Information Week

Digital transformation has forever changed the role of the chief information officer, and the role continues to evolve. As a business leader, the CIO must not only collaborate with other departments but also prove the business value the IT department provides.  CIOs have changed the way they’re reporting value because boards and CEOs want to understand the dollar value of what they’re providing, not how many applications were written, for example. While traditional technology-centric metrics remain valuable for IT operations, in the bigger picture, business value is where it’s at.  CIOs are starting to realize that they have to act and operate more as businesspeople and less just as technologists, says Eric Johnson, CIO at digital operations management company PagerDuty. He adds that he has teams that are managing metrics and measuring the value of their individual functions, all the way down to the individual contributor. “But as a CIO, my first question is always, ‘What impact is this specific line item going to make?’”  Reporting is done quarterly, in tandem with business partners, with each team ranking the impact of their projects.   Johnson says that there’s a lot of close coordination with the business about what’s important for them. “Why should [those projects] be prioritized over other things?” he asks. He adds that it’s important to make sure that you have a good operating cadence and operating model around planning, so you can have the highest impact that’s most important to the business. “Real planning [also ensures] that you don’t end up working on urgent things that are unimportant, which is too often the case.”  Related:Organizations Every CIO Should Consider Joining Eric Johnson, PagerDuty Joe Locandro, global CIO, enterprise software support provider Rimini Street, made a point of measuring business value in 2008. He even developed some frameworks that would help him measure it.  “There are three main drivers to value. The first is reducing risk — technical debt, systems outages, and cyber risks. The second category is about operational efficiency and lowering the cost to serve, which requires data and analytics,” says Locandro. “The third one is innovation, [such as] using technology to create value by creating new customer journeys or experiences through mobile apps, B2B customer portals, and lately AI and agentic workflows, which really is a paradigm shift in the way enterprises [and] customers interact in the ecosystem.” He adds that it’s true innovation, because it creates new market segments with products that weren’t there in the past.  Related:Former CISO of Costco, Disney, and Now Exec at Axonius Talks CISO Strategies KPIs and Monitoring Are Key  Though boards and CEOs want to understand the monetary value IT drives, not all value is quantifiable, and not all value derived is cash based. That’s why Rimini Street’s Locandro measures both cash and non-cash benefits.  According to Locandro, value measurement makes the business more disciplined when thinking about the opportunity cost of capital. “You can spend $10 million more on marketing, supply chain optimization, or an IT project, because there’s finite capital in the organization. When you have a CIO with a seat at the executive table who can argue that for every dollar he receives the business will get $1.30 or $1.80 in return, other leaders such as from marketing or production must do the same thing [when competing for budget].”  Early on, Locandro mapped metrics over quarters and years, so he could show the cost/benefit ratio using a Boston grid. One axis was value (low to high). The other was strategic (upper right-hand corner) and compliance (lower right-hand corner).  Locandro says that when you map your portfolio over one, three, or five years, you can see if the investment is moving up the quadrants or still stuck in that same quadrant. It gives an indication of its maturity or the view of it in that organization. “Every company I’ve gone into, when I first get there, I look at the roadmaps [and] reports. It’s all about activity, how busy they are, but what’s the outcome? Changing from activity reporting to outcomes reporting is a paradigm shift. CIOs today must be just as financially and business proficient as technically proficient to understand the cost/benefit ratios and opportunity cost of capital.”  Related:Digitalization — Is It Time for Humans to Intervene? Focus on Outcome Versus Output  Orla Daly, CIO at corporate enterprise learning company Skillsoft, reminds her team often that outcomes are more important than output, so instead of reporting in terms of project delivery, they’re reporting on progress made on the expected impact.  “As we think about our transformation initiatives, there are KPIs set at the beginning which could be around productivity enhancements but also can be more aligned to drive better customer experience, increase revenue, etc.,” says Daly.   Daly says that they have their own operational metrics that are more standard activities around uptime and automation. “We have a dashboard that allows us to see the number of hours we saved through automation, or risk reduction.”  Orla Daly, Skillsoft Marco Bill, CIO at open-source solutions provider Red Hat also makes a point of working closely with the business to define and track business outcomes. He says that instead of just looking at IT metrics in isolation, they work closely with the business to identify key areas where technology can drive tangible improvements. “For example, a significant measure for us is order cycle time. By optimizing our systems and processes, we aim to reduce the time it takes from a customer placing an order to its fulfillment, directly impacting customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. This allows us to clearly demonstrate how our IT initiatives contribute to the organization’s strategic goals.”  Bill meets with business stakeholders to share transparent, data-driven reports that clearly articulate the following:  The IT initiatives undertaken  What IT did to impact the outcome  Benefits to the business, such as a rising customer satisfaction score, improved on-time delivery rates and how those things contributed to increased revenue and/or reduced operational costs.  “These QBRs serve as a

