How are challenges for CIOs at financial institutions different or harder than those in other industries? The biggest difference is dealing with regulatory requirements.They come into everything you do. It's not just dealing with the technology aspects. We also have to maintain compliance with other agencies.
What advice can you offer other CIOs on compliance? I think the one lesson I've learned is that you can't get access to data fast enough. You need to really review how you respond to requests for information. Find ways for getting information faster and better.
What is the best technology decision you've made since you've been a CIO? It's more of a philosophy -- that IT is a service, not an entity unto itself. It's the best long-term decision we've made. A lot of IT organizations sometimes look at their role as keeping systems up and maintaining applications. But if you say you provide a service, it still includes those things.
What other IT investments are you planning this year? We're looking at more areas of business software. From an IT perspective, open source and Linux stuff. We are currently running Linux on the mainframe for a number of our production applications.
--Karen Guglielmo
This was first published in August 2005