The Executive CIO: David Weymouth, ex-CIO Barclays

The executive CIO is generally the least technical of the four different types of CIO (paratrooper, consultant and professional being the other types) and is usually brought in by a boardroom deeply cynical about IT.

Brinley Platts, author of the CSC Leading Edge Forum research Building Effective Executive IT Teams and chairman of CIO Development.com, says: "They are brought in to ride shotgun."

David Weymouth, now 51 years old, stepped down as Barclays CIO last year and his career fits the typical profile of an executive CIO, having spent almost 30 years with the company in various non-IT executive roles before taking the top IT job.

With a degree in modern languages, Weymouth joined Barclays in 1977 as a generalist graduate management trainee and moved into the corporate banking division in the West End of London.

The language skills led to him being appointed COO of Barclays' Italian operations in 1985 with responsibility for running all IT, operations and a big change management programme for five years.

He says: "I had some pretty sound people around me and at that age you are pretty confident. Inevitably when you look back you are staggered that you were so confident. It is down to youthful arrogance."

Weymouth became a regional director in the South of England in 1990, lending money and getting it back - "conventional hard-nosed banking", as he calls it.

Then he was pulled into head office at Barclays working on redesigning credit risk, which involved automation and credit scoring, before being appointed CEO of Barclays' middle-market business serving medium-sized corporate customers.

After that came a big role as COO of the whole of Barclays' corporate banking unit - a £500m business.

He says: "I have gone backwards and forwards between profit and loss roles and back-office."

It wasn't until Matthew Barrett came in as Barclays CEO that the bank created a full-time CIO role but Weymouth put forward a proposal for it and, after competing against other candidates, was appointed in 2000.

Weymouth says: "I was not the best technologist on the block but I could build bridges. It had to be someone who had stature and respect to operate at that level and bring people together within the group."

Despite the lack of a technology background, Weymouth says it is important for the executive CIO to have a solid grasp of the area: "I don't think you can do a top functional job without being competent. You have got to know what's going on in the market and where developments are going but you don't need to know how to code."

But anyone with ambitions of being the CIO of a blue-chip company has to have some of the strengths of all the different types of CIO, according to Weymouth.

He says: "The reality is that if you are going to operate at the very top you have to exhibit the characteristics of all of them. You fill in the gaps by hiring consultants or bringing in technologists."

Weymouth stepped down as CIO at Barclays after five years and, following a short stint heading up corporate social responsibility, he has left the company and gone independent as a consultant and advisor on IT and operations at board executive level.