What Is A CIO? Their Evolving Job Description [White Paper]

THE EVOLVING ROLE OF THE

CIO IN TODAY’S BUSINESSES

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WELCOME TO

CIO 2.0

At one time, the CIO supervised an IT department that ran a company’s servers, ordered computer equipment and reset employees’ forgotten passwords. Now, as technology becomes integral to every department from marketing to manufacturing, CIOs are becoming key participants in nearly every business decision.

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Today’s CIOs face a distinct set of challenges that are in many respects on par with those of their fellow C-level executives. First, CIOs must run the business of IT. They need to simultaneously manage the technology backbone of the business and also plan for future growth while constantly adjusting to warp speed changes in technology. They also must spearhead the direction and implementation of IT throughout their organization, acting, in essence, as change management leaders.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo in August 2011 designed to change the role of CIOs away from “just policymaking and infrastructure maintenance” to that of true portfolio management. The goal is to enable CIOs to “focus on delivering IT solutions that support the mission and business effectiveness of their agencies.”

EVEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

RECOGNIZES THE EVOLVING ROLE

OF THE CIO

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IT LEADERS ARE AT

A CROSSROADS

CIOs must move beyond a

merely enigmatic idea of business

and IT alignment. They must

stop playing a supporting role.

To flourish in the coming years with a constantly fluctuating digital world, CIOs must move beyond a merely enigmatic idea of business and IT align-ment. They must stop playing a supporting role. Now is the moment to step up, walk alongside their business peers and work together to better serve employees, customers, bring new products to market and, ultimately, grow the top line.Such an elevated CIO position is a mix of two radically different roles. One covers operational requirements: ensuring that systems, applications and data centers are humming, managing security and disaster recovery, and ensuring nanosecond responses to queries. The other role is that of a change agent who uncovers methods for empow-ering strategic opportunities within the company. The CIO 2.0 must evaluate a complex technical issue with potentially severe financial impact, and also be prepared to intelligently discuss the company’s strategic direction. This hybrid skill set is a prerequisite for successful CIOs today.

SO HOW ARE CEOS HANDLING THIS? Increasingly, they are bringing onboard IT execu-tives with strong business focus — strategic IT thinkers who can look broadly at how information flows across a company and how that information can best be applied to various processes. In fact, today’s CIO could ultimately transform the way business is done.

The more advanced and innovative businesses today already give CIOs a seat at the table and consider them partners in driving the business forward. For their part, CIOs realize that their true business partners are those beyond the walls of the IT department and are substantially more aware of what new technology can do.

The real challenge for CIOs? Educating the execu-tive committee about how a CIO can be a true change agent for the business. It takes business savvy, persistence, tenacity — and yes, passion.

A savvy and empowered technology workforce is arriving. End user expectations are much, much higher. The younger generation that has grown up with mobile technologies and social networks is now moving into the mainstream of employment. This new workforce is more mobile, and uses multiple devices — both corporate-owned and personal. This generation is demanding greater direct control over the way they manipulate data and the way they use software.

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Take Facebook, for instance, a web-based applica-tion that is extensively and easily customizable by the end user. It is a vastly different, much more flexible and a substantially more personal-ized model of IT than what companies have sup-plied in past decades. Essentially, the future of IT is in the hands of the end user, who will decide how they layout information, see information and how they may use a different application portfo-lio on a day-to-day basis. It’s a self-service world.

As users increasingly become tech savvy and brand loyal in their personal lives, corporate IT departments will no longer be able to dictate that every employee use a prescribed model of computer. The goal will be to enable the business across many different platforms, all of which are changing at an extremely rapid pace and each with its own security implications.

For CIOs then, the ever growing challenge is to accommodate the unique needs of each worker — giving up control — without sacrificing the integrity of the IT infrastructure overall. For instance, with the proliferation of mobile devices and flexible work arrangements, CIOs must have a mobile strategy in place both for the company’s product and service offerings as well as its internal workforce. And while making information more accessible, they must also consider the security implications and ensure that policies are in place and enforced to protect valuable internal data.

