to me. It's the AI. You're generating all this data, has to be stored somewhere. We have storage and then follow that through with you have to take advantage of it. You need a device and you have lovely devices in front of you to leverage that, to drive that productivity-

Savannah Peterson

>> That ecosystem.

Yvonne McGill

>> The ecosystem, yeah.

Savannah Peterson

>> You're heading on it. I feel like folks are waking up to it. It's going to take more than just one piece, one gadget, one product line.

Yvonne McGill

>> That's right.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's this holistic ecosystem and all the partners that you have. Something that you said last year that really impressed me, Yvonne, was that you were not concerned about the risk of velocity. We're moving at an even faster velocity than we were last year. How do you mitigate that concern? There's concerns about costs, but you're saying that you kept costs down. Talk to me about what you're doing to make that so successful.

Yvonne McGill

>> I think as we evaluate where do we spend money, we're still investing, but we are running a program called Modern Dell, and one of the key focuses there is simplify, standardize, and automate. And so it's like, hey, do I still need to do this work any longer? Yes or no? If yes, then how do I standardize it and then automate it, right? And so it's permission to do things differently. And the entire company, it doesn't matter whether you're in finance or engineering, we talk about our XE9680 or an XE that took about three years to develop and then the follow-on product, nine months to develop. And then that's really when my brain clicked and I went, oh my goodness. AI is a game changer. And so again, if it can help us bring better product to market faster, what else can we do and leverage. And I love the leaning in and being open to doing things differently.

Dave Vellante

>> I'm definitely struck by just in speaking to you and listening to some of the conversations and how deliberate and fast you guys were in terms of attacking the opportunity, especially in finance. And so-

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah, great point. Really great point.

Dave Vellante

>> I wonder if you could take us back, what was the catalyst? I'm sure the benevolent dictator had something to do with it, but what was that like? And it's like Dell has completely focused both internally and externally. You shared with us in the Analyst Roundtable many of the things that you've been doing to simplify, standardize, and automate. What was the point at which that started and what does that journey look like?

Yvonne McGill

>> Well, it really started with Michael and Jeff and really them saying, "Hey, this is how we're going to move forward and you need to be thinking differently and approaching things differently." And I still... Obviously, I'm the CFO. I want to make sure we have a controlled environment and that the validity of financial statements can be asserted, all of that. But I love that we can do things differently now. And so it's really, it is. It's just they're very flexible. Should you still be doing that? And they're open to change also. And so that change environment starts at the top and is, I don't know, it's exciting.

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, it's clearly a part of your culture. I mean, you hear it across the board. You talked about this with us last year as well. I remember Michael even saying, "What are we going to do? What company would disrupt us five years from now?"

Yvonne McGill

>> That's right.

Savannah Peterson

>> And that sort of psychology changes the way that you innovate. Where are some of the areas within your team specifically where you've seen the most value created?

Yvonne McGill

>> Well, I think as I look in my team, I give examples about auto-reconciliations, right? Anomaly detection. So embedding AI within the CFO organization really is helping us be more effective and more efficient. And I think one of the examples I give, which everyone really appreciates is about internal audit. So I can generate... I have AI helping me write reports now for audit. People want faster audit reports, right? Internal audit reports. But again, it's that anomaly detection. How can I be the most efficient at that process? Because it's very critical to our continued success. But we want to do it faster and get resolution. And if I don't detect anything, then we move forward. And so it's fabulous and everyone is thinking differently about how we approach the business and drive the outcomes that we're looking for.

Dave Vellante

>> But it's not like you... Correct me if I'm wrong, you have a chief AI officer-

Yvonne McGill

>> We do....

Dave Vellante

>> with Jeff and then now John. But it's not like... Maybe it is. Are they the chief change management officer? I don't think so. I think it was really the individual units that actually bought in. I guess they had no choice but to buy in. But I'm curious because change management's hard.

Yvonne McGill

>> It is.