As trade discussions continue with the international community, the US’s doubled tariffs on aluminum and steel went into effect on June 4. Tech leaders now must navigate a confusing landscape where drastic shifts in trade policy could make it harder to procure hardware, perhaps one day software, their organizations need. Further tariffs loom like a Sword of Damocles, though it is unclear what else might take effect or be rescinded under the Trump Administration. Tsvi Gal, head of enterprise technology services, digital informatics and technology solutions, technology division, for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, says it is hard to tell what may be affected the most — medical devices, new drugs, or other areas — in this mercurial climate. “We are in the period of uncertainty and that’s the biggest issue,” he says. “There’s the medical devices themselves, and of course it depends where are they are manufactured, by whom, and so on, but also what are the components that make them.” For example, he says, optics are made in one factory, and then assembled in another place, meaning device development could take place across multiple nations, which may or may not mean confusion on how they might be tariffed. “We don’t know yet under which category the tariffs will happen.” Related:Organizations Every CIO Should Consider Joining Theoretically, Gal says, tariffs could affect all of the categories above. “Basically, it could be a major increase in the cost, again depending on the countries where it’s coming from, and so on and so forth. The question is whether you calculate the cost when you submit it to the US or the cost in the US.” He explains that depending how and where it is calculated, tariffs might not affect the US margin, but only the price sold into the US — maybe. “I don’t have a better answer because we just honestly don’t know,” he says. “But that’s just for the medical devices.” Data, Agentic AI, and the Supply Chain The back-and-forth on tariffs has the potential to disrupt many sectors, but visibility into the supply chain might staunch some of the pain. Kevin O’Marah, co-founder and chief research officer at Zero100, whose expertise lies in supply chain and technology, says resilience is a key focus of the moment at the highest level. “How do I be resilient with that change? From a technology perspective, it always ends up settling into data. Where is the data? How can I trust the data?” When confronted with uncertainty, such as the unknowns of tariffs, switching to alternate resources to avoid higher costs might help, but it can be a difficult and slow process, he says. “These are machines, and vehicles, and containers,” O’Marah says. “They can’t just be moved at lightspeed.” He says professionals in the supply chain try to know where goods are in order to try to get ahead of the anticipated escalation of prices. This can mean turning to data lakes to know where equipment and other resources in the supply chain are, he says. “That’s the way to deal with gaps in the standard flow of materials in the supply chains…That applies to a spare part for a bulldozer; it applies to medicine or an item within a hospital — can I track it down?” Related:Former CISO of Costco, Disney, and Now Exec at Axonius Talks CISO Strategies RFID and other unit-level tracking systems could help with this, he says, as long as the data is consolidated and visible. O’Marah also says the use of agentic AI can be useful on the data front when it comes to addressing potential supply chain issues. “The use of agents to ingest very unstructured data and blend it with structured data has suddenly become really valuable.” Many Moving Parts With technology manufactured in China and other places, it can be tricky to predict what might be affected in the tech supply chain. “So American companies still manufacture major parts of their devices elsewhere,” Gal says. “For example, when there was a shortage of GPUs about a year ago, year and a half ago, it was mainly because of the optical components.” Heavy reliance on China to manufacture those components meant a slowdown from just one country could have broad impact. Related:Digitalization — Is It Time for Humans to Intervene? According to iData Research, some 69% of medical devices marketed within the US are made overseas, That includes China being the source for about 14% of medical devices. Even homegrown medical devices could be affected, given that steel is a material in numerous medical devices. Based on iData Research’s findings, the US imported some $14.9 billion in medical equipment as of May 2024, though it is unclear how much of that would be hit by tariffs. There is potential for something similar to occur with medical devices, Gal says, depending on what the tariffs affect. “Is it the full device or the component? Most likely it will be the full device, because otherwise it’s very hard to follow the trail of where every component is being created,” he says. “But in that case the device themselves could be either assembled outside of the US, then shipped to the US, or they can be assembled in the US.” Such distinctions could make a lot of difference depending on what is included in the language of potential tariffs, from minimal percentages to greater extremes. “Again, we don’t know,” Gal says. “It’s more of a wait and see … I don’t even know if the distributors, the companies that actually distribute both medical devices and the IT devices, know at this point. I think that’s part of the concern.” Necessary Devices There is the potential for tariffs to drive prices up sharply on devices that will be needed no matter what. That may lead to decisive discussions, Gal says. “How much does the patients pay? The HMOs? Everybody will try to take this hot potato and throw it to the next one, but we don’t

With the cloud, AI, and other growing technologies challenging CIOs’ knowledge and management skills, it’s more important than ever to stay on top of emerging trends. Whether it’s providing cost transparency, optimizing budgeting, or showing ITs productivity and revenue value, CIOs need to prove clear returns on their technology investments.  Successful CIOs know that networking with colleagues to gain advice and insights on critical issues is a great way to achieve long-term career success. The fastest and easiest way to network with colleagues is to join a professional organization. Here’s a look at five organizations CIOs should consider joining to boost both their IT knowledge and industry connections.  The TBM Council  The non-profit TBM Council provides resources and community participation to help CIOs meet the increasing challenge of demonstrating critical business value. The council functions as a free, global organization offering tools and best practices to help CIOs align with technology, finance, and business leaders. By providing access to training, certifications, and a community of peers facing similar challenges, the TBM Council’s goal is to help CIOs make data-driven decisions and effectively communicate the value of their work.  Related:Former CISO of Costco, Disney, and Now Exec at Axonius Talks CISO Strategies “TBM enabled us to unify financial and operational data to create a model of IT costs based on a standard taxonomy for cost categorization,” says Susan White, CIO at the BMO Bank of Montreal. ”This allowed the company to move away from spreadsheets, adopting TBM industry-leading allocation rules that no longer relied on assumptions to allocate spend,” she adds. ”We categorized costs into meaningful cost grouping — applications, end-user devices, processes, etcetera — and presented the information in one place. ”  The CIO Professional Network  Established by a former CIO, the CIO Professional Network is a member-driven, member-led, and member-supported community of technology executives seeking ways to network, learn, mentor, and grow in a private, trusted environment.  