It used to be that ‘back in the day’ a CIO typically rose from the ranks of techies, going
from T-shirts and jeans to join the suits around the boardroom table.
Even today, some CIOs achieve their less-than-envious position of bending technology to suit
the business needs of other c-level executives — many of whom have no idea that what they
are asking for is the equivalent of integration hara-kiri.
But most modern-day CIOs are increasingly finding themselves at the decision-making table.
They have become an equal partner to any other c-level executive, with an equal say in what
happens at their companies.
”We see this in spades at the leading corporations in America,” says Richard Brennen, a
partner and managing director of the IT Practice at the recruitment firm of Spencer Stuart.
”What you’re seeing in the CIO today, and going forward, is more of a general manager than
a technician. Today we’re just as likely to see somebody as CIO who never was a programmer
or never worked in a data center.”
Doreen Wright, the CIO of Campbell Soup, couldn’t agree more.
”Today and moving forward, the CIO has to be a business manager first,” she says. ”I
don’t think it’s critical to grow up within the technology industry. You have to understand
how to apply technology but you don’t have to have the depth of knowledge that you did five
years ago or 10 years ago.”
Although, Wright’s situation is not typical of CIOs everywhere — at least not yet.
Campbell’s Soup is a progressive company. Actually, in its industry, Campbell’s is a
leading-edge company when it comes to technology and the role IT plays in the company’s
future success, Wright notes. And unlike many of her peers at other U.S. companies, Wright
does not report to the CFO or the COO. She reports straight to the CEO.
This distinction is critical, says Bob Molnar, who runs a CIO recruiting practice for
Highland Partners. When a CIO reports to a CEO, that CIO tends to be viewed as an equal to
other c-levels in the company, says Molnar, who used to be a CIO at Viacom, as well as at
divisions of American Express, HSBC and MCI.
When the CIO reports to someone else, they tend to be viewed as the director of a cost
center for the company. Of course, none of this is written in stone, but it’s generally
accepted throughout the industry.
”That CIO has just as big a voice and just as big a vote as any other peer — CFO, head of
marketing, head of sales — on every single issue in that company,” says Molnar. ”They are
not just viewed as functional specialists at the table.”
The drivers of this change are many but technology itself seems to be the main culprit.
Off-the-shelf, enterprise-wide solutions, such SCM, ERP and CRM, have freed the CIO from
having to ride herd on a bunch of in-house programmers and allowed them to become active
participants in the decision-making process, according to Jeff Neuberth, managing director
at the recruitment firm of Hunt Howe Partners.
”CIOs have to understand the business and be a business person and a business partner, and
at the same time, they have to understand software and technology and how that can be
leveraged no longer to support the business but to actually drive it and give it an edge,”
he adds.
Wright’s last major in-house assignment was more than 10 years ago when she was charged with
developing a $50 million, multi-currency accounting package for a financial services
company. Today, Quicken’s QuickBooks can do the same thing.
Outsourcing so much requires CIOs to be better communicators and relationship managers,
which basically means they have to be better collaborators.
And, from a technology perspective, the common architecture mandated by linking internal
systems to the outside world means Wright can do things electronically much easier than ever
before. This frees her time for more of the activities more commonly associated with a
c-level executive.
”The skills the CIO needs today are different,” she says. ”You have to be excellent at
vendor management and vendor negotiation because you’re constantly brokering for third-party
systems. So, rather than having the technology team in-house, you have to be able to manage
the firm that is providing those resources.”
Going forward, skills generally associated with the CEO’s or CIO’s jobs are going to be
increasingly important to the CIO.
Brennen notes, What I like to tell people is that the IT agenda today is really the business
agenda of the company.”
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.