Dave Vellante

>> And you have inertia. People do things the same way because that's how they've always done them. They're comfortable with that. They paved the cow path I sometimes say, which is disaster in this world. You're just throwing money away.

Yvonne McGill

>> That's right.

Dave Vellante

>> I'm curious as to the cultural techniques or approaches that you used.

Yvonne McGill

>> Well, it's definitely starts at the top, right? With Michael. With Jeff. But again, it's having the finest person being open to change. And I need to operate in a controlled environment, but I don't have to do it the same way I did it 27 years ago. I can do it differently. And so just getting those different ideas, having my team members share with each other how they're doing things differently, how they're automating things, how they're standardizing things. It's just, I don't know. It's empowering.

Dave Vellante

>> So did you go to a woods meeting instead of a whiteboard? How did you make it happen?

Yvonne McGill

>> Well, everyone takes it a little bit different approach. So we're doing... Yes, we've done some of that. We've done an online. We are sharing those ideas with the team so that they can go, "Oh my gosh. Okay, that doesn't apply to me, but I can see how I could use that technology to do what I'm doing differently."

Savannah Peterson

>> You're able to cross-pollinate that. Right?

Yvonne McGill

>> Cross-pollinate that. And say, "Hey, change is okay, and will we be perfect? No. Have we ever been perfect? No." But moving forward, you have to take thoughtful risk in the process. And I say that as the CFO, right? We're taking thoughtful risk. But I do understand the important role that me and my team play.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's so refreshing to hear you talk about that.

Dave Vellante

>> Did you-

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. Go ahead, Dave.

Dave Vellante

>> I'm just fascinated by this. I'm trying to pick at the secret sauce. Did you lay out like a north star, this is where we're headed, and then work back from there? And that must've been somewhat hard because you don't know what the AI's capable of doing, or did you more say, "Hey, let's just dig into the processes and think about how we could do this better"?

Yvonne McGill

>> I would say we really started with the processes, with the foundational element, because AI continues to evolve. And you've heard our priorities on AI, right? Around engineering, around sales, around services, around global operations. You never hear anyone talk about finance being one of the top four priorities, but we can leverage that technology too. And so trying to enable that. But I really have so much to clean up, I would say, because we've never... When I think of... I've been at the company a long time. When I think of how we finish things, we move on to the next engineering thing or the next sales thing. And what we're doing differently this time is it's an all-play. It's vertical and horizontal. And that to me and to my team, it's different. And it's exciting.

Dave Vellante

>> The whole house.

Savannah Peterson

>> That is exciting. Well, and we're stronger together in that sense. You're bringing everybody along for the ride.

Dave Vellante

>> That's right.

Savannah Peterson

>> Rather than this feeling like this trickle down. I'm sure you have members of the team-

Yvonne McGill

>> This is an all-play.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah.

Yvonne McGill

>> This is an all-play and it feels different and we're driving really great outcomes as a result.

Savannah Peterson

>> It does feel different. I'm really curious, since the landscape of your entire industry in the financial world is changing a lot right now, what's your advice to a young financial professional who wants to make sure they're at least in step with this technological revolution?

Yvonne McGill

>> So as we have new in career join us, I really do think it's making sure they know they have to be consistent learners. They have to be inquisitive. They have to bring those great ideas to us. And I have so many examples of early in career team members that I say, "Hey, here's this issue that we've been trying to resolve." And they just go figure it out. And I'm like, "How'd you figure it out?" They were like, "Well, why couldn't you all figure it out?" Because they're using technology differently and they're not approaching it with the past in mind. They're approaching it with the future in mind. And I think that's what's so... I love it. I learned from everyone. So I think it's really exciting. And the kids that are coming in, and I say kids, but when they're coming in-

Dave Vellante

>> Millennials.

Yvonne McGill

>> They're in college. Yeah. Millennials. When they're in college, they're coming in... They have a different approach to problem solving.

Dave Vellante

>> Sure.

