Confessions of a Successful CIO: How the Best CIOs Tackle Their Toughest Business Challenges

FOREWORD

I love this book. It's informative, inspirational, and memorable. Each chapter reads like a mini suspense novel, complete with heroes, villains, and cliffhangers. It's not really a book, but a compilation of stories about leaders who have transformed their companies with technology. As a reader, I felt like I was in the inside circle, privy to information usually shared over a drink.

The leaders profiled within did more than they thought they could in situations that are more challenging than most. We learn from their mistakes and successes, and are emboldened by their courage and discipline. The narrative format allows us to record the stories neatly away in our memories, allowing us to hit “replay” when we need them the most.

Leading with technology is, first and foremost, about leadership. While there is no one-size-fits-all road to success, great leaders, like the ones profiled within this book, are marked by a unique set of qualities: passion and drive to make a positive difference, the ability to engage others to chart the future and define the path, and the paradoxical ability to maintain optimism and perseverance through difficult circumstances.

With courageous and disciplined leadership as the foundation, the other factor that distinguishes these leaders is a level of technology smarts that is only born from experience. Technology-smart leaders know how to identify (in the words of one of the CIOs profiled here) the “art of the possible” amid the complex assortment ...