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The CIO Executive Council is a great champion of the CIO’s cause.  This year, the group is focusing on how to navigate the journey CIOs must follow to move through the three stages of the CIO role: functional head, transformation leader and, ultimately, business strategist.

The Council’s vision is of a “The Future-State CIO®” who:

adopts a more company-external focus and concentrates the majority of his or her time on using information to drive innovation and strategic advantage in pursuit of business goals.

That vision is consistent with what I hear many business leaders expect from their CIO.  To further explore this evolution, beginning tomorrow several CIOs will share their journey’s as guest bloggers.

In Diamond’s third annual Digital IQ study when we asked almost 400 business executives to rank the top two attributes they want from their senior IT executive, “innovative thinking” and “leadership abilities” topped the list, ranking much higher than “deep experience in running IT operations.” Clearly, many businesses are looking for the CIO to help drive growth. However, only 55% of the entire sample of senior IT and business executives viewed their senior IT executive as both an IT and business leader.  Furthermore, when asked what role the CIO plays in innovation, 75% of business and IT leaders said that IT was focused on internal business process and IT function innovation and not external market, product and service innovation.  So, we still have some work to do to connect what we do today with our business goals.

Louie Ehrlich, President, Chevron Information Technology Company, and CIO, Chevron Corp., has already navigated this journey successfully. In the story that begins with tomorrow’s post, he shares his invaluable experience in the first of several blogs. I consider it “must reading” and am happy to share it with you here.

The CIO’s Journey Guest Blog Series:

• The Journey of a Business Strategist CIO, Louie Ehrlich, Chevron CIO
• Closing the Expectations Gap, Louie Ehrlich, Chevron CIO
• Laying the Pavement for the Future-state CIO Journey, Louie Ehrlich, Chevron CIO

If you know of any CIO’s who would like to share their stories, please drop me a note.

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