Yvonne McGill

>> And so trying to give them that context also on, hey, it's more than there's benefit that all of us have and perspective. So how do we share? I can learn from them and they can learn from me. And so that's the area that we're trying to make sure we continue.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah, I can imagine. I can feel the passion and excitement when I sit next to you. Is the team excited about everything that's going on right now?

Yvonne McGill

>> I think the team is really excited. And I would say there's a little bit of uncertainty too. You don't know what the future holds. And so I talked to them about being all in and you're going to be really proud of what we've all accomplished. And so I think that's part of it, but you got to be open to change because we are in a heavy change environment within the company, but outside of the company. And so I think you got to get comfortable with it or-

Savannah Peterson

>> Buckle up.

Yvonne McGill

>> Buckle up or-

Savannah Peterson

>> Or maybe find an alternative career if that's the case.

Yvonne McGill

>> An alternative place, yes.

Dave Vellante

>> How are you spending your time here? Are the salespeople dragging you into customer calls and saying, "Explain how you did it." Are customers asking you? Are you kicking the tires on technology? How do you spend your time at the show?

Yvonne McGill

>> Yeah, I don't want to say they drag me. I'd happily go.

Savannah Peterson

>> I know. That's why I was giggling. I was like, I feel like I could be great at that.

Yvonne McGill

>> I'd happily go talking about it.

Dave Vellante

>> Well, pulling you in different directions, I should say.

Savannah Peterson

>> Fighting through .

Dave Vellante

>> There you go.

Yvonne McGill

>> Yeah. So doing that and either talking to other of my peers or really talking about how we're approaching this holistically. How do you prioritize where you're investing? And some people think we're not investing because we're spending less, but we are investing. And so how do you do that? How do you do that? How do you lean into change? And so that's what we spend a lot of time talking about and then how we're enabling AI within our own environment. Right? So it's really exciting to have this platform that everything is open for a change.

Dave Vellante

>> What's the most common question you get from other customers and what's the biggest mistake that you tell them not to make?

Yvonne McGill

>> The question I usually get is, how are you actually doing this?

Dave Vellante

>> Kind of my question is like, ah, that's the magic.

Yvonne McGill

>> Yeah. How are you doing this? And then you have to... I do think the magic starts with Michael and with Jeff and just them saying, "Hey, we're going to lean in so that we'll be here for the next 40 plus years." Right?

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah.

Yvonne McGill

>> But with others, I say, "Hey, you got a question. What do you need to develop? What do you need to learn?" And really with your teams, you can do things differently. And so there's a lot of my peer set that I talk to and they're like, "I'm not sure we want to go first." And we take the approach of we will go first and we'll lead the way, but we can do this thoughtfully. And so it's not that there's not trade-offs or compromise, but again, we keep the priorities in line, mine be able to assert the validity of the financial statements and the control environment. We got that.

Savannah Peterson

>> I love that. And you're very much, you're showing us, not telling us. And I think that's a lot of companies are talking about what they're doing. Now, you all are doing it. You're drinking your own champagne.

Yvonne McGill

>> That's was so fun. Right? We're doing it.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. You're doing it.

Yvonne McGill

>> So when I talk to other companies, they're like, "We're going to wait." I'm like, you may be not be relevant.

Savannah Peterson

>> I was just going to say for what?

Yvonne McGill

>> We're not-

Savannah Peterson

>> For the rocket ship that took off already? Great. Have fun.

Yvonne McGill

>> Yeah. And that's great because that's not us.

Dave Vellante

>> Well, change is scary. It is, right? For a lot of companies.

Savannah Peterson

>> Change is scary.

Dave Vellante

>> Changes, and don't get me wrong, doing things differently is a little unnerving at times. But it's also exciting, right?

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, it is. And you get to build the future. We're all doing it together. Taking a slightly different lens, let's talk about weekends, Yvonne.

Yvonne McGill

>> Weekends?

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes. When you're not leading the fabulous team at Dell, what aspect of your life or what do you hope AI does for you and for your family?

Yvonne McGill

>> Oh, I hope that AI can facilitate my son's laundry being done.

