Recruiters On Why The CIO Title Is Going Away

Egon Zehnder's Karena Man

Eric C. Gould

For the past few weeks, we have been going through hundreds of nominations and applications for this year’s CIO Next list, which highlights outstanding technology leaders who have been instrumental in leveraging technology to take their companies to the next level. Some are managing IT for the largest companies on the planet; others are founders or tech leaders who are role models and pioneers in capturing the next wave of innovation. [Stay tuned for the final 50 next week!] Here are the lists that we did in 2021 and 2022.

What struck me this year was how many of the names under consideration bear titles other than CIO. Some are Chief Digital and Information Officers, or they have words like Transformation, AI, Data, and Innovation added to their titles. We’ve had several with B2B and Trust as their mandates.

Sometimes, of course, titles are more about optics. At Forbes, for example, “Assistant Managing Editor” carries different responsibilities, depending on your team and area of coverage.

I decided to get the thinking behind some of these titles by speaking with Karena Man, who leads the Data practice and the West Coast Tech Officers practice for recruitment Egon Zehnder. Along with being a consultant to companies looking to source tech talent, Man recruited tech talent for Facebook and a consultant on IT optimization and transformation at Bain, among other things.

“CIO feels a little dated, even though it’s still very important.”

What’s driving the evolution of titles, she says, is the evolution of the role itself. “We largely see Chief Digital Information Officer, or Chief Digital and Technology Officer,” she says. The lines have also blurred between the CTO, who’s typically the person overseeing technology, especially as a product, and the CIO, who’s traditionally in charge of engineering. In a world where technology touches everything, and a company’s tech infrastructure is inextricably linked to its success, Man argues that “CIO feels a little dated, even though it’s still very important.”

The title is so antiquated in the minds of some tech leaders, she says, that some top candidates refuse to be considered for roles that only bear that title.

To be sure, some of the most powerful people in tech still carry the CIO title. But it does tend to evoke a support function that’s about overseeing IT: saying no to the marketers who want to deploy a shiny new tech toy, being guardians at the gate on cyber attacks or helping the boss log in for a video meeting from Bora Bora.

“Information” may be part of the title to recognize that critical support functions need to go on but the role now comes with other responsibilities. Says Man: “This is the person who is leading conversations about, how is our CPG company moving operations into the cloud? They're the ones leading the conversation with marketing: How do we engage with our customers? How do we use the data that comes out of those engagements? They’re leading the charge on policies around technologies.

When generative AI comes up, you rarely go to the CEO to ask, what do we do? If anything, it's the CEO and the board going to the CDIO.”

All of which begs the question: Is this job getting too big for one person?

Ed Stadolnik, who leads Spencer Stuart’s functional practices in the Americas, doesn’t think so. He argues that it makes sense to have a C-suite technology leader who has strategic oversight of internal IT, data and analytics, external-facing digital products, cybersecurity and more because they’re systemically linked. What CIOs need, he says, is “an entrepreneurial product mindset, in which you’re anticipating the needs in the market, … you’re iterating and innovating and creating products that can be monetized.”

More on that next week. What every C-suite leader is starting to recognize is that to succeed as a company in this era of fast-changing technology, you have to be in a state of what Man calls ‘forever transformation.’ Instead of massive IT projects where the CIO flicks the switch after two years and prays that the lights go on, she notes, organizations need to operate more like “an iterative organism that is always looking to evolve.”

That sounds like a high bar but there are plenty of innovative tech leaders who are not only staying ahead of these shifts but on the front lines in shaping them. (Egon Zehnder’s CDO Decoded study still makes for useful reading.)

Earlier this year, I spoke with Forbes contributor Peter High about the seismic shift that is taking place in IT leadership roles across corporate America. I will be joining Peter and my colleague Rich Karlgaard at our upcoming Forbes CIO Summit in Dana Point, California on April 11 and 12 where we will discuss CIOs as architects of resilience, among other things. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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