The CIO Paradox: Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership
- 3h 45m
- Martha Heller
- Bibliomotion
- 2013
Regardless of industry, most major companies are becoming technology companies. The successful management of information has become so critical to a company’s goals, that in many ways, now is the age of the CIO. Yet IT executives are besieged by a host of contradictions: bad technology can bring a company to its knees, but corporate boards rarely employ CIOs; CIOs must keep costs down at the very same time that they drive innovation. CIOs are focused on the future, while they are tethered by technology decisions made in the past. These contradictions form what Martha Heller calls The CIO Paradox, a set of conflicting forces that are deeply embedded in governance, staffing, executive expectations, and even corporate culture. Heller, who has spent more than 12 years working with the CIO community, offers guidance to CIOs on how to attack, reverse, or neutralize the paradoxical elements of the CIO role. Through interviews with a wide array of successful CIOs, The CIO Paradox helps readers level the playing field for IT success and get one step closer to bringing maximum value to their companies.
About the Author
Martha Heller and her team at Heller Search Associates specialize in recruiting CIOs and other IT executives across multiple industries. Prior to founding Heller Search, Martha was Managing Director of the IT Leadership Practice at ZRG Partners, a global executive search firm.
Before she established her career in executive search, Martha was Founder and Managing Director of CIO magazine’s CIO Executive Council, a professional organization for CIOs. Martha also launched and directed the CIO Best Practice Exchange, a members-only network of CIOs from top-tier organizations. During her seven-year tenure at CIO magazine, Martha wrote a weekly column on IT leadership and led a series of executive events on IT staffing, career development, and leadership. Before CIO, Martha was an editor at Rutgers University Press.
Martha continues to engage with executive audiences. She is CIO magazine’s CIO Paradox columnist, author of CIO.com’s Movers & Shakers blog and author of You and Your CIO, a blog on CFO.com. Martha has presented on “the CIO career” at CIO events, the CIO Executive Summit, MIT’s emerging technology conference, SIM, the United Nations Forum on Women and Technology, and numerous academic executive programs. Martha is also a judge for CIO magazine’s prestigious CIO 100 Awards.
Martha received her B.A. in English from Hamilton College and her M.A. in English from SUNY Stony Brook.
In this Book
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The CIO Paradox—Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership
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Foreword
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Introduction—What Is the CIO Paradox?
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The Cost versus Innovation Paradox
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The Operations versus Strategy Paradox
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The Global Paradox
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The Futurist versus Archivist Paradox
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The “IT and the Business” Paradox
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The Accountability versus Ownership Paradox
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The Recruiting Paradox
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The Enterprise Architecture Paradox
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The Successor Paradox
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The Corporate Board Paradox
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The CIO Career Path Paradox
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The Future of the CIO Role
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Conclusion—Breaking the Paradox
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Endnotes