The organization states that its mission is to offer members a professional network crafted exclusively for technology leaders, providing access to resources that foster meaningful connections within a vibrant, vendor-free community. It adds that members can tap into a rich source of industry-leading insights and collaborative opportunities that are designed to keep CIOs ahead in the fast-paced world of technology leadership.  The CIO Professional Network provides peer-driven insights, case studies, and real-time strategy alignment with other top-level IT leaders, says Jared Bauman, CEO of marketing agency 201 Creative. “Its access to practical, executive-level conversations is unmatched.”  Related:Digitalization — Is It Time for Humans to Intervene? ISACA  ISACA offers a collaborative environment, via local organizations, that allows CIOs to connect to peers and create friendships within the IS/IT community. “It’s a professional network of those with similar interests who collectively support one another to overcome the complexities and challenges that many IS/IT professionals deal with on a daily basis,” says Tony Anscombe, chief cybersecurity evangelist at security technology provider ESET. “The ISACA events are intimate and bring in industry expertise to educate and discuss current topics, providing the opportunity to directly engage and have open meaningful conversations.”  Sponsored by the well-known IT research firm, the Gartner CIO Community aims to connect CIOs into a series of curated events. Gartner promises a highly personalized networking experience with relevant regional insights. “It combines exclusive research with one-on-one analyst access, giving CIOs tailored, high-level support to make strategic decisions quickly and confidently,” Bauman says.  Related:4 Ways Technical Leaders Can Build Smart in Lean Times With 34 branches scattered worldwide, serving over 3,600 CIOs, The Gartner CIO community brings together IT leaders with diverse experiences, backgrounds, and industry classifications. Through peer sharing and collaboration, CIOs from the world’s leading enterprises can share innovative ideas, exchange best practices, contribute forward-looking perspectives, and address critical issues at the forefront of technology. Each community is organized by region and led by C-level experts offering members easy and regular access to enterprise peers.  The MIT Center for Information Systems Research  The MIT Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR) serves as a research center in the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT CISR helps CIOs and other IT executives meet the challenge of leading increasingly digital- and data-driven organizations. Established in 1974, MIT CISR aims to help CIOs meet the challenge of leading dynamic, global, and information-intensive organizations. Through research, teaching, and events, the center also works to stimulate interaction between IT executives, scholars, students, and other relevant individuals.  MIT CISR also aims to help CIOs gain insights into how organizations can effectively realize value from approaches such as digital business transformation, data monetization, business ecosystems, and digital workplaces.  source

Companies have long regarded digitalization as a means to automate operations and eradicate human error, but are we starting to see an inverse truth?  Poorly integrated systems force customers to iteratively reenter information as they get routed from station to station in a phone call.  Automated billing systems bill twice.  Chat functions take you down paths of no return when all you wanted was a simple answer.  When these things happen, systems get blamed and so does IT.  How can CIOs change digital projects so that both humans and digital automation can take their best steps forward?  1. Reimagine digital project engineering so it includes usability  When we think about digital project engineering, the goal is to design hardware and software and ensure that these components fit together into a cohesive system. The focus is on the technical, with only secondary attention being paid to the human usability of the project.   Assumptions going into a digital project are that it is naturally going to make life easier for users and save money for the company, yet consultancies like McKinsey say that there is a 70% failure rate for digital projects.  One contributing factor to digital project failure is usability. Usability problems show up in the excessive abandon rates of automated phone attendants, in websites that have complicated chats, or in internal business process automation that renders everyday work to become more, not less, complex.  Related:Organizations Every CIO Should Consider Joining All of these undesirable outcomes can be avoided if digital project engineering includes human usability upfront.  2. Implement human factors engineering  A jet plane quality assurance expert at a major manufacturer recently explained to me that when jet planes are designed, quality assurance engineers include detailed check-outs of the logistics and instrumentation of the cockpit. The goal is to make flying the plane as intuitive and as easy as possible for pilots. Safety is one goal. Efficiency, effectiveness and usability are others.  Digital project managers can learn from this. They can start by inserting human factors engineering into project design, QA and implementation plans. The questions that should be asked by the project team are: Is an application easy and straightforward to use? Are all field names labeled, self-explanatory, and understandable? Does the flow of each transaction make good business sense? Is screen navigation easy and intuitive? If a user needs help, is a help function available that is populated with relevant information?  Related:Former CISO of Costco, Disney, and Now Exec at Axonius Talks CISO Strategies 3. Perform rigorous exception testing  Human creativity is limitless — and so are the ways that different groups of users use applications. It’s usually the job of the IT QA group and a handful of end users to test and trial run a system before the system goes live. The focus is on finding and resolving technical bugs and glitches. However, the actual usability of an application is seldom on QA checklists — nor are the exceptions to processing that can occur when a broad cross section of humans coming from different environments and experiences begin to use the system. An example is the project team in Philadelphia that designs a system but doesn’t think about the rural customer who lives at a physical address but only gets their mail at a P.O. Box in town. The customer tries to enter their P.O. Box in the billing address field of an online application and gets an error. Why? Because no one in QA thought about the processing exception of an individual having a PO Box for mail and a physical address for where they live.  4. Use a software continuous release methodology for system usability, fixes and enhancements    Even if your QA process is thorough and mindful of all of the exceptions to processing that must be tested, there will still be areas that are overlooked. New software enhancements are also continuously occurring. To keep up with this constant rate of change, which should also include human usability improvements, it’s a sound practice to issue continuous releases of software changes, provided that the changes are thoroughly tested first.  