The CEO of Technology

Chapter 5Elevation and Career Ascent

Contributing Value to the Board

As business continues to become technology-driven, CIOs and IT executives are increasingly expanding their roles beyond the C-suite.

Their experience and expertise is sorely needed at the board level. According to a 2016 study conducted by Accenture, just 10 percent of board members on corporate boards have professional technology experience.

There's tremendous value that CIOs can offer to boards by illuminating them on critical technology trends couched in business terms.

“Board-ready CIOs are business leaders first with the strongest technology backbones possible,” says Adriana Karaboutis, now former EVP Technology, Business Solutions & Corporate Affairs at Biogen. Adriana is on the board of Advance Auto Parts and Perrigo plc, both public companies, and Biogen and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts (not-for-profit). She recently joined National Grid pc as chief information and digital officer.

She says the first thing that boards look for from CIOs is the ability to speak clearly about technology issues in business terms. This includes the capacity to explain the advantages and benefits of different classes of digital technologies, such as social, mobile, analytics, cloud, and IoT, in understandable terms. Equally, CIOs on boards help delineate the most critical topic and risk consuming boards today: cybersecurity.

Given the escalating risks posed by cybersecurity attacks, boards also expect CIOs to ...