THE NEW WORKFORCE: AN INSATIABLE

DESIRE FOR NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Three technology leaders share their insights on how the role of CIO and CTO is changing and where it’s going. They also offer advice on how to best prepare for the many challenges that lie ahead.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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WHAT ARE THE KEY CHALLENGES FACING CIOs/CTOs, HOW DO THESE CHALLENGES DIFFER FROM FIVE YEARS AGO AND HOW WILL THEY DIFFER GOING FORWARD?

The role of the CTO or CIO today is very different than it was five years ago. In fact, I think the position should be called Chief Business Solutions Officer. Now we have a seat at the table. Five years ago that was aspirational. In my opinion, a CIO is one of the few people in a company who understands the entire life cycle and workflow of the business. We are doing more than making sure that the pipes and plumbing work. We are involved with business process reengineering, including change management. Ten years ago, someone would ask the CIO for X, Y and Z, and the CIO would have it built. Now the CIO is iden-tifying where the gaps are and driving change to close them. CIOs are trying to be more visionary so they can determine what to build two, five and seven years out. Even more importantly, you find that the really successful CIOs are figuring out how to generate revenue.

In addition, we don’t have to do everything ourselves anymore because the cloud is a huge enabler, just like no one would think of building their own telephone network exchange any more. As a result, vendor management skills will become increasingly valuable.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE IMPORTANT BUSINESS LESSONS THAT YOU’VE LEARNED DURING YOUR CAREER?

First, listen to that little voice in your head, even when you don’t want to. Another lesson is going back to values and focusing on what you can control and what the business needs are. I also believe it’s vital to understand the culture of the environment in which you work. If you and the culture are not in sync, you should get out of Dodge.

The recession also generated an opportunity. Whether we’re hitting the bottom of the market and going up or hitting the height of the market and going down, there is a flex point. The question becomes what do you want to do with those flex points and where do you want to take things? A flex point forces you to start thinking and questioning, as opposed to just doing.

WHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT BUSINESS PRIORITIES?

The majority of 2011 was focused on stabiliza-tion and enhancing the core components of our infrastructure. 2012 will be about efficiency and standardization. For instance, one of my mantras is to get rid of spreadsheets for any recurring processes. They only should be used as a presen-tation layer, yet everyone continues to use them. How many people in the organization are blindly following a process — say copying column A to column B — simply because one person at one time happened to do it? If anyone had stopped to ask why, they may have learned that all they needed to do was change the query. Using spreadsheets leads to inefficient processes, and inevitably, errors. My belief is that everything should be stored in the enterprise database to streamline information.

We also have to shift the mindset from one of “How can it be done faster?” to “What information is needed and what exactly needs to get done?” I’m looking at optimizing the business. There are times when a wheelbarrow works perfectly and there are times when a Rolls Royce is the only solution. We just need to figure out which one is needed and when.

JEAN P. HILL, CTO FIRST NEW YORK SECURITIES

Jean Hill is CTO of First New York Securities, a principal trading firm headquartered in New York City. She joined the company in October 2010. Her career, in her words, “zigzagged all over the place” yet she always had a plan to make it to the top.

Ms. Hill started her career in a training program at Merrill Lynch, climbing the ladder to Director of IT supporting the capital markets business. She then transitioned to a trading desk position at Lehman Brothers. Mid-career, Ms. Hill acquired her law degree, but remained in IT roles in financial services at Morgan Stanley, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and finally First New York Securities where she is today.

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JEAN P. HILL, CTO FIRST NEW YORK SECURITIES

But my main priority it to sit with the CEO, understand what his business goals are and make sure that IT aligns with them. There are business success factors that I get directly from the business and then there are environmental success factors that only I, as a technologist, could be driving, such as data security policy, access to information or levels of redundancy. When a CIO really understands the organization, he or she can make those determinations.

For example, if I’m Bloomingdale’s, I need to understand that having my stores open is mission critical to the business. I might need to have people I can call at a moment’s notice to show up at the store or manage customer support if there is a sudden snowstorm. This analogy holds true in our organization. Knowing the entire business allows me to forecast needs and plan for them.

