|
Going the Other Way |
It may be rare for a CEO to act as CIO, but going the other way isn't exactly common either. Ask Tatum partner Dan Gingras, who moved from CTO to CEO after the Internet startup he worked for lost its chief executive.
"I had spent lots of time over the prior year or two meeting with the board, going over the e-commerce statistics, including margin, marketing efforts, etc.," he recalls. "The board felt comfortable with me, so it wasn't much of a stretch."
Unfortunately, he notes, most CIOs don't get to present to the board -- and certainly not on a regular basis -- so there's almost zero chance that they'll get the opportunity to be considered for a CEO slot. Moreover, many CEOs are picked by search firms, which usually look for candidates who have already been chief executives.
"A search firm would never in a million recommend someone who never held the job before for an opening, much less a move from CIO to CEO," he observes. "The odds of someone making the leap are very, very slim. Too bad really, but I understand why a search firm would be reticent to recommend a CIO for a CEO slot. It takes a leap of imagination and the right person."
--M.Y.
|
An All-Business CIO
Every week, acting CIO Sartor holds a meeting with his IT directors, and for the next couple of hours they talk about the business. "How's the business doing?" he says. "That's what it's all about." Sartor had two reasons for not immediately replacing his CIO: He wanted to get to know his IT team members better, and he wanted them to learn more about the business.
"Our IT group is very talented," Sartor says, "certainly the strongest IT group I've worked with in my career. The one thing they need to improve on is the knowledge of the business, where they fit and the shedding of any belief they might have that they are a self-sustaining entity. We're not here to install fancy systems; we're here to make a profit. It's very important for me that IT understands its role."
After 20 years in IT, Hannah joined the company last year. He says the idea is to make the department more strategic. "The group is a little rough around the edges," he says. "A lot of times, IT takes more of a back-office, keep-the-lights-on role. Tech guys love the next whiz-bang product, but there needs to be an underlying business reason to deploy any new technology. Bob spends a lot of time mentoring us. We're getting a great education on the business. We very rarely talk technology." A CIO, he adds, should have a good grasp of the business as much as technology. "I'd argue that the CIO should be a business person first," Hannah says.
Sartor notes that he's also learning a lot about the team, although he never considered himself a stranger to IT since the department has reported to him for most of his 10 years at the company. "I had too narrow a view of our IT group," he says. "A single entry point really limited my ability to understand the team's capability. There are interrelationships in the IT team that are important."
And the CEO hopes that in turn the department is learning what its place in the organization should be. "When you're in a role that's not front-line operations, you need to live vicariously and revel in their victories," Sartor says. "That takes a lot of ego check. IT has to understand that when the retail organization wins, they win. We tend to get siloed in support functions, and it's important not to do that."
|
 |
|
|