Savannah Peterson

>> I'm here for that.

Yvonne McGill

>> That would be great. Yeah.

Dave Vellante

>> Help with my laundry.

Yvonne McGill

>> I think just that being able to be more predictive and really serving and I need to make an investment in making that happen, making sure AI is doing what I want it to do at home. But I think that just again, being open to change. And I teach Sunday school. I teach second, third grade Sunday school every Sunday. And I love doing that. But we're talking to them, talking to the kids about AI, about technology. And it's not like-

Savannah Peterson

>> At Sunday school?

Yvonne McGill

>> At Sunday school because they're into technology.

Savannah Peterson

>> What? I love this.

Yvonne McGill

>> And I learned from them different ways to approach things and they'll be like, "Well," and show me. And it's so cool. So they keep you real.

Savannah Peterson

>> That's so cool.

Yvonne McGill

>> They keep you real and challenge you at the same time. And so I think that's part of what I love. Do I know exactly what their jobs will look like when they're adults? No. None of us can say that.

Savannah Peterson

>> None of us do.

Yvonne McGill

>> But I want them to be open to learning and everything and then inspiring others. So I don't know. It's a lot of fun. Keeps you real.

Savannah Peterson

>> I love that. And it's fostering a culture, perhaps a generation of curiosity.

Yvonne McGill

>> That's right.

Savannah Peterson

>> In a way where we think of standardized learning or the way that we were inputting information traditionally versus now. I mean, like you said, they're showing you things, they're playing with it, they'll troubleshoot it. I was the YouTube university generation and now this is the AI ChatGPT University.

Yvonne McGill

>> It is. It is remarkable. Again, I learned from them. Ideally, they learn from me too.

Savannah Peterson

>> I'm sure they do, Yvonne.

Yvonne McGill

>> But again, I just love the way they're approaching things differently and they'll be like, "What jobs should I have when I grow up?" And I'm like, "I don't know. Be open to change. Be open to constant learning and technology is...

Savannah Peterson

>> Here to stay.

Yvonne McGill

>> Here to stay and it's your friend.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes, it is your friend and it's a great tool. All right, since you did a good job of answering this last year, I got to close this out with our annual questions so we can look at it when we are at Dell Tech World next year. When we're hanging out in 2026, this time next year, what do you hope to be able to say then that you can't yet say today?

Yvonne McGill

>> Next year, I'm going to say what a remarkable FY '26 that we had. So I'm going to talk about the results for the year. I'm going to talk about the continued innovation that we've driven through the company, through all aspects of the company and we're going to be on the journey to more growth and more profitability. So I'm super excited about that and going to be able to give even more examples of how within my own organization or within the broader company, how we're doing things differently, right? Because what we're about and will we be perfect? Of course not. But that's part of the fun, that's part of the journey, right? It's learning and changing and course-correcting. We've got to go fast. And so that's why I love being at Dell, right? Because we go, we are moving forward and we're moving fast.

Savannah Peterson

>> I love it. Well, we love-

Dave Vellante

>> We're looking forward to earnings next Thursday. Right?

Yvonne McGill

>> Next Thursday, yep.

Dave Vellante

>> Great. I'll be listening.

Yvonne McGill

>> Next Thursday after closing business.

Dave Vellante

>> Awesome.

Yvonne McGill

>> And I'm looking forward to it also.

Savannah Peterson

>> Awesome.

Yvonne McGill

>> All right.

Savannah Peterson

>> We love it, Yvonne. Thank you so much.

Yvonne McGill

>> Thank you so much.

Savannah Peterson

>> This is always such a treat.

Yvonne McGill

>> I really appreciate it.

Savannah Peterson

>> Thank you, Dave. This was a fun one. You've got your little boy smile on right now. I can tell you're having fun. This is Dave's fun face.

Dave Vellante

>> Day two is always fun. Product day.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes. And I hope you're all having as much fun as we're having here in Las Vegas, Nevada at Dell Tech World. My name is Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.