The Transformational CIO: Leadership and Innovation Strategies for IT Executives in a Rapidly Changing World

The Indispensable Executive

None of the essential transformative processes can be achieved or sustained without information technology. As a result, the chief information officer, more commonly known as the CIO, will play a central and indispensable role as a leader and enabler of business transformation. The CIO's new role is vastly different from the roles played by the previous generation of CIOs.

Unlike the CIOs of the recent decade, the modern CIO must take an active hand in developing and guiding the multiple processes required to achieve the company's strategic goals. This represents a sharp break with the past, when the primary responsibility of IT was serving internal customers and responding to the expressed needs of business units operating within the traditional boundaries of the enterprise.

The modern CIO works in the cloud, both figuratively and literally. There are no boundaries—just an infinite set of potential futures, waiting to be brought into existence.

In this truly quantum universe, the CIO's portfolio of responsibilities includes hundreds of duties. Some of these duties are abstract, some are concrete; some are obvious, some are subtle. Some require patience and humility; some require risk-taking and hubris.

Over the next 200 pages, we will look at the role of the transformational CIO and see how it is actually very similar to the roles played by other senior corporate executives. We will assemble a portrait of the “modern CIO” through stories, anecdotes, ...