The CIO Type

Q: I am an IT director for a large company and want to tailor my career toward a CIO position. I have an extensive business and operational background but only two years’ experience as an IT manager. What is the best method for contacting a career counselor?

A: You have raised two of the most significant, ongoing IT career questions: How do you become a CIO without a technical IT background? And how do you go from an IT director’s role to CIO?

First, as I have said in this column and in many presentations on this subject, I believe that a CIO who lacks a foundation in technology is always at a disadvantage. And second, any enterprise hiring a director-level executive from the outside to become CIO must acknowledge the message that this action sends to the existing IT staff, especially the CIO’s direct reports, regarding their abilities and readiness to take on the top job and perhaps also regarding the internal promotion policy. The best way to make the leap to CIO is, of course, from the inside.

Large organizations usually have CIO-type positions with divisional, regional, line of business or strategic business unit responsibility. I highly recommend this career-path strategy, while also carefully entertaining any small-shop CIO opportunities that may present themselves.

As for attracting the attention of executive search consultants (I assume that’s who you mean), please refer to the questions and answers appearing in this column regarding résumé preparation, contacting career professionals and IT networking.

THE PERFECT CIO CANDIDATE

Q: I am the director of IT, and have been for several years, for a company with 170 employees and four offices around the world. I want to convince the company that it should consider a CIO and that I’m the person for the position.

Our CEO does not really see the need for a CIO, believing that a director does the job just fine for a company of our size. Most of the executive team feels the same way. The problem is that I now operate at the CIO level and the team just doesn’t see that.

What should I do, and how can I make my case?

A: The size of a company doesn’t matter, and all companies need a CIO just as they need a COO and a CFO.

Is your issue a matter of title, compensation, stature, respect, responsibilities, resources or a combination of the above? Determine which of these are truly missing, which are important to you, and proceed appropriately. Take your case to the CEO and show him specific examples of how your strategic initiatives have benefited the company’s top and bottom lines. Search out and use available literature, surveys and benchmark examples of how the head of IT is titled, rewarded and supported in other organizations, especially the smart and profitable ones.

If you haven’t yet created your own “portfolio” of demonstrable contributions to the company’s operational efficiency or competitive advantage and bottom line, then partner with your peers, and find and execute some low-risk or low-cost projects that prove the value of your role. Then use these examples to propose bigger-ticket projects and thereby earn the rights and perks you are seeking.

SPECIALIZED SKILLS

Q: I have good strategic IT understanding, business and project management sense, and strong conceptual design knowledge. I possess a broad, technical IT background from my experience as an IT entrepreneur and owner, to user support, to functional CTO of a small company. I understand and enjoy customer needs — analysis, sales and liaison roles. My queestion: Is IT specialization (C++, CASE, NT and so on) necessary for analyst/design/CTO roles?

A: None of the three position titles — analyst, designer or CTO — would typically require a detail-level technical knowledge of software and tools such as C++, CASE or NT. If you mean systems analyst and systems designer in your question, then certainly not. A good systems analyst embodies a strong business process, workflow and transaction knowledge, and strong acumen for good systems techniques. A good systems designer should have a working familiarity of platforms and technical environments such as NT so that he can make the best use of the software’s capabilities in the system being specified, but not necessarily to the detail level. And, of course, the CTO needs a top-down sense of available technologies and their capabilities to be in a position to make strategic technical decisions regarding the enterprise’s architecture and its various components.

DISTANCE LEARNING

Q: I am on a career path opposite from most. My experience is in health care, not IT, with 10 years managing my own consulting practice and 10 years in senior management. I now want to work in management and business strategy in the “for-profit” business sector and have begun an MBA in e-commerce through Jones International University in Englewood, Colo. I am 49 and attending school full time. Please advise me on what kinds of opportunities I might find open to me when I get my degree and what other preparation (for example, certifications and internships) I should obtain in the meantime.

A: I admire and commend your focus and drive in taking time out of your career to acquire a graduate business degree. Jones International is one of the first e-universities with absolutely no brick-and-mortar classrooms or campus. As such, you will acquire valuable training but not necessarily an immediate door opener into many blue-chip corporations and top consultancies as you would with an MBA from a first-tier business school. And a degree alone is never a substitute for experience.

