Career lessons from digital-ready CIOs Digital-ready CIOs are willing to leave For other IT leaders seeking to achieve similar outcomes in their their home turf. careers, three key points stand out in the approach and career choices of digital-ready CIOs: They show a greater enthusiasm to spend time elsewhere in the Digital-ready CIOs are far more open organization to get a deep understanding of the business. Nearly half (48%) believe that experience in another function is vital, to taking advice and trying out new compared with 33% of IT-intensive industry CIOs. Similarly, a ideas. greater proportion believes that it is necessary to have spent time in other companies, and that it’s important to have been on international assignments. The CIO of a major Chinese “CIOs have to be open to new practices. To some extent, the CIO telecommunications firm explains how, having initially graduated in has to showcase new technologies, so it’s a permanent challenge engineering, her career path involved her becoming the head of a for CIOs to keep themselves occupied on new things,” says Sanofi non-IT department, as well as the CEO of a subsidiary firm, before CIO Bruno Ménard. Mail.Ru CIO Alexander Gornyi also keeps an moving into her current role. This is explicitly supported by her open mind about new things to learn: “I love what I am doing, and I firm: “Our company has a personnel arrangement mechanism that am good at it; however, I continually strive for improvement. I allows a CIO to switch roles with other executives,” she notes. believe a willingness to learn is an absolute must,” he says. Furthermore, among digital-ready CIOs, nearly one in two (46%) Chart 13 remark that they could use some advice on their career progression, Requirements for becoming a CIO compared with 36% of IT-intensive industry CIOs. They also show a greater appetite for input from other sources, whether from their 94% peers, external consultants, the print media, online webcasts or Motivation and hard work others. 86% Involvement in supporting major 67% business projects 67% They are strongly interested 56% in building their career upon Degree and training in IT 47% management skills. Degree and training in business 49% Forty-nine percent of digital-ready CIOs hold a degree in business administration and management 37% and 24% even an MBA, compared with 14% of IT-intensive industry Experience in another 48% CIOs. Similarly, a higher proportion of them (35%) hold a degree in business function 33% science or engineering. And almost half of them (49%) believe that 38% a business degree or MBA is strongly required for the CIO role, International assignments compared with 37% of IT-intensive industry CIOs. 28% Career moves in different 37% Chart 12 companies 25% Discipline of education Digital-ready CIO IT-intensive industry CIO (Percentage of respondents who have chosen 8, 9 or 10 on a scale from 1 = not required at all 49% to 10 = absolutely required) Business 44% Not only a CIO’s responsibility 38% IT 41% All of this highlights a further important point in CIOs’ career paths, 35% but one that is less often considered. It is just as much the firm’s Science responsibility to find and develop tomorrow’s digital CIOs, as it is 31% the responsibility of those working in IT to embrace and pursue this 5% Other path. “Firms know that many CIOs are not typically the most 5% flamboyant, outgoing, risk-taking types. So companies may need to Digital-ready CIO IT-intensive industry CIO rethink their hiring processes to seek out a different caliber of (Percentage of respondents who obtained a level of education in this discipline) candidate,” argues EY’s Tom Velema. “If their business focuses on CIOs who keep the lights on, they shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve not found their change leaders.” 32 | Born to be digital