IT ManageMenT

How to Become a
Strategist CIO

Ariel La Paz, Department of Management Control & Information Systems, University of Chile

A strategist CIO is a top IT executive who can exploit the use of information
systems and technologies by participating in business strategy formulation.
This article describes CIOs’ main characteristics and strategist experiences.

I
n the past few decades, information systems
and IT (IS/IT) have changed rapidly in tech-
nological capacity, use, and how businesses
depend on them. Consequently, the role of IT
professionals and IT executives has also changed.1
The academic and professional literature describes
the ideal CIO role as that of a strategist for business
growth, survival, and transformation.2,3 The top
IS executive is expected to marry IS/IT innovations
with business strategies to generate competitive
advantages; reduce costs; manage data, informa-
tion, and knowledge; manage the IT portfolio; and
govern IS to improve organizational agility.
Today, CIOs are not (or should not be) respon-
sible merely for operational continuity—they must
also bear responsibility for value creation1 through
the design of IS/IT architectures and the delivery
of services. They must combine managerial, com-
munication, and technical skills to lead business
process improvements.4 They must create part-
nerships with business leaders, translate corporate
goals into projects, and accurately measure the re-
sults to facilitate the implementation of business
strategies through IS/IT and provide governance
on technology use. Failure to do so threatens
companies that seek to harvest benefits from IS/
IT investments by misaligning important techno-
logical, human, and financial resources; this not
only results in economic loss but also hampers the
credibility of IS/IT teams and assets as facilitators
of business processes and value creation.
Several authors describe the evolution of the
CIO role as shifting from a technical, operational,
or utilitarian one to that of an enabler, innova-
tor, and strategist. Several archetypes and func-
tions have been attributed to CIOs, but evidence

48 IT Pro January/February 2017 Published by the IEEE Computer Society 1520-9202/17/$33.00 © 2017 IEEE
reflecting failures in the strategic management of
IT units,5,6 as well as the implementation of proj-
ects that deliver poor value, bring into question
whether the ideal profile has been achieved.
Although the strategist CIO profile has been pre-
scribed by the literature3,4,7–10 and is demanded by
modern companies, the IT executives market has
not produced a sufficient supply.11 Descriptions of
CIO profiles relate to the agendas, priorities, and
output of the top IT executive, but little has been
written about the process of becoming a strategist
CIO in accordance with the needs of today’s com-
panies. These agendas indicate great advances in
the theoretical and practical specifications on the
demand side but contain few insights on how to
supply more strategist CIOs to organizations.
Given this unmet demand, and the increasing
need for CIOs who create and capture value via
IS/IT, this study focuses on clarifying the dif-
ferences among various CIO profiles. It aims to
provide IT professionals and executives with a
self-assessment and career projection tool, along
with a documented description of how some
CIOs became strategists. We want to answer the
question of how to become a strategist CIO in
order to produce professionals and IT executives
who are better prepared to leverage, expand, pio-
neer, and transform today’s businesses with IS/
IT. Although there is no single answer, I explore
the available literature and document the abilities
of strategist CIOs, synthesizing how these abili-
ties could be developed or acquired. This article
discloses sets of personal competencies schemati-
cally arranged as compounds of capabilities and
skills linked to the strategist performance, which
can transform IS/IT resources into organizational
competitive advantages12 and thus provide a ratio-
nale for the process of becoming a strategist CIO.
Unveiling the Strategist Path
For the theoretical basis of this study, I systemati-
cally explored and analyzed the literature. For the
empirical analysis, I identified and interviewed a
sample of 12 strategist CIOs. The literature re-
view involved searching for keywords and terms
related to CIO profiles, performance, transforma-
tion, evolution, and success. The review surveyed
• reputed academic journals and conference
proceedings in the areas of management infor-
mation systems (MIS Quarterly, IS Management,
computer.org/ITPro 49
Information & Management, Journal of MIS, the
Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences, the International Conference on In-
formation Systems, the Americas Conference
on Information Systems, and so on);
• professional and practitioner reviews (MISQ
Executive, Communications of the AIS, McKinsey, In-
formationWeek, Forbes, eWeek, CIO Magazine, and
so on); and
• recently published books on CIO experiences
and recommendations.
Performing a literature review brings value to
this study by identifying, analyzing, and synthe-
sizing the findings of previous studies. Figure 1
lists the sources of those reference documents
that describe CIO profiles, performance, styles,
evolution, transformation, success, and similar
concepts, leading to an understanding of the
commonalities and differences between strate-
gist CIOs and other types of CIOs.
CIO Types and Characters
The literature analysis identified an interesting
array of CIO archetypes (professional, para-
trooper, consultant, executive, activist, col-
laborator, technician, innovator, enabler, and
strategist) and functions (spokesman, leader,
communicator, innovator, liaison, and resource
allocator). However, it revealed neither a theory
or conceptual model for how to become a strat-
egist—or other type of—CIO nor a framework
for assessing what type of CIO an IT executive
actually is. Moreover, the role of the top IT ex-
ecutive was described as a disappearing posi-
tion,11 indicating that a desired or ideal type of
CIO performance is difficult to achieve. Some
researchers identify CIO features,2,3,7,13 whereas
others investigate the question of who becomes
a CIO.14–16 Figure 2 presents a conceptual map
of the literature review findings that identifies
and organizes the various descriptions and il-
lustrates the transition from technologist to
strategist CIO.
Four CIO profiles associated with the evolu-
tion and adoption of IT were obtained from
the literature to describe the role’s transfor-
mation and shift toward a strategist function.3
Additionally, descriptions of the ideal strategist
profile were found.10,12,17 The review produced
a schematic progression for the acquisition and
 IT Management

