• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By silicon.com, 3 September 2003 16:30

COMMENT The CIO is a relatively recent role for IT executives in the context of a technology representative on the board. It came largely out of a growing acceptance from the mid-1990s that technology was becoming an increasingly central and key part of any business strategy. But the post dot-com crash in the technology industry and a re-examination of just what all that money invested in IT actually achieved means that today's CIOs, having finally made it to the board, must evolve again or face marginalisation. Those high-flying IT executives who have already made it to a CIO board position are playing on an uneven playing field. A leading headhunting firm told a story at a conference this week about a CEO who asked them to recruit a finance director who would have a very external-facing role and be a key advisor to the CEO. The CEO was prepared to pay the right person £300,000 and a 100 per cent bonus. But the same CEO called the headhunters in a few months later to recruit a CIO. The role he described was somewhat less exciting and more low-profile than the FD's and the key tasks involving fixing some mainframes and connecting some branch offices. The salary? £80,000 and a "10 or 20 per cent bonus". That's the depressing reality of how IT executives are viewed by CEOs. The lesson in this is that if CIOs don't become more business aware and don't make the effort to contribute to all aspects of the running of the company during board meetings then they are likely to end up being the quiet weird guy who sits in on board meetings and gets asked to explain why the email system was down for a couple of hours last week. Most CEOs are open-minded and any CIO who is able to intelligently contribute to discussions on various aspects of business strategy as well as exercising pragmatism and business judgement on a request from the IT department for a new £100m ERP system, is likely to make it into that boardroom 'inner sanctum'. The old cliché of aligning business needs with IT strategy is still flying around but now more than ever IT executives serious about not only making it onto the board but also exercising real influence there need a business head.