Technology headhunter comments on the role of the chief information officer

In the article “Reaching the summit” published in CIO in December 2010, which examines the differences between the CEO and CIO, Alan Mumby, head of TMT and CIO/CTO recruitment at Odgers Berndtson says that “The CEO has the leadership breadth over several diverse functions, while the CIO has a narrower range of vision.  They should extend focus to the whole business, but they rarely sustain that vision for their tenure.

“If you are a CIO, you will continually get dragged into the detail, but an adept CEO rarely does detail.  CIOs are aspirant CEOs who took an erroneous, technical career-turn sometime in the past.”

However, Alan says that executives from a technology background may find it difficult to leave it behind.  “Most IT directors or CIOs fail to carry it off and get dragged down into the technical weeds,” he says.