Related:4 Ways Technical Leaders Can Build Smart in Lean Times 5. When feasible, use an Agile development methodology on digital projects  Not all systems and applications are a “fit” for Agile software development, but projects that can be developed with Agile have a jump on usability because humans from diverse areas of the company are continuously interacting with each other during the project build and test phases of a system. These continuous human interactions do not supplant the need to perform extensive exception testing for what human might do, but they do bring the human usability aspect of IT projects into play sooner than they would in traditional software waterfall development, which focuses almost exclusively on technical performance.  Four years ago, the IEEE stated, “Digitalization has greatly facilitated many areas of life and life without it is almost unthinkable today, [but it] should also be considered in which situations digitalization has made life more difficult for modern society.”  When customers can’t get easy answers and users experience fatal errors when trying to process the exceptions that occur in any business, digitalization isn’t working.   CIOs and project leads can rectify this situation by paying more rigorous attention to the human usability of systems.    source

Today’s CIOs move faster than their predecessors given the ever-increasing speed of business and technology innovation. In addition, what’s happening on the geopolitical stage is changing — sometimes intra-daily — creating uncertainty and complicating everything from planning and strategy to evaluation and execution.   “What we see with our clients [and] our work inside our company are things that we cannot control like tariffs and changes to decisions on countries you can and cannot operate from. [These decisions] are happening at alarming frequency with no control,” says Niranjan Ramsunder, UST Niranjan Ramsunder, CTO at digital transformation solutions company UST.  “For example, you find that one day a decision is [made]. Next day it is rolled back. The third day it is coming back. The fourth day it is reduced in impact. Most of our clients’ approach is, ‘Let’s take a breath.’ Maybe we’ll lose some temporary margins, but there is no change of business model until we get clarity about where [the situation] stabilizes.”  Other CIOs are trying to conserve cash as much as possible because they can’t anticipate what’s coming. That can be a death sentence when it comes to smaller businesses.  Bigger companies can weather that storm for some time, Ramsunder says, adding that companies don’t change their prices quickly; they don’t change their services quickly; they don’t change their sourcing of items and services quickly, [and] they are waiting for things to happen. “So the first response to the volatility is, ‘Let us see where it ends. Let me not make any big decision right now. Let me conserve cash. Let me not do a project that completely reimagines my business and let me just see whether I can hold on [to] what I have for some more time and survive because the innovative companies burning cash are struggling.’” Related:Organizations Every CIO Should Consider Joining Because of the current geopolitical climate, UST is being impacted by restrictions on travel visas, and there is concern about whether employees will be stopped at airports.  “All those things are day-to-day issues that are bothering us. That is addressed by let’s wait and see where it goes,” says Ramsunder.  Samir Datt, global technology strategy and architecture leader at global consulting firm Protiviti, also sees hesitation among CIOs when it comes to hiring. On one hand, they want to staff up, and on the other, they’re facing a skills shortage best addressed by variable staffing. Meanwhile, they’re delaying the start date of some projects.  “As a consulting organization, we’re talking about a project that we’re going to help with, and then we’re asked to wait one more month before we start so everything is in order. And then, let’s wait a few more weeks,” says Datt. “Then we start, and there’s a pause for some reason. Similarly on technology purchases, be that a major system implementation or hardware to support it or move to the cloud. There’s that emphasis and more scrutiny on the business value. There’s [also] the question of what happens if we wait. How much longer can we continue the way we are and just see where things shake out in the market?”  Related:Former CISO of Costco, Disney, and Now Exec at Axonius Talks CISO Strategies Samir Datt, Protiviti During the pandemic, many organizations ran Monte Carlo simulations so they could be prepared for several different scenarios. So, instead of having a Plan B, companies had many plans (B, C, D, E, etc.). The unusually high frequency of change in 2025 is proving more difficult to navigate, however.  “Our ability to respond at speed has become the crucial differentiator,” says Ramsunder. “My biggest learning is that my organization is ready to turn on a dime and really respond quickly to those changes, [but] there’s no way I can predict and prepare and be ready, because what we’re doing may be completely different from what we have to do.”  Pandemic Lessons Learned Can Help Now  Related:Digitalization — Is It Time for Humans to Intervene? BlackLine CIO Sumit Johar says the current geopolitical situation is disrupting access to hardware, software, and skill sets, but that organizations are better prepared to navigate the current uncertainty than they were when COVID hit.  “A lot of individuals and companies that I know, are far more prepared this time than they were [during] the COVID time in terms of having the diversity of skill sets and suppliers,” says Johar. “At times I hear about laptops getting stuck at Customs or something that we ordered is taking much longer, but the diversification we built over time is allowing us to at least move things around and run our business. So far, it’s been manageable thanks to all the lessons we learned during COVID times, but you never know. Things are moving so fast, we’re just keeping fingers crossed that it does not get worse.”  When the pandemic hit, CIOs and other leaders were forced to revisit the basics of how to structure their organizations, and the lessons were clear: Organizational structure affects risk, as does the structure of partner relationships.  “You cannot have a single point of dependencies. The diversification we built in the last three or four years since COVID is helping us right now,” says Johar. “My team is far more geographically distributed than it was five years back. The same goes with my supplier landscape. I have more than one supplier for everything I do.”  Meanwhile, Blackline is constantly reevaluating in the context of today’s hyper volatility, and Johar participates in CIO councils, which he considers very important.  Sumit Johar, BlackLine “When it comes to changing dynamics, [such as] AI and driving innovation, there are several things that people like me are dealing with right now. There is an impact on how you hire people, staffing, how to structure your organization,” says Johar. “There is an impact on risk. I’m also responsible within my organization for managing the risk of data, privacy and security, and AI is bringing a new dimension to that risk. It’s