Bibliographic sources

Professional communications (35 articles) Journals (37 articles)

• Communications of the Association for Information Systems • Communications of the Association for Information Systems
• Director Publications • Journal of the Association for Information Systems
• University Business Magazine • Journal of Management Information Systems
• Sloan Management Review • European Journal of Information Systems
• MIS Quarterly Executive • Journal of Information Systems Education
• Harvard Business Review • Chief Information Officer Journal
• McKinsey Quarterly • Information Systems Management
• CIO Jury Articles • California Management Review
• InformationWeek • Engineering Management Journal
• McKinsey on IT • Government Finance Review
• Computerworld • Information & Management
• CIO Magazine • Management Science
• Forbes • MIS Quarterly
• eWeek
Books (12)
• IBM
• Phil Simon
• Chris Sauer
• Anita Cassidy
• Henry Lucas Conferences (2 articles)
• Robert Austin
• Marianne Broadbent • Americas Conference on Information Systems 2010
• Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross • Americas Conference on Information Systems 2014
• Eric Brown and William Yarberry Jr.
• Franklin McFarlan and Lynda Applegate
• James Penrod, Michael Dolence, and Judith Douglas
• Graham Waller, George Hallenbeck, and Karen Rubenstrunk

Figure 1. Bibliographic academic and professional document sources. These sources were surveyed
to study the CIO profile and synthesize the accrued knowledge.

Capabilities Functions Intensive use

IT is regarded - Participate in business strategy formulation
as a strategic * Business thinking - Identify and capture competitive advantages Managerial
asset Strategist - Align human-technical-financial resources skills
* Align resources
with appropriate governance
- Translate business goals into IT projects
- Manage IT service contracts

* Leadership - Conduct process re-engineering

Innovator - Consider new technological opportunities
* Visionary

IT is regarded - Integrate IT to business model

* Effective communication
as a utilitarian - Design an IS/IT architecture to deliver services
Enabler * Network generation
asset - Create partnerships and a team worker

- Manage IT resources
* Implement IT
- Gain trust in the organization
Technologist * Demonstrate value of IT - Provide operational continuity to a Technical
technological architecture skills

Figure 2. CIO types and associated capabilities, functions, and skills according to descriptions
found in the academic and professional literature. The top half of the figure displays those profiles
associated with companies that consider IT and information systems as strategic for the business
model. The bottom half displays profiles associated with companies that consider these technologies
and systems as utilitarian for operations.

