What qualities will the future CIO need?

The future chief infor­ma­tion offi­cer (CIO) is a busi­ness strate­gist, a dig­i­tal, data and tech­nol­o­gy vision­ary, a glob­al thought leader, a chief cus­tomer offi­cer and a tal­ent mas­ter. The role is to enlight­en, to delight, to share and enable through influ­ence. This indi­vid­ual is no longer the human inter­face to the back-office func­tion. Their job is to lead peo­ple through change as an enabler for growth. 

Core to this is a demand for CIOs to devel­op lead­er­ship capa­bil­i­ties across peo­ple, process­es and tech­nol­o­gy, themes that will enable them to future-proof their organ­i­sa­tions and equip them for resilience. To build that inno­v­a­tive stretch across their organ­i­sa­tion, CIOs need to address the nat­ur­al fear that accom­pa­nies change. This requires a range of qual­i­ties: enhanced emo­tion­al intel­li­gence that allows them to imple­ment time­ly tech­ni­cal deci­sions while also being tact­ful, sup­port­ive and trans­par­ent; and a mar­ket­ing mind­set they can har­ness to ensure authen­tic com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

In many busi­ness­es this is set against a back­drop of lim­it­ed bud­gets and head­count, user needs that are increas­ing­ly diverse and the chal­lenge of ever-evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy and cyber pos­ture. The future CIO must be aware of, and able to con­nect to, oppor­tu­ni­ties that fill gaps in the mar­ket and do it at pace. Meet­ing and exceed­ing these user needs requires teams and net­works that are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the mar­ket they serve: demo­graph­i­cal­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive, cul­tur­al­ly diverse, inclu­sive and always lis­ten­ing. 

Diver­si­ty enables inno­va­tion in think­ing and deliv­ery to enable solu­tions that pro­vide advan­tage tomor­row. Future CIOs must col­lec­tive­ly address dif­fer­ent approach­es to attract, grow and retain tal­ent, includ­ing those who are dig­i­tal­ly exclud­ed and lack the skills required for work. After a year where work-life bal­ance has been a focus, levers for team health are increas­ing­ly impor­tant. Future CIOs are hum­ble, authen­tic and recep­tive, open to col­lab­o­ra­tion and co-cre­ation, across depart­ments, tra­di­tion­al bound­aries and sec­tors. 

How can this be achieved? Through thought­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion. We must con­tin­ue both to uphold our respon­si­bil­i­ty to secure­ly man­age organ­i­sa­tion­al and per­son­al data, and also find ways to share infor­ma­tion to reduce fric­tion. These approach­es will increase pace, agili­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty for all.

The future CIO will con­stant­ly be eval­u­at­ing new tech­nolo­gies, threats and oppor­tu­ni­ties. These lead­ers will seam­less­ly trans­late this to busi­ness impact with met­rics, so the right organ­i­sa­tion­al deci­sions can be made. Organ­i­sa­tions that have grown over the past 12 months have deliv­ered ser­vices and prod­ucts at the right time, in the right place, using the right tech­nol­o­gy. These organ­i­sa­tions treat­ed CIOs as experts who are lis­tened to and trust­ed to cre­ate val­ue.

There are no longer tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. Every com­pa­ny is a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny. Com­pa­nies that have enabled tech­nol­o­gy skills and ways of work­ing across the wider organ­i­sa­tion will sus­tain progress. What is need­ed is agile deci­sion-mak­ing across organ­i­sa­tion-wide mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary teams, rethink­ing gov­er­nance to focus on process­es that mat­ter and adapt­ing invest­ment approach­es. 

Dig­i­tal con­fi­dence builds on skills. The abil­i­ty to use tools to think and cre­ate new ideas, as well as serv­ing users in the most per­son­alised and rel­e­vant way. The future CIO will be cen­tral to organ­i­sa­tions that con­tin­u­al­ly step for­ward across all these themes. The reach of this dig­i­tal con­fi­dence and moti­va­tion will spin out from an organ­i­sa­tion into the com­mu­ni­ties in which it oper­ates, sup­port­ing more users to have access to and build the skills they need for life and work.

Those who take rev­o­lu­tion­ary approach­es around the themes of peo­ple, process­es and tech­nol­o­gy, build­ing and reusing com­mon com­po­nents of think­ing and deliv­ery, these peo­ple will be the bench­mark of the future CIO.