In today’s uncertain economic environment, enterprise CIOs and CTOs are under tremendous pressure to do more with less. Budgets are tightening. R&D spend is under scrutiny. Hiring freezes mean teams must be stretched further. Add in the disruption and promise of AI, and technical leaders are operating in an environment that demands boldness, innovation, and speed.  Despite today’s headwinds, the mission of technical leaders remains unchanged. They still must scale transformative initiatives, deliver measurable business value, and keep their organizations nimble and resilient. The key lies in striking the right balance between innovation and efficiency, making smarter “build vs buy” decisions, and organizing for AI-driven productivity without sacrificing long-term progress.  Know What Matters and What Doesn’t  In economic downturns, technical debt can quietly become your biggest liability. CEOs don’t want to hear about tech debt. They want outcomes. That’s why ruthless prioritization and good hygiene are critical. Focus on what matters most and say no to anything that doesn’t directly tie to business value.  That doesn’t translate to trading quality for quantity. Reserve that mindset only for early-stage proofs of concept. Focus on fewer, more impactful projects that align with strategic priorities. Every new tool or process should pass the litmus test of solving a real business problem while integrating logically, scaling sustainably, and delivering value in a measurable way. Identify and prioritize near-term wins that drive clear business value, like those that improve reliability, reduce cost, and unlock growth.  Related:Organizations Every CIO Should Consider Joining The key is treating your roadmap like an investment portfolio. Resilience is created by a diversified blend of essential maintenance, incremental improvements, and long-term innovation.   Balance the Now and the Next  Rather than shelving innovation during lean times, technical leaders should rebalance. Identify and prioritize near-term wins that drive clear business value, but don’t abandon foundational investments like modernization and infrastructure upgrades. If the business case still holds, find a sustainable way to keep making progress, even if it’s at a slower pace.  Technical leaders should also improve productivity by finding what makes the company more efficient and the product improvements more agile. This means doing the right work in the right way and with the right people. In today’s world, that requires a framework to experiment with AI and apply what you learn quickly, and a team that’s trained and empowered to use AI tools, such as code generation, AIOps, observability and more.   Related:Former CISO of Costco, Disney, and Now Exec at Axonius Talks CISO Strategies Your customers won’t wait for you. If you go dark while a competitor finds ways to deliver more value, you risk losing market share and credibility.   Double Down on Developer Efficiency and Smart Partnering  Be strategic about what your team builds. When the lift is light, the team can learn, or if the capability is a core differentiator, building is advantageous. Otherwise, keep a bias towards buying, especially when speed matters. Buying not only can increase time-to-value but also give you leverage by freeing up teams to focus on what only your organization can uniquely do. Moreover, buying also helps with learning cheaply for an eventual build as you learn more about the problem complexity and your needs.  Make thoughtful choices about where to invest your team’s energy and where external partners can accelerate your goals. Build only when it gives you a lasting competitive edge. Otherwise, buy and customize to get value faster.   Technical leaders should also avoid long-term vendor lock-in during times of budgetary scrutiny and rapid technological change. Technology changes every few months. Choose partners that give you short-term wins and long-term options. The best ones will evolve with you and help you pilot new approaches quickly without big commitments. Look for composability, flexibility, and transparency.  Related:Digitalization — Is It Time for Humans to Intervene? Define the Future, and Build an Organization That Gets You There  The structure of your organizational design should follow your company’s strategy. Start with a clear vision of your future-state organization, then work backwards. If AI will change how your product works or how value is delivered, your squad structures should reflect that. Be prepared to reshape teams, roles and processes ahead of the change you are seeking   It’s also important to show up through strong leadership. Create clarity and protect focus. Make sure your team knows their work is essential and show them the impact they’re making. Celebrating wins is equally important as rapid experimentation and agility.  My team recently led a full-scale platform modernization while maintaining our legacy system. This wasn’t just a migration; it was a balancing act of speed, continuity and quality that required what I consider a heroic effort. Engineers were stretched thin across systems, racing to deliver business outcomes while building for the future.  This experience proved it’s all about the people. You need high-caliber IT and engineering leaders who can drive forward under pressure and make the hard calls. The right talent makes efficiency and innovation possible simultaneously.  The CIO or CTO who wins in times of economic uncertainty is the one who focuses the most on value, velocity, and vision. Technical leaders should emerge with a sharper team, a more resilient platform, and a stronger sense of purpose. Prioritize well, invest wisely, and keep building.    source

