Strategic IT: Best Practices for Managers and Executives

Acknowledgments

There are many colleagues and corporate executives who have provided significant support during the development of this book.

We owe much to our colleagues at Columbia University, Teachers College, namely Professor Victoria Marsick and Professor Lee Knefelkamp for their ongoing mentorship on adult learning and developmental theories. We appreciate the support of Aarti Subramanian, our graduate assistant, for her participation in the research process, including transcribing interviews, and to Jody Barto, another graduate assistant, who helped with finalizing some of the exhibits. A special thanks to Melissa Kavlakoglu for helping to format the sections and coordinating the completion of the book. Nicholas Donofrio, emeritus (retired) executive vice president of innovation and technology at IBM, also provided valuable direction on the complex issues surrounding the emerging role of CIOs, especially how they operate with boards of directors.

We appreciate the corporate CIOs who agreed to participate in the studies that allowed us to apply our theories to actual organizational practices (in alphabetical order): Dana Deasy from BP; Chris Scalet now retired from Merck; John Repko from Covance, now at Tyco International; Craig Cuyar from Cushman & Wakefield; Barbara Koster from Prudential Financial; and Filippo Passerini from Procter & Gamble. All of these executives contributed enormous information on how corporate CIOs can integrate technology into business strategy. ...