WHAT SKILL SETS AND TECHNOLOGIES DO YOU THINK WILL BE IMPORTANT IN THE NEXT DECADE?

Let’s step back a bit and first look at the new workforce. They’ve had a cell phone since they were ten years old and they’ve been on a com-puter since first or second grade. They feel like they can’t think unless there is a device in their hand. They’re completely tech savvy and have been doing tech support in their homes for probably a decade. Most of them understand basic Java. Their expectation for what can be at their fingertips and for immediacy will be different than their baby boomer bosses.

And they’ll ask new questions. Why run your own server? They use back-up technology like iCloud, so they understand the concept but don’t under-stand why anyone would want to manage it themselves. It’s similar to the way we perceive phone service today — it’s something we buy, not something we run and manage internally. We’ll have to better understand how to market to this crowd.

The lines between IT and business will become more blurred, and there will be more people who understand both IT and business, people who

deeply understand information, both structured and unstructured. The ability to decipher data and turn it into useable information will become paramount.

WHAT DOES THE ROLE OF CTO/CIO LOOK LIKE IN 2020?

Your infrastructure manager is going to be more of a vendor manager. Help desk and client support will be significantly more important because users will demand one services organization that is seamless. Services and support will become highly accountable and a much more important group within an organization.

In addition, pure application development will become somewhat commoditized and develop-ment will be done in factories, whether you call them captive, outsourced or pure coding.

Finally, you will see the CIO sitting at the C-level table and owning more than just technology.

WHAT CAREER ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO THOSE LOOKING TO CLIMB THE IT CAREER LADDER?

Learn the business you are supporting. That will set you apart from other IT people if you can talk about the business as well as others can. It’s only then that you’ll know what’s important to focus on and how you can better partner with the business. You also have to set out to make sure you’re going to be well rounded.

Going back to my Bloomingdale’s example, you need to understand what buyers do, how they do it and what they care about. You need to understand margins, inventory and cash flow. Then, if you’re a Bloomingdale’s technologist, you really have an unseen benefit. Since you support all those systems, you have access to the myriad pieces of information, unlike the buyer who only understands one piece of it. You then have the opportunity to turn that infor-mation into enterprise-wide business solutions. So I repeat — learn the business you’re in.

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People used to view the IT department as the techie in the group who gets told what to do. Today the CIO needs to understand the technol-ogy and bring it back into alignment with how to run a profitable, growing business.

As a CIO or CTO today, you’re an officer of the company and you sit at the table. The fundamental challenge is showing that technology improves stakeholder value, enables an organization to strategically position itself to its clients and can be leveraged to increase revenue, contain costs and improve execution.

CIOs need to constantly ask themselves how they are capitalizing on technology for share-holders and foster a high-performance and creative culture within the company. You only add value if you stay relevant. You can never go into cruise control.

At Call Genie, we need to transform all the technological advances to help people search for information, connect with merchants, turn clicks into real leads for merchants and facilitate those financial transactions — profitably.

The other challenge I see is how to outperform our competition. I believe you only can do that with great people. Ideas don’t go anywhere unless you do something with them and it takes great people working in a great culture to make your ideas happen.

CHET CHAN, COO CALL GENIE

Chet Chan is COO of Call Genie, a leading global solutions provider of mobile local search and mobile digital interactive advertising. He joined Call Genie as VP of Client Services (Solutions Delivery, Data Services, IT) in July 2007 based in Calgary, Alberta, quickly expanding his responsibilities to include Business Development, Sales, Account management, Product manage-ment, Software Development, Data Services, Hosting Services, Solutions Delivery and IT during his four-year tenure.

A computer science graduate, Mr. Chan’s goal was to determine if he had what it took to be qualified for a CIO role. But even as director of IT, Mr. Chan leveraged his innate business savvy to forge relationships with the C-suite, ultimately inspiring him to move beyond a purely technical career. He left his technical position at Shell Canada and held various executive positions in the technology, business services, construction, health care and utility industries. His responsibilities ran the gamut, ranging from corporate strategy, marketing and planning, project management office, and business development to sales, account management, HR and workforce planning.