Regardless of where you are in your career, AI is likely changing how you work and will likely continue to do so at an accelerating pace for the rest of your working life. To adapt to these changes, make the most of AI’s possibilities, and ensure workers have the skills they need to thrive. Organizations should revive and reimagine mentorship so employees at all stages of their careers can benefit.  It’s not that workers, by and large, are afraid of AI. A recent Deloitte survey reveals how both early-stage and experienced workers are adapting to this technology. According to the survey, over 80% of both early career and older workers say that AI has improved the quality of their work.   However, AI is impacting younger and older workers differently, and each needs different kinds of learning experiences to adapt to and thrive in an AI-driven world.   Consider how AI is increasingly automating the very foundational tasks from which early career workers learn and gain experience, for example, preparing reports, analyzing simple data sets, and note-taking in meetings. In the past, new hires gained experience and confidence by gradually taking on responsibility in a supportive, task-driven environment. With AI’s ability to perform many of these foundational tasks, early career workers need more support than ever in gaining the foundational experience and skills needed to develop and grow.   Related:How CIOs Are Navigating Today’s Hyper Volatility On the other hand, many tenured workers want a clear roadmap for learning how AI can improve their work quality and efficiency today. They need to learn how to infuse AI into their everyday work and use it to help guide their decision-making.  Luckily, early career and tenured workers have an excellent solution to these skills challenges — each other. Reimagining the mentorship relationship could mean that each group can teach the other critical skills.  Done correctly, it’s an effective solution to a very real challenge. But at the moment, both early career and experienced employees say they struggle to find the right mentorship opportunities. According to Deloitte’s survey, less than a third of early career workers have either formal or informal mentors, and only a fourth of tenured workers say they do.  The AI Generation Gap  Not surprisingly, the survey found that younger workers feel more comfortable with AI than older workers. In fact, one person interviewed said AI was “that first person you ask before going to a manager” for advice on a variety of topics.  Other findings from the survey underscore this age difference:  Related:The Top Nightmares Keeping CIOs Awake at Night 83% of early career workers use AI tools in their jobs, compared to 68% of tenured workers.  77% of early career workers believe AI will help them move up in their careers, compared to 56% of tenured workers.  As remote and hybrid work continues, there have been fewer opportunities for hands-on training and experiential learning, which has limited early career workers’ ability to acquire foundational skills. These include communication and emotional intelligence. For some, AI is compounding that problem. According to the survey, 28% of early career workers report having fewer opportunities for on-the-job learning due to AI, compared with 19% of tenured employees.  Since AI will likely supplant at least some early-stage skills that are (or were) fundamental to learning and building a career, like compiling economic and financial trends data, making pitch decks or spreadsheets comparing company valuations, early career workers need new ways to build the experience and skills needed to develop and grow.    The Positive Results of Two-Way Mentorship   In two-way mentorship programs, tenured workers teach their younger colleagues interpersonal “soft” skills that will help them be better teammates and develop leadership skills. (These skills are in demand — 38% of early career workers say they want to learn to communicate better, for example.) Mentorship programs have been shown to reduce skills gaps, and younger workers get to experiment in a safe setting.  Related:CTO Daniel Blanchard on Overseeing Tech Strategy for Several Hotel Chains On the other side, tech-savvy younger workers can help tenured employees learn the AI skills they need to blossom later in their careers.  (This is especially necessary since tenured workers are more likely to prioritize leadership development over improving their AI skills.)  When combining their experience with newfound AI savvy, older workers can better determine things like the most appropriate AI investments in their organization, how best to train workers, and how to improve productivity and deepen business insights.   Rebalancing Knowledge for a Changing Era  In an organization that endeavors to develop both tech and human skills, AI power users will gain the skillsets needed to advance their careers and their company’s AI efforts. While the two-way mentorship model is unconventional — at the moment — it could become the norm as more organizations adapt their workforces to ever-changing realities.   Consider a two-way mentorship model to keep your talent adaptable and prepared as technology continues to change how we work.  source

It’s bad enough that many CIOs experience relentless stress during work hours. Some leaders are also unlucky enough to drag stress into their sleep time, resulting in disturbing nightmares.  In a survey of 1,750 working US adults in the conducted by Each Night, a sleep resource platform, more than three-fifths of workers reported having a nightmare about their jobs. CIOs are no exception.  How does nighttime stress affect CIOs, and how do restless nights impact their work performance? Here’s how three leaders cope, and in most cases, learn from, their nightmares.  Ann Funai  My nightmare — and surely the No. 1 nightmare of most CIOs — would be flubbing anything related to regulations or revenue, says Ann Funai, CIO and vice president of business platforms transformation at IBM. “There’s also enormous pressure now to move fast with the latest-and-greatest in AI systems, but many important systems have been running safely and securely for decades, and any CIO whose ‘modernizations’ disrupt that will incur the wrath of the business and market.”  Funai notes that in corporate IT, the word “fast” is rapidly becoming weaponized. “Things are going faster and faster, and it’s still never enough,” she explains. Yet, for Funai, that can actually be a fun part of the job, exploring new technologies and business approaches. She warns, however that that there are still times when precision is what’s needed most, and when moving fast may actually lead to legal or other problems.  Related:CTO Daniel Blanchard on Overseeing Tech Strategy for Several Hotel Chains A good CIO lives with one foot in technology and the other in business, Funai says. “My nightmares help remind me of that.” She observes, for instance, that there are still many areas where AI can be used to free-up time, accelerate outcomes, and experiment. “Let’s call that ‘fun risk’” Funai says. “Yet in other key areas the acceptable amount of risk is zero, and we absolutely shouldn’t be trying new tech unless we know the systems, culture, and validation, and are all collectively ready for it.”  Carter Busse  Carter Busse, CIO at cloud integration platform provider Workato, admits to having nightmares about artificial intelligence. “With adoption on the rise, a nightmare that keeps me up is employees using non-sanctioned AI tools and unintentionally feeding sensitive data into unauthorized LLMs without understanding the risks,” he explains.  Something that consistently wakes Busse up at night are increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks. During daylight hours, he sees a consistently growing number of attacks, many attributable to AI. “These phishing attacks leave businesses increasingly exposed,” Busse states. “AI has lowered the barrier for bad actors to launch convincing attacks, and it’s happening constantly.”  