Growing Your CIO Career

Just becoming your company's CIO is not enough. Once you reach this lofty point, you are going to have to take on the responsibility of growing your career so that it can truly become the challenging opportunity that you've been seeking. The good news is that this can be done. The bad news is that it's never easy. What You'll Find Inside: WHO SHOULD A CIO’S BFF BE: THE CEO OR THE CFO? THE 5 SECRET CHARACTERISTICS OF A TRULY GREAT CIO CIOS IN CRISIS: DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM HERE? CIO’S WITH NO TIME FIND AN ALTERNATIVE TO AN MBA As CIO you are going to have to form relationships in order to the approvals for your major projects. Who should you spend your time with: the CEO or the CFO? It may not matter that much because it turns out that we all work in sales in some form or another. As the CIO you are going to have to make sure that you fully understand how your company's sales organization works so that you can support them. The role of CIO is changing. It is taking on more and more of an appearance of being a Strategic Execution Officer role and you are going to have to adapt to this. In order to accomplish all of this you may end up having to appear to be two-faced at times. If this doesn't happen, then it may be time for your company to do like a lot of other companies are doing and say goodbye to the CIO position. The key to being a successful CIO is making sure that you have a good understanding of just exactly what a CIO does. This means that you have to take a look at what CIOs do and then learn from them. In order to be a successful CIO, you may decide that you need an MBA. There are a lot of different ways to go about getting this degree – which one is the right one for you? It is my hope that after having read this book you will be aware of the additional job that you've taken on as CIO – managing your career. Do this correctly and your CIO career will last a long time…! For more information on what it takes to be a successful CIO, check out my blog, The Accidental Successful CIO, at: www.TheAccidentalSuccessfulCIO.com