A strong believer in “passing it on,” he has been involved with Woods Homes as a volunteer and Board Member, an organization dedicated to helping children in need of social services and support, and is a current volunteer mentor to MBA students at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary.

AS A RESULT OF THE RECESSION, ARE YOU NOW INVOLVED IN PARTS OF YOUR COMPANY’S BUSINESS THAT YOU WEREN’T BEFORE?

Absolutely. When the recession hit, we decided to view it as a catalyst for positive change. We used it to rethink how we can further improve on how we stay relevant, our business plan execution, internal operational effectiveness and efficiency, and how we must restructure ourselves to make this a reality. In the end, Call Genie came out of the recession with 100 percent year-over-year revenue growth and we more than doubled our list of marquis clients while significantly reducing our burn. But it required tremendous tenacity, perseverance, innovation, hard work, adjustment and contribution from all employees. So that’s how we went through the recession. We went in one way but came out much stronger.

My role changed significantly during this pe-riod. My role first expanded to include product management and software development. As we focused on sales revenue and margins, my role further expanded to General Manager of North America which includes business development, sales and account management for Canada and the US. And as we went through even further adjustments, my role expanded to COO in March 2011, which includes global sales.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE IMPORTANT BUSINESS LESSONS THAT YOU’VE LEARNED THAT WILL BE APPLICABLE IN THE FUTURE?

First, the only limiting factor is your ability to dream. Depending on where you work, that might sound ridiculous. But it’s true at Call Genie. Here, absolutely nothing is impossible.

Second, the world is constantly changing. Never let status quo lull you into a sense of comfort. Your customers’ value propositions to their cus-tomers also will continually change. You have to relentlessly assess the value your organization delivers to your customers.

Finally, when hiring, you have to bring on people who want what your organization has to offer because anything can be accomplished if you have the right people with the right attitude who want the same thing.


Our major priority is growth. This will be realized through organic growth, partnerships, and M&A where one plus one equals four. We want to rapidly scale and develop more partnerships on the publication and advertising sides. We want to accelerate the usage of our services through the cloud.


Being open, available and flexible are key — one needs to have a positive attitude toward constant learning and change. Another critical skill is to be able to communicate and collaborate with others in a way that can be easily understood, recognizing that others may have different backgrounds and/or perspectives.

Another core skill set is to translate learnings into tangible actions that align with corporate direction. Talk is cheap. You have to do something with it. You need to have a clear vision of the end in mind and do it.

Finally, I believe it’s vital to have curiosity and passion and to measure if you achieved what you started out to do and learn from the outcomes and journey.

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CHET CHAN, COO CALL GENIE

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The role of the CIO will become

increasingly important in distilling changes

in the technology/marketplace, translating

those changes into opportunities and

then taking a lead role in transforming

those opportunities into actions.


The role of the CIO will become increasingly important in distilling changes in the technology/marketplace, translating those changes into opportunities and then taking a lead role in transforming those opportunities into actions. It will get more and more complex. People will ask CIOs to connect the dots for them so he or she must be very business focused. The paradigm shift is moving from just making technology work, like we did 20 years ago, to what we do as an equal C-level officer on enhancing shareholder value.

IT’S INTERESTING THAT YOU HOLD THE COO TITLE BUT HAVE A TECHNOLOGY BACKGROUND. WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND TO IT PROS IF THEY WANT TO BECOME A COO ONE DAY?

I always asked myself if it would be possible to be viewed as a business leader versus a technical leader. But how would I do that? I became a management consultant and had the opportunity to work on initiatives related to corporate and business strategies for a variety of companies across a variety of industries. This helped me learn how to connect with people in ways they could understand. The way I talk to HR is different than how I talk to the sales group or to IT or to executives. My business experience taught me how to re-bundle messages so I could collaborate, get feedback and get audience buy-in to take action and attain measurable goals

In summary, if being a COO is your goal, I recom-mend finding opportunities, even if they are lateral moves, to get exposure to a variety of non-technical roles. They will make you uncom-fortable, and the learning curve will be high. There will be more failures than successes early on. I truly believe my broad business portfolio of experiences, successes and failures helped position me as a candidate for the COO role.