Related:Why Companies Need to Reimagine Workplace Mentorship in the Age of AI In Busse’s nightmares, as in real life, threats target his organization’s most vulnerable entry point: people. “A well-crafted phishing email to someone in finance could lead to a fraudulent wire transfer or, worse yet, unauthorized access to our production systems,” he explains. “Even if you’re not a high-profile target, a single misstep could bring your operations down, and the business with it.”  A steadily growing number of risks, as well as nightmares, are pushing Busse to evolve. “We’re investing in AI-driven, data-triggered automation that can detect suspicious behavior and respond instantly, such as shutting down access when phishing is detected,” he says. “We’re also focused on applying the SOAR framework — Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response — to proactively manage threats using our platform.”  Mike Vance  Mike Vance, is a veteran CIO, having served in the role at Steak ‘n Shake, handbag designer Vera Bradley, and Matilda Jane Clothing. “Market uncertainty is something we’re all dealing with right now,” he says. “As a CIO, you’re constantly wondering what’s coming next and how it’ll impact your organization.”  Related:Tech Leadership Questions Potential Impact of Tariffs on Healthcare Many technology professionals feel like they’re in a holding pattern, Vance says. “Meanwhile they’re missing real opportunities to make their operations better and more efficient, inadvertently overlooking opportunities to optimize variables within their sphere of influence.”  But there’s a bright side, too. “Uncertainty can actually be the perfect time to step back and ask, ‘What can I control here?’,” Vance explains. He suggests focusing on cleaning up current processes, improving efficiency, and making your team more agile. “By concentrating on controllable factors, CIOs can position their organizations for flexibility and resilience even in the midst of uncertainty.” And, therefore, will likely sleep better at night.  source

Daniel Blanchard says he was a “typical tech geek” at the beginning of his career at Boeing, where he was manager of systems administration. There he worked on programs for the Army, Navy, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  These days he’s chief technology officer at IHG Hotels & Resorts, where he leads the vision and strategy for an organization with more than 6,000 hotels globally. They include InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. As CTO, he ensures that technology runs well with service-level agreements and tracking other metrics. Prior to IHG, he spent more than 25 years in IT business management, strategy, transformation, architecture governance, and program management.  “As you would expect, there are similarities and differences between running technology for an airline and a hospitality company,” Blanchard says. “On one hand, both organizations leverage solutions for reservation systems, loyalty systems, operational systems, and so on. And both organizations’ technology strategies focus on providing systems and support for travelers and for colleagues to help them keep the business up and running.”  In an email interview, Blanchard talks about his career as a tech leader and his strategies on everything from cloud migration to maintaining agility and a growth mindset.  Related:The Top Nightmares Keeping CIOs Awake at Night From Transportation to Hospitality  Blanchard has worked in multiple industries, from airlines to manufacturing to government and hospitality.  Before IHG, Blanchard worked at Delta Air Lines as vice president for IT infrastructure and reliability. He led IT reliability transformation across Delta worldwide. Before that, he worked for more than 20 years at Marriott International.  “At Delta, I always took very seriously the role I played in helping people travel for big life events like an interview for a new job, a business opportunity, a relative’s graduation, or a long-saved trip of a lifetime,” Blanchard says. “The trust people put in us to get them where they needed to be inspired me to do my best to provide high reliability and consistent IT services to get them there.”  Throughout his career, Blanchard has taken an interest in planning and control systems, from defense contracting to mission-critical IT management in airlines and now the relationship management and strategic deployment of the advanced technology in hospitality.  “All are great industries and challenges filled with opportunities to learn and be a better leader,” Blanchard says. “I really would not change my experience working in a variety of industries for anything.”  Related:Why Companies Need to Reimagine Workplace Mentorship in the Age of AI Overseeing the Tech of Multiple Hotel Chains  Blanchard supports more than 100 applications globally throughout IHG. He started at the company in February 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the world. He oversaw the tech strategy for the company’s hotel chains during the health crisis.   Recently Blanchard oversaw IHG’s cloud migration, moving the organization’s entire environment to the cloud. He was mindful to complete the work at a pace that keeps guests and owners happy. Now he’s worked on rolling out IHG’s Guest Reservation System and Revenue Management System to the organization’s hotels globally.  Dan Blanchard “I can’t tell you how proud it makes me when a potential owner actually wants to migrate to our technology because they can see the value to their business,” Blanchard says. “That is a great feeling.”  These days, Blanchard is busy overseeing control metrics that keep IHG running smoothly. Some of the metrics are industry standard, and others he and his team have developed over the years.  “While these metrics are critical, the most important thing I’ve found is to have a single person responsible for each of them — whether they are control metrics (where a more junior member of the staff may be accountable) or results metrics (where one of my direct reports will lead),” Blanchard explains. “Sometimes there are inputs and dependencies that are out of an individual team member’s control. But in a dynamic and fast-paced environment like the hospitality industry, a clear and single accountability model is critical to developing leaders who understand how to navigate these difficult situations while still achieving the overall objective.”  Related:Tech Leadership Questions Potential Impact of Tariffs on Healthcare At IHG, Blanchard has instituted an “asset-light model,” in which his team doesn’t control day-to-day operations, policies, or procedures of the franchised hotels. However, they still work closely together to deliver a “consistent brand experience for guests.”  Blanchard cites four key areas that are integral to his role: working with the chief information security officer to keep systems reliable and secure, communicating a viewpoint throughout the organization on architecture and innovation, building a technical environment to deliver products rapidly throughout the company, and focusing on organizational and business management.  