50 IT Pro January/February 2017

development of skills and abilities that build the
adequate competencies of strategist CIOs.
The types, profiles, archetypes, or classes of
CIOs are first grouped into two main categories
according to the approach that companies de-
fine for the use of data and IS, or according to
the extent to which their business model depends
on information resources management for suc-
cess. When a business model is highly dependent
on information management, and the company
views IS/IT as a business weapon for building
competitive advantages, then we can refer to IS/IT
as a strategic asset because the company is man-
dating that the CIO add value via technology. If
the former is not true, then computer technology
is considered utilitarian, standard, or a commod-
ity for maintaining operations, and the CIO role
should respond to provide operational continuity
to business routines.18
Once IS/IT was differentiated as utilitarian
or strategic, and following Ephraim McLean’s
model,19 a subclassification with two categories
in each class was distinguished. In the strategic
category, CIOs are identified as either strategists
or innovators, whereas in the utilitarian category,
they are identified as technologists or enablers.
For those organizations that heavily rely on IS/IT
for success, the strategic use of data, information,
and knowledge derives from the innovative use of
technologies and the awareness of how new tech-
nologies can enable business process improve-
ments. Strategist CIOs, however, add the ability
to synergistically craft IT and business strategies
by recognizing business priorities and opportuni-
ties to generate and capitalize on corporate value
and competitive advantages. CIOs working in
companies with a rather utilitarian focus on IS/
IT primarily perform roles in IT implementation
and end-user support, but as the IT unit and the
company matures, this unit starts to enable other
functional areas to work with IS to improve their
efficiency and effectiveness.
As documented in academic articles and practi-
tioner communications, the transformation from a
technologist to a strategist type of CIO is both de-
sired and demanded by companies, and hiring this
type of IT executive has proven positive impacts.20
The conceptual map indicates that the strategist
CIO profile is not only a matter of IT executives’
abilities and skills; CIO performance also depends
on the approach that the organization takes to IS/
computer.org/ITPro 51
IT resources. Having established the differences,
and recognizing the value of strategist CIOs, let’s
focus next on constructing the strategist profile.
The Experience of Experts
The second source of information was empirical
data collected from strategist CIOs. I gathered
firsthand data using a qualitative approach that
allowed for exploring empirical paths of evolu-
tion in CIO profiles and validating the competen-
cies that a strategist CIO must master. A sample
of experienced IT leaders performing as CIOs in
companies that use IS/IT as business assets for
competitive advantage were asked to describe
how they acquired or developed the competen-
cies that make them strategists. I took notes dur-
ing these interviews, which were transcribed and
coded. Table 1 presents a description of the inter-
viewees’ profiles as strategist CIOs, confirming
a technical background in most cases, comple-
mented with postgraduate management studies.
All primary data from interviews and secondary
data from the literature review were organized,
compared, and analyzed to triangulate and eval-
uate the convergence of results.
Because most IT workers come from a com-
puter science, electrical engineering, or informat-
ics background, it is critical that they complement
their learning, skills, and abilities with accounting,
budgeting, communications, project management,
negotiation, and human resources management.
In the words of one strategist,
Mastering “administrative” tools and “soft” abil-
ities is as valuable as the technical competences
that marry the CIO to technology. —Retail CIO
The robustness of technologies that provide
operational continuity allows strategists to build
and demonstrate value, whereas managerial skills
allow strategists to communicate value, manage
IT departments as business units, and persuade
stakeholders to become sponsors and end users
to become allies of IS/IT projects.21 Today, the in-
creasing demand for highly processed information
and reports creates the space for technology lead-
ers to get involved in business decisions and learn
more about the business model and priorities:
I’ve seen CIOs that, because of the imple-
mentation of business intelligence or balanced
 IT Management

Table 1. Strategist CIO interviewee profiles.*

Interviewee Academic background Experience in

number Undergraduate Graduate years (CIO/working) Activity sector
1 Civil industrial engineering MBIT 6/8 IT consulting
2 Bachelor’s in informatics — 5/25 International economic
development agency
3 Civil engineering MBA 5/15 Transportation
4 Information processing Information 10/33 Mining
engineering management diploma
5 Electrical engineering — 14/30 Retail
6 Computer science engineering MBIT 18/27 Business consulting
7 Civil industrial engineering MBA 8/27 Transportation
8 Civil industrial engineering / — 10/24 Finance/banking
computer science
9 Business administration/ — 5/12 Manufacturing
computer science engineering
10 Civil electrical engineering Business diploma 11/27 Construction and real
estate
11 Computer engineering MBIT 5/19 Paper and forest
products
12 Computer science engineering MBA 4/28 Nonprofit social care

*MBIT: Master of Business Information Technology; MBA: Master of Business Administration.