Where you start can be very different from where you end up. It can be exciting and reward-ing depending on your dreams. And you need to communicate these to others who can help you pursue that dream. Otherwise, you will never get there. You need to be willing to invest time and energy and take risks. Also carefully think about where you work, who you work with, who you work for and who you learn from. For example, which company will allow you to pursue your dream? Perhaps it will be your own? These, I believe, are the most important parameters that will define where you end up. You have to own and manage your career.

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What is different than five years ago is the rate of churn with what we call the cutting edge. What is initially “new” becomes commonplace at an exceedingly fast pace. For example, it’s amazing that the number of mobile devices in the world has exceeded the global population. We have so many capabilities that we need to keep up with. With the next generation workforce being so used to things being at their fingertips, making content readily available will be an ongoing challenge.

The intensity of the work pace also has increased. People are asking for more and more information at a much faster pace, which affects both the pace of business in general and decision making. This definitely is a more intense challenge from five years ago.

Going forward? Again, the intensity and pace of business, technology and new innovations will continue to accelerate. People also will expect to have the same experience at work as they do now at home, which is “fast, fast, fast and everywhere.”

We also need to continually reinforce that softer skills, like interpersonal work relationships and communications, will be as important as technical skills.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE IMPORTANT BUSINESS LESSONS THAT YOU’VE LEARNED THAT WILL BE APPLICABLE IN THE FUTURE?

It’s easy to get too focused on the technology and widgets and the coolness of it all. You can’t lose sight of the business problems you’re trying to solve, of the need to add value to an organiza-tion and solve business problems in an innovative manner. You need to have a good understanding of what the business does, how the business operates, what the priorities are, and that the things you’re doing to support the business are very relevant.

Another lesson I’ve learned is that we have to help our business peers look very closely at the amount of change the organization can absorb. There is a big appetite for wanting “the newest of the new” so we get the technology in place, and then find out that the organization is not ready operationally to absorb it. There’s definitely a threshold and that has to be a serious consid-eration as you’re putting together business plans and annual budgets.

ANDREA YOUNG, CIO BI INC.

Andrea Young is CIO of BI Incorporated, a leading location monitoring technology and supervision company in community corrections. Ms. Young joined BI as CIO in late 2008. While she didn’t aspire to the CIO role from the beginning, she knew she wanted to be part of something progressive and challenging, and solve business problems with technology in a meaningful way.

Ms. Young began her technology career at McGraw-Hill as telecommunications supervisor, moving on to Confer Tech (now Polycom, Inc.) to hold a variety of IT positions. She then joined Janus Capital Group in 1997 where she fast tracked to CTO, directing global information strategies, systems and support. Today at BI, she also holds the role of Vice President of Engineering & Development.

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When I walked into BI, we had a very siloed application architecture, so I knew an immediate priority was to integrate the application archi-tecture to reduce duplicate work, the amount of data compilation for reporting, etc. Currently I am doing application rationalization so everything can smoothly integrate.

We also are putting together mobility applica-tions. Our company requires field work and right now most of that is paper-based. Our goal is to eliminate the need for our field staff to have to come back to the office to complete their documentation.

We are also focusing on how to make the officers’ job more high value. That means we need to take the many different data points in our systems and automate much of the alerting and follow-up so our officers can spend more time with the people they’re supervising.

In sum, we are striving to develop a fully inte-grated, mobile process end-to-end so our officers can substantially increase their productivity out in the field.


I think we need several things. One is really strong architects. How could we have known five years ago that if we built all these siloed applications, we’d get to a point where nothing is talking to each other?

We also need people who see the big picture, understand and anticipate where the business might be going, what it might need and are able to build in capabilities for future development.

On the infrastructure side, which is equally as critical, people need to have the skills to be both broad and deep in scalability. Things are grow-ing rapidly. If you can’t scale your organization through people, which you don’t always want to do, you will need to scale it with technology to make it more efficient and lean. The database is a huge component of that so we will need good database engineers who are watching every day to make sure the system can scale as the busi-ness grows. We also have to protect ourselves with robust data security. This is vital.


