PREFACE
For the past decade and a half, I have had the luxury of serving as the chief information officer (CIO) for some wonderful global organizations. Before accepting my first CIO post at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), I had the privilege of serving as a principal consultant for one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world, as an information technology (IT) director at a Fortune 200 financial services firm, as a defense IT consultant, and as an adjunct professor at one of the top 20 American universities.
The role of IT has been changing for decades and is changing still. Looking back, I reflect on the days of centralized computing on mainframes, client-server technology, web 1.0, telecommunications advances, and mobile computing gains—most recently, the significant advances in smart phone and tablet technologies. Today we have new drivers for change. We are heavily leveraging cloud technology, social networking, advanced telecommunication and wireless technologies, the virtualization of everything technical, and the advancement of consumer devices in the corporate world. As a result, the role of the CIO in any organization continues to be demanding and requires solid technical skills, business acumen, and exceptional communication skills to properly succeed.
Preparing for the CIO role takes careful planning. Staying in that role takes continued education in modern technologies, trust from your staff and other C-level executives, and the ability to deliver results at the lowest cost possible.
In 2006, I published Straight to the Top: Becoming a World-Class CIO. The book was intended to serve two main goals: (1) to help nonexecutive IT professionals plan their ascension to the top echelons of IT and, if lucky, their appointment to the CIO role, and (2) to assist sitting CIOs with best-practice information and shared knowledge from a variety of seasoned professionals (CIOs, executive recruiters, and top IT advisory research firms) to become better IT leaders.
Straight to the Top: CIO Leadership in a Mobile, Social, and Cloud-based World continues the journey of educating today's IT leaders and tomorrow's successors. Thus, my goal in this book is to help sitting CIOs, aspiring CIOs, and other business professionals to understand the drivers, complexities, and positioning of IT in the business world today so that as an industry and as leaders in that industry, we become better.
The Target Audience
Straight to the Top: CIO Leadership in a Mobile, Social, and Cloud-based World is targeted at IT and business professionals who aspire to land senior management positions in IT or who desire to become top IT resources in their organizations. The book expands on the first edition and focuses on technology and business drivers that are changing the landscape of IT today.
Academic institutions that offer programs and degrees (undergraduate and graduate) in information systems, computer science, and IT management, along with their faculty, should benefit from this book by using it to augment the content of their courses with real-world skills that can propel their students to reach the upper echelons of technology management.
Today's successful technology professionals need to have solid IT acumen, business skills, strong communication skills, and a willingness to embrace the changing landscape in business and technology. Mobile, social, and cloud solutions are here to stay. They are getting more mature and are permeating the marketplace even as I write this. The nonbusiness consumer is having a profound effect on technology in organizations today. Trends in consumer technology and social media are blurring the lines between traditional IT management and governance and the frameworks required today. They are requiring top IT leaders to take another look and reshape their organizations to accommodate these technologies and drivers.
Straight to the Top: CIO Leadership in a Mobile, Social, and Cloud-based World describes why the role of the CIO is changing and what to expect in the future. It introduces topics beyond those in the first edition to help IT professionals govern their technical environments. The readers will get an expanded view from a diverse group of executive recruiters to see exactly what qualities, skills, and experiences quality search firms are seeking in CIO candidates. I compare and contrast the data in the first edition with the data in this edition. This book explores in more depth the social and technical drivers for IT change, including social media, mobile computing, and cloud technologies; it recommend how to navigate the C-suite; and it concludes with what's next for CIOs after mastering the technology leadership role.
The Approach
The information and recommendations presented in this book come from a variety of sources: (1) advisory research and case studies, (2) interviews with a diverse range of CIO experts and seasoned IT leaders, (3) interviews with a variety of executive recruiting firms, and (4) my own experiences in both planning for my first CIO role and serving as a CIO for more than a decade. The expert CIOs surveyed for this book come from a diverse group of organizations that represent a large cross-section of industries and sectors, including academia, nonprofit, retail, technology services, pharmaceuticals, and financial services. The CIO and executive recruiting expertise and input are derived from regional, national, and international experience and depth.
Part I focuses on the drivers and changes affecting information technology and the role of the CIO. Expanding on the first edition, I examine additional best practices of governance, standards, and service levels and explore how to interact, advise, and educate other C-level executives in the pursuit of IT excellence.
Part II builds on the drivers and recommendations discussed in the first half of the book and homes in on several key topics relevant to today, including cloud computing, the consumerization of IT, and social media and networking. The readers will get an updated view from top executive recruiters on what they are looking for when hiring for senior IT leadership positions today.