In hospitality, Blanchard sees the role of IT in helping hotel staff address customers’ preferences. IHG recently signed a deal with Genesys, which offers an AI-powered, cloud-based experience orchestration platform, to boost the guest experience. IHG’s largest-ever customer experience center transformation consisted of migrating thousands of guest services agents as well as thousands of toll-free numbers across eight global sites.   “Some guests want a touch-free transaction where they can pass the desk and go straight to their room without talking to anyone,” Blanchard says. “Others want a high-touch approach where their every need is taken care of by staff that has the information and systems available to deliver superior customer service.”  Agility and a Solid Digital Experience  Key skills and challenges as an IT leader include maintaining a high level of agility and effective communication.   “The bigger challenge is to maintain a high level of agility — and not just in the sense of adopting an agile development methodology but rather being light on your feet and nimble to provide solutions to evolving business needs,” Blanchard says.   For Blanchard, he bases his IT decisions on how hotel owners can drive revenue and provide a solid digital experience for guests. In addition, he plans

Virtually every current C-level IT executive spent many years toiling as a tech staff member, eventually becoming a team leader, and finally arriving as a CIO or another C-level executive. The journey to senior leadership isn’t a one-time activity, says Karla Eidem, North America managing director for the Project Management Institute, a non-profit project management professional organization. “It’s the culmination of not just your performance, but also of your visibility and relationships,” she observed in an online interview. “It’s about what you deliver, but also how you engage across the organization and how others perceive your leadership,” Eidem says. Gaining that Business-Leader Mindset For any IT professional who aspires to become a CIO, the key is to start thinking like a business leader, not just a technologist, says Antony Marceles, a technology consultant and founder of software staffing firm Pumex. “This means taking every opportunity to understand the why behind the technology, how it impacts revenue, operations, and customer experience,” he explained in an email. The most successful tech leaders aren’t necessarily great technical experts, but they possess the ability to translate tech speak into business strategy, Marceles says, adding that “Volunteering for cross-functional projects and asking to sit in on executive discussions can give you that perspective.” Related:Should CIOs Start Hiring for Attitude? Your personal brand also matters, Eidem says. Build a reputation for working with people outside of your department, with the goal of being top-of-mind when executive opportunities arise. Leaders can elevate their presence by leading strategic, cross-functional projects, Eidem says. “These initiatives often put you in front of other departments, senior stakeholders, and decision-makers,” she says. “It’s not only about the project — it’s about demonstrating influence, adaptability, and the ability to drive outcomes that matter to the business.” Build your understanding of business concepts, such as strategic decision-making, goal-setting, revenue streams, governance, and compliance, Archie Payne, president of IT recruiting firm CalTek Staffing, advises. “Learn how to align tech initiatives with business objectives by translating them into terms like ROI, competitive advantage, cost reduction, and productivity improvement,” he says in an online interview. “Enrolling in an MBA program or an executive program focused on digital leadership or business strategy can both accelerate and validate your learning,” he said. Related:Forget the Career Ladder, AI Demands a Loop Mentors and Peers CIOs rarely have solo success stories; they’re built up by the teams around them, Marceles says. “Colleagues can support a future CIO by giving honest feedback, nominating them for opportunities, and looping them into strategic conversations.” Networking also plays a pivotal role in career advancement, not just for exposure, but for learning how other organizations approach IT leadership, he adds. Don’t underestimate the power of having an executive sponsor, someone who can speak to your capabilities when you’re not there to speak for yourself, Eidem says. “The combination of delivering value and having someone champion that value — that’s what creates real upward momentum.” Networking and Connections Count “I’ve heard the phrase, ‘your network is your net worth,’ and I couldn’t agree more,” Eidem says. “Networking isn’t about collecting contacts or business cards. It’s about building genuine, trust-based relationships — the kind that expand your thinking, challenge your assumptions, and open doors you didn’t even know existed.” One of the best ways to build connections is by joining a professional community, Eidem says. “When you surround yourself with people who share your values and your goals, you not only grow your skills — you grow your circle.” Related:An IBM CIO Approaches AI With Both Optimism and Caution A community can become a source of learning, mentorship, and even career opportunities. “When you show up consistently, contribute, and connect authentically, that’s when the real magic of networking starts to happen,” she adds. Networking is necessary for serious career progress, Payne says. There’s no guarantee a CIO role will be available within your current company, and an active professional network can open the door to external executive opportunities. “A strong network is a source of learning and knowledge in other ways as well, such as helping you stay current on industry trends and develop the skills and competencies most needed for executive leadership,” Payne says. Building relationships outside of IT can also accelerate the shift from tech-thinking to business-thinking, Payne says. Partnering with leaders in marketing, finance, operations, and other areas strengthens your understanding of those functions and how technology can help these individuals achieve their goals. A New Beginning Moving into the C-suite requires a shift from technical execution to strategic leadership, Eidem says. “This means knowing how to inspire action, communicate clearly, navigate ambiguity, and work exceptionally well with people,” she explains. “Leadership at that level is less about having all the answers yourself and more about shaping the environment where others can succeed.” The biggest mistake Marceles sees is ambitious IT professionals staying within their comfort zone. “Being great at code or infrastructure won’t get you into the CIO seat if you can’t manage people, build consensus, or think long-term,” he says. “You need to be just as comfortable in a boardroom as you are in a dev environment.” Marceles also stresses the importance of operating with curiosity and humility. “The moment you stop learning or begin thinking you’ve ‘arrived,’ you’re already falling behind.” source