Larry Olson, former CIO of the state of Pennsylvania, is now a principal at aligne Inc., a Philadelphia firm that advises companies about IT investments and provides interim IT management services. Olson says full-time CIOs at some of aligne's clients have left after completing Y2K projects, or following mergers or outsourcing deals. "An organization can't just stop functioning when the CIO leaves," Olson says. "It has to keep IT projects moving along during the transition." Of aligne's staff of 35, he says, 10 are former CIOs or VPs of IT.

One client is New York Presbyterian Hospital, whose full-time CIO left in November to join a new venture formed with First Consulting Group as part of a service agreement between the outsourcing firm and the hospital. Olson and Diane Daniele, a principal at aligne and acting CIO at New York Presbyterian, assisted the hospital in completing the outsourcing deal. Daniele will help the hospital find a permanent CIO to manage the outsourcing contract, set IT policies, and plan long-term strategy. In the meantime, she's providing those services.

"A lot of processes and standards need to be looked at and possibly modified, and that's the role the acting CIO must play," Daniele says. "Given the proper authority, an acting CIO can function as successfully as a regular CIO." The fact that Daniele learned much about New York Presbyterian and the health-care industry while working on the outsourcing deal helped the hospital decide to bring her in as interim CIO, says executive VP Louis Reuter.

Daniele, who previously served as acting CIO at National Media for 18 months and before that was a full-time IT executive at Reliance Insurance Co., expects to stay with New York Presbyterian until a new CIO is named, probably in the spring.

Interim CIOs can bring much-needed experience to an underperforming IT department. When Feld joined Delta, the company had no central IT strategy. "Decisions were made by departments, so there were 30 different platforms, 35 customer databases," he says. Feld's interim CIO status didn't keep him from spearheading some of the airline's most ambitious IT projects, as well as serving on Delta's executive committee. He has built an IT operation with a staff of 2,500 and encouraged the company's leaders to invest in new technology.

Among Feld's most far-reaching efforts is a customer-care system that lets gate agents track in real time which passengers are aboard an airplane, which helps cut standby confirmation time. The system is installed in the 26 largest airports worldwide and will be installed at 100 more this year.

Feld also launched an enterprise resource planning project, developed Web applications, and built an intranet for extensive training programs. Under his guidance, Delta expanded its use of mobile computers and wireless technology and tested extranet applications that let business customers buy tickets directly and avoid travel-agent fees. Delta also completed its Y2K conversions on Feld's watch. Feld turned over his CIO post to hand-picked successor Bob DeRodes, former VP of technology and operations, and will stay on for an undetermined period as a consultant for Delta's E-commerce initiatives.

This isn't the first time Feld has played the role of CIO-for-hire. Before joining Delta, he was acting CIO at Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. following the merger of Burlington Northern Railroad and Santa Fe Railroad. Before that, he was acting CIO at the premerger Burlington Northern, and, earlier, VP of MIS at Frito-Lay Inc. At each stop, he joined a troubled IT operation and helped turn it around.

It was after Feld left Frito-Lay that he formed the Feld Group, which specializes in renting IT professionals to help companies revitalize their IT operations. "We go into places that are in pretty bad shape, spend a couple of years there, and turn things around," Feld says. Although he serves as the Feld Group's president, his focus in the past two years has been on Delta. When he joined the airline, he brought along a team of eight people from the Feld Group, who were gradually replaced by full-time Delta employees.

Transition Partners' Pettibone says CIOs-for-hire differ from "steady-state" IT managers in that they can meet the challenge of improving IT operations without feeling politically or emotionally bound to a particular organization. A full-time CIO is often less willing to make changes because of pressure from senior officers. "We look at this roll as being a turnaround agent," he says. "We're doing the dirty work and making the hard decisions that have to be made."

But CIOs-for-hire say the position has its unique challenges. "You've got to be looked at as a member of the team and not as a contractor," says Gwyn Myers, who's working an 18-month stint as acting CIO at TWA until March. "And you must have strong support from executive management in order to be successful."

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Photo of Myers by Edward Carreon