Honestly, I don’t think it will change that much. So many surveys say the role of CIO is and will continue to be strategic, operational and focused on bleeding edge technology. I don’t look at it that way. I think it’s a dynamic situation that is defined by market and organizational dynamics and technology advancements. Every organiza-tion is different and looks at the head technology role differently and identifies what they want out of that position. Some companies put empha-sis on knowing more about the business part of technology. Some look at the position as a “be everything” role. It is very diverse. Not only do CIOs need to have a solid understanding of the business they’re in but it’s also a leadership position. CIOs need to know their team and the team’s skill sets to understand what their challenges are.

Over time, CIOs will be asked to do more and more and more. I have been told so many times that it is the hardest job in the company because you’re constantly dealing with the demands of others. Having a strong prioritization process is key.

Things are growing rapidly. If you can’t

scale your organization through people,

which you don’t always want to do,

you will need to scale it with technology

to make it more efficient and lean.

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ANDREA YOUNG, CIO BI INC.


I would try to understand more about what motivates them. There are a lot of different things one can do in technology. You can be on the vendor side, on the client side, in business management or in a very technical role. Then I would talk to them about what their ladder looks like. For example, if someone is a developer and wants to be responsible for a large team of people, what are those people doing? Are they developing code? Or interfacing with business areas?

One of the most challenging parts of being in IT is partnering with other people and helping them understand, in business terms, what you do. If you’re in an organization where everybody is skeptical about IT yet you’re trying to make a difference, you can get discouraged. Whether you’re in a technology or management role, I would tell newcomers they need to learn strong negotiation and interpersonal communication skills so they can interface successfully with people all across the organization.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT COMING TO YOUR JOB EVERY DAY? WHAT MAKES IT ALL WORTHWHILE?

I want to keep going. I’m not done yet. I love being part of a technical team and being able to solve business problems with technology in relevant ways. It’s not easy. At any moment in time, someone can come in and say “drop everything and shift to this new direction.”

At the same time, being in such a dynamic situation is part of what I love about coming to work every day. Whether the technology or the business or the customer did something unexpected, I’m continually able to work in an environment that’s really, really dynamic and I like that.

I also like building a strong team, helping them see themselves in that vision, and helping them understand the value they bring.

TODAY’S CIO HAS A TREMENDOUS

OPPORTUNITY

Only those CIOs who are completely immersed in the business side of the organization can truly add technical and strategic value. As each of these IT heads have emphasized, learning the business is foremost. In addition, CIOs need to stay abreast of today’s warp speed changes and new technologies while also thinking ahead and serving as a visionary. Not an easy job. But to rub elbows with their peers at the C-table, CIOs and CTOs need to visibly demonstrate they can add value and help drive organizational growth.

SO WHAT DOES THE CIO 2.0 LOOK LIKE?

From a technical standpoint, he or she has to be well versed in cloud computing technologies and the concepts which underpin it, e.g., virtualization, IT automation and security. The CIO must also be capable of working around legacy systems to organize, manage and search the seemingly insurmountable and unstructured mountain of information available today to help the average employee.

Strategically, he or she has to be involved daily with the business, not hidden in the back office, be creative and an excellent negotiator. And be a visionary – able to see beyond today and how things could be done better in the future.

These CIOs will come from anywhere and everywhere both within and outside of the traditional IT career path. People will move into and out of technology as they climb the ladder. IT leaders will still have to know technology, but the CIO 2.0 will fluctuate between IT and the business, becoming one of the most valuable players in the company.

To learn more about evolving your career as a CIO, or a future CIO, connect with your local Modis representative today.

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He or she can take charge in creating a paradigm shift to dramatically transform what can be an inadequate perception of the CIO role. How? By showing the organization how to best leverage IT to provide significant, strategic value to the enterprise.

1-877-MODIS IT I modis.com

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What Is A CIO? Their Evolving Job Description [White Paper]