EY-CIOs-Born-to-be-digital

CIO careers in focusEY’s analysis of the career paths of CIOs for the top 25 IT-intensive industry companies — determined by revenueor assets — confirms these findings. Although backgrounds and specific career paths vary slightly across eachsector, several overall observations can be made from this global pool of 100 leading CIOs.Multidisciplinary studiesThe majority hold at least a master’s-level degree, butvery often in a field outside IT. Whether it is an MBAor an MSc in engineering, economics or physics, thereis typically a dimension beyond IT to their studies. Forexample, Jeanette Horan, CIO at American IT companyIBM, did a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, beforelater adding an MBA to her qualifications. Similarly, theCIO of a leading Chinese bank holds degrees in electricalengineering and in software, along with an MBA. In thetelecommunications sector, one in five of these leadingCIOs hold a PhD on top of other qualifications.External advisory or directorship positionsIn keeping with digital CIOs’ tendency to actively engageexternally, many of them hold an external post of somekind, or several such posts. Dr. Alan Hippe, the ChiefFinancial and IT Officer of Roche, a Swiss Pharmaceuticalcompany, is an alumnus of the World Economic Forum’s(WEF) Forum of Young Global Leaders and serves on thesupervisory board of German engineering company Voith.Mark Sunday, the CIO at US computer company Oracle, isalso the Vice-Chairman of the Utah Technology Council,and a trustee of the state’s Economic DevelopmentCorporation, as well as an advisor to Epic Ventures, aventure capital firm, and an advisory board member of theDavid Eccles School of Business.Cross-sector experienceMany leading CIOs have spent time working in differentindustries. For example, Adriana Karaboutis switchedfrom a career in automotive, with roles at Ford andGeneral Motors, to become the CIO of Dell, a US-basedend-to-end solutions company. Anders Thulin, the CIO atSwedish telecommunications firm Ericsson, had workedin consulting, at McKinsey & Company. CIOs workingin IT are more likely to have made such switches, butthese switches are common throughout all four of theseIT-intensive sectors. However, CIOs working in bankingare much more likely to have had a prior role in financialservices, rather than in a wholly different sector.Shorter tenuresAs a result of their greater willingness to pursue newopportunities, many of these leading CIOs have been intheir posts for a relatively short amount of time. In theIT sector, for example, over half took up their currentroles in 2010 or later. And this is even more prevalentin telecommunications, where 60% have taken uptheir current roles since 2010. Across the IT-intensiveindustries, over half the CIOs surveyed had been in theirroles for less than three years.Born to be digital |33