scorecard projects, start to see the connection of
technologies with business results, and broad-
en their perspectives. —IT consulting CIO
A strategist CIO in the C-suite participates in
the definition of plans and monitors value creation
for the company using IS/IT. The CIO also coor-
dinates reactions to competitors, customers, and
partners’ technological innovations, identifies the
timing for expansion to new digital markets, and
makes IS/IT-based business decisions. By speak-
ing to experts in IS/IT, I realized that the strategist
CIO vision is business-oriented first and IT-ori-
ented second—even though they come mostly
from the technical realm; the goal is to think stra-
tegically to support and improve the quality of
decision-making processes and, in many cases, to
understand the business model as a CEO would.
What Strategist CIOs Do
Undergraduate studies determine much of the
CIO style, but I’ve also seen industrial engineers
becoming too technical. —Finance/banking CIO
Most individuals in the sample were experienced
and obtained formal education at the master’s
level. However, who they are in terms of tech-
nological and management degrees is not the
only important factor; what the CIO is doing
is also significant. In this section, I summarize
interviews and tips from individuals on the ne-
cessity of balancing soft skills, influence in the
C-suite, IT and business alignment, team build-
ing, planning, and CIO priorities. The synthesis
of experiences with the scholarly documents is
schematically presented in Figure 3.
Acquire Soft Skills
Often, soft skills tend to be omitted or mini-
mized in informatics or computing undergradu-
ate programs. However, the abilities to effectively
communicate and negotiate with various stake-
holders, build consensus, persuade and reach
agreement, lead complex projects, publicize suc-
cess in a business language, and empathize with
users are fundamental for strategist CIOs. These
skills (and others) should be developed or ac-
quired by CIOs both to improve their influence
in the C-suite and to inspire and build a strong
and coordinated IS/IT team.
Influence Key People
A strategist should positively influence business
decisions.22 In the C-suite, CIOs should show
themselves to be constructive and collaborative,

52 IT Pro January/February 2017

 Influence
Fee
e - C-level df
nc Fee orw
Soft skills
Enha - Functional areas db ard Alignment
- Effective communication ac
- IT to businessk
not just critical; they must provide - Negotiation
- Leadership
and receive feedback to and from IT Bu
- Empathy
ild
Team
when it comes to business model im-
- Technical skills Str
uct
provements. By contrast, functional - Autonomy ure
Prioritize

areas that need data capture, storing, Planning

processing distribution, and retriev- Coordinate
- Operations
e - Investments
niz
ing will also need advice regarding Agenda Or
ga - Projects execution
IT projects that improve their opera- - Create competitive
advantages
tions. Opinions are divided on the - Provide operational
continuity
dependence of CIOs with respect to
influence; although most believe that
directly reporting to the CEO means Figure 3. Scheme of a balanced strategist performance. We can see
influence, others claim that depen- how a strategist CIO could orchestrate his or her skills, knowledge,
dence is less relevant as long as CIOs and capabilities for high-value delivery.
work to build trust across organiza-
tional levels and functional areas and
with all users. Persuasion and the ability to man- fully in two main areas: budget and operations.
age the demand for projects, create networks, All functional areas must understand and be
and partner at various decision-making levels concerned with these key indicators: budget
are more important than the person to whom consecution (forecasting, calculation, definition,
the CIO reports. negotiation, and approval); execution (planning,
hiring, purchasing, and documenting); and ac-
Align Resources countability (reporting and auditing). A CIO in
IT decisions should always be business driven control of the budget must demonstrate com-
rather than technology driven. However, this re- mand of IT projects, the unit, and its resources.
quirement is not always simple or easy to achieve. IT operations are increasingly important and
Different units pursue different objectives and strategic as other functional areas become more
view the same problem or opportunity through dependent on IS/IT; therefore, anticipating busi-
their own lens. A strategist must ensure that IT ness needs and providing robust services for op-
is aligned with the business rather than the busi- erational continuity are crucial for the strategist
ness with the technology; to achieve alignment, CIO. The latter can be achieved by implementing
the CIO must be familiar with the company’s op- best practices and adopting methods for IT port-
erations and business model and must be able to folio management that include well-defined poli-
monitor core processes with service-level agree- cies and methods for handling investments and
ments (SLAs) and key-performance indicators expenses in discovery projects, IT developments,
(KPIs) that demonstrate value and permanently and service operations.
revise alignment.17,23 However, alignment is not
only the CIO’s task; rather, it requires the sup- Organize the Agenda
port of an informatics committee to prioritize an A strategist’s agenda must be planned and orga-
investment portfolio and provide guidelines for nized around high-value activities, while routines
the IT unit that can satisfy corporate needs by can be rationally delegated and monitored within
orchestrating the architecture of business pro- the team if it is autonomous. High-value activi-
cesses, applications, infrastructure, and data.24 ties in the agendas of our interviewees included
To achieve effective alignment, the CIO must rec- the management of contracts with IT service
ognize when the business demands operational suppliers, supervision of the IS/IT architecture
continuity or strategic formulation and then adapt to ensure business alignment, IT portfolio man-
the team’s structure and agenda accordingly. agement, and technological vigilance. Prioritiz-
ing high-value activities does not mean ignoring
Plan Actions and Resource Usage routine activities such as updating and upgrad-
Any good strategist thinks and organizes his or ing applications, supporting users in functional
her moves. In particular, a CIO must plan care- areas, selecting technologies from the market,