Having said that, e-commerce is, of course, as hot an area as there ever was. Given your lack of a technology background, your new knowledge will be best leveraged and your career best served by going to work in a small to midsize corporate business unit rather than in IT, or in a strategic consulting function (internal or external) rather than a technical one. If you like the health-care industry, then I would recommend starting there, since in that venue you have a double-barreled value proposition as an employee or consultant. In the interim, focus on learning as much as you can from Jones; no other certification is appropriate. And an internship is always a great idea, even if unpaid, since it affords an opportunity to try to apply what you have learned, usually in a protective and supportive environment.

HIGHER GROUND

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of using your boss (the vice president) and his boss (the executive vice president) as references in a job search for the director or vice president level of IS? In my case, after five successful years, both are willing to help me find a higher position, especially since my boss is four years younger than I am and there is nowhere else for me to move upward. Should I do it?

A: Absolutely! First, if you are truly ready to move your career forward, to have your superior and his boss willing to recommend a move up for you is terrific. Second, having these recommendations speaks loudly about your relationships and your communication with those in your upward chain of command.

However, make sure that your superiors aren’t viewing this as a way to pass you on to St. Elsewhere. Also, any shop that will “promote” you from the outside by hiring you at a level above your current one is, by definition, telling you and its current IT staff that no one there is ready or capable of moving up internally. So be prepared to lose some key employees — both good and bad — and their knowledge of the company and its business, and anticipate building or rebuilding the staff below you, especially any directly reporting positions. On balance, go for it.

CULTURE SHOCK

Q: I’m a 32-year-old Italian. I’ve been working as the CIO in a small marketing company deploying GIS applications and database design in the United States for the past year. I’ve got the feeling it would be difficult to move back to Europe without facing the culture shock of a long job search and lower salary expectations. Networking factors heavily drive the European market. What do you recommend?

A: Most Americans don’t realize the extent to which our employment process takes place in a relatively free-market environment of supply and demand, open access and, for the most part, equal opportunity. Yes, we still have hiring and compensation biases against women and minorities, but IT has historically been more open than many other fields, especially in light of the extreme overdemand and undersupply of highly qualified IT professionals at all levels.

The bad news is that these biases and the “good-old-boy network” method of finding a job and fair pay is still very much alive and well in many parts of Europe. The good news is that Europe is estimated to be about two to three years behind the United States in the explosion of technology and the Internet, and that technology proliferation is gaining momentum over there.

Before you pack up and strike out on your own, try an aggressive job-search campaign directed at large U.S. multinational companies and consultancies that have significant European operations. Your special cultural and language skills will make you a very attractive employee, in a potentially lucrative expatriate role, for the right organization.

LEAVING THE CAMPUS

Q: I am the dean of information technology at a large public institution, and I report directly to the president. Although I am an academic dean, this leadership position is identical to that of a CIO. How can I transition to a corporate CIO?

A: Start with a good marketing document — your résumé. You probably have an academic curriculum vitae, or CV, which typically runs several pages and cites each one of your research grants, publication credits, committee assignments, presentations and consulting engagements. Scrap this altogether, or if space allows, simply summarize all of that information and build a businesslike two-page résumé comprising a chronological employment history focused on responsibilities and accomplishments, quantifying the latter whenever possible. Pay particular attention to your transferable skills and experience such as resource and budget management, administrative/enterprise resource planning systems and infrastructure initiatives, while mentioning but not overemphasizing the academic and research systems content. And drop the “Dr.” and the “PhD” in your name, leaving that piece of information to the résumé’s education section alone.

Next, proceed to use all of the viable job-hunting avenues available, including personal networking, mail campaigning, responding to advertised positions and Internet job postings, and, of course, working with IT recruiting specialists and search consultants. Stay focused and determined, and your persistence should pay off.

You may not find a Fortune 100 ready to make you its CIO, but any reasonable private-sector experience will get you started in the corporate world.

Mark Polansky : http://www.itworld.com/Career/1960/CIO100100_career_content/