Pure Tech Won't Cut It

By Clinton Wilder

f you think that boning up on Java, data-mining tools, or parallel-processing architecture is the key to landing a top CIO job, think again, says a leading executive search expert.

Technology skills are only the third-most-important talent a CIO needs in today's business world, says Jeffrey Leon, managing director and head of the IS practice at search firm Russell Reynolds Associates in New York. Instead, he says, most successful CIOs need to be "triathletes."

"The three skills most in demand are leadership, business understanding, and technology-in that order," Leon told attendees of a recent CIO conference. "That's different from a few years ago, when technology was most important. Today's requirements for CI Os are more typically the skills you find in a CEO."

Leon, a former VP of IS at Avon Products Inc., addressed about 100 CIOs last month at the Fortune 500 CIO Forum in Aspen, Colo. He said today's best CIOs are those who have gained business acumen, and in some cases honed their leadership skills, in jobs outside the IS department.

A good example of this sort of executive, said Leon, is General Motors' first-ever CIO, Ralph Szygenda ( see related story ). "He's only been in the CIO game for about one-third of his career," explained Leon. "Working on the product side at Texas Instruments, he acquired a lot of other business skills. He's not a bits-and-bytes guy, but he knows enough technology to have a great B.S. detector-when someone feeds him a line, he knows it."

Wider Focus
Another search executive at the CIO forum, Thomas Wasson of search firm SpencerStuart in San Francisco, agrees that leadership skills are paramount for successful CIOs. "What you do n't want to do is focus so much on the day-to-day operations that you miss the bigger picture and your company falls behind in delivering business value," Wasson said. "You need to be a risk-taker. You can't sit and wait for someone else to tell you what to do."

Leon also advised forum attendees to ask themselves what they believe is their proudest achievement on the job. "'I just got Windows NT installed' is not the answer I'm looking for," he said. "But if you tell me about the big business problem that you solved, then I know you're much more likely to be a triathlete CIO."

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