computer.org/ITPro 53
 IT Management
migrating and backing up data, and installing and
configuring applications that provide operational
continuity.
Lead and Strengthen Their Teams
It is critical for the strategic performance of CIOs
that they build and maintain autonomous and
well-structured teams, so that they can dedicate
their time to strategic initiatives. This work ne-
cessitates more than monitoring and incentive
schemes. It also requires forming teams with a
customer- and user-oriented culture of service,
avoiding, for example, blaming others (users) for
unsuccessful projects and services, but building
business solutions in partnership with users who
are business generators. The team supporting a
strategist CIO requires empowerment and struc-
ture with clear functions, responsibilities, and
methodologies, so that the strategist CIO can
dedicate his or her efforts to influence and align
the IS/IT performance with the business model.
Figure 3 presents the different actions and out-
comes that strategist CIOs identified for devel-
oping a strategic performance. According to this
synthesis, a CIO should develop and use soft skills
to partner with key stakeholders (many of them C-
suite executives) and to form and lead a powerful,
autonomous, and organized team. The influence
of the CIO over key organizational players and on
the definition of business models, strategies, and
plans will act as a mechanism for properly align-
ing IT platforms to the business architecture and
needs, thus allowing the IT executive to plan ac-
cordingly. Finally, quality planning will define an
agenda for the CIO and his or her people to opti-
mally structure the team for outstanding perfor-
mance. The strategist CIOs interviewed succeed
in balancing most of the elements in the concep-
tual map, and recognize that failing to maintain
the equilibrium of these elements could harm the
value their teams deliver and the perception of cli-
ents and users of IS/IT services in the company.
Becoming a Strategist CIO
The role of the person in charge of IS/IT man-
agement has become a strategic one for build-
ing and capitalizing on opportunities that result
in the appropriate use of information resources
and technologies. Hence, CIOs who take the
challenge to become impactful actors for busi-
ness models and strategies face the problem
54 IT Pro January/February 2017
of how to become strategists and differentiate
their role and performance from that of other
CIO types. The process of becoming a strate-
gist requires the acquisition and development of
skills that must be applied to many dimensions
simultaneously. This articulation implies plan-
ning and execution on two fronts: who you are
and what you do. For “who you are,” the strate-
gist CIO needs to acquire technical and mana-
gerial abilities, either by enrolling in academic
programs that complement varying abilities or
through the systematic accrual of experience.
“What you do” means using your acquired abili-
ties and skills in the right context, where infor-
mation is a key asset for the sustainability and
success of the business model.
To succeed in making strategic business contri-
butions, the strategist CIO needs to apply techno-
logical, managerial, and soft skills to gain a space
and voice at the C-level; direct a team to produce
and provide services with autonomy; and com-
municate the strategic value that the use of IS/
IT brings. Many of the elements described in this
article are common to any C-level person, and
some elements are often natural to individuals. In
the case of the CIO, however, the acquisition and
development of managerial abilities seems to be
slower than both the technology they work with
and business dynamics. Understanding how ca-
pabilities work together and developing and bal-
ancing them to enhance IS/IT contributions to
business value is not trivial, so CIOs need to plan
and choose to build the right competences and
business model for a strategist performance.
In brief, a strategist CIO must
• complement soft, technical, and managerial
skills by choosing the right combination of ed-
ucational programs (undergraduate, executive,
or master’s-level);
• learn to strategically and effectively communi-
cate value contributions in a business language;
• understand the business requirements of the
company and translate them into IS/IT proj-
ects by implementing and working with an in-
formatics committee;
• consider best practice frameworks to supply
robust IS/IT services and applications as busi-
ness solutions rather than as technical solu-
tions; and
• manage the team for business value.
All of this is possible only in the context of IS/IT
being regarded as a strategic asset.
B
y building a strategist profile—who you
are—IT executives are better positioned in
their organizations to manage their depart-
ments under a business perspective—what you do.
Organizations that are receptive to the strategist
CIO role reap the benefits of IT alignment and cor-
porate value derived from the right use of IS/IT.
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Ariel La Paz is an assistant professor in the Depart-
ment of Management Control and Information Systems at
the University of Chile and has served as director of the
School of Information Systems and Auditing. His research
interests include the socio-economic impact of information
systems, IS/IT alignment to corporate strategies, and com-
plexity management. Contact him at lapaz@fen.uchile.cl.
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