Capital One said today its CIO, Gregor Bailar, is stepping down Sept. 1 to pursue philanthropic interests. Bailar was at the helm of the company's IT department when InformationWeek named Capital One the no. 1 company in the presitgious InformationWeek 500 list in 2005. For those who want to make hay about the shortening tenure of the CIO, even among the good ones, think again... (read on after viewing the video by clicking "Continue reading..." below)

To see Bailar speaking on agile programming and the CIO's role in growing the business, click below: Here are the details about Gregor's departure from PR Newswire...

But this isn't another "CIO loses favor" or "CIO runs out of gas" situation. In fact, in this case, Bailar is catapulting from his successes at Capital One (and previously as CIO of Nasdaq and a stint at Citicorp) -- and, yes, some of that success includes personal financial success -- to focus on personal philanthropic activities.

When I last spoke with Gregor here in Virginia at the Capital One headquarters, he talked effusively about how the role of the CIO has radically changed to one where other business executives are leaning on the technology chief to not just manage but spearhead change. He's a bit younger than the typical CIO (if you go by InformationWeek's own demographics) and exhibited a ton of energy (not to mention a dead-on impression of his former boss at Perot Systems, Ross Perot, including a hilarious ear-wiggle)(speaking of dead-on, I supposed Gregor will make sure I'm dead-on-arrival for revealing that little bit of humor).

Personally, I see it as a bit of a loss to the CIO community to lose someone as bright, energetic, and ambitious as Gregor -- if there's such a thing as a role model in the CIO community (and, admittedly, that may be stretching things a bit; this isn't professional sports), I could see Gregor being a great mentor. But he's using his successes as a CIO to move on to more personally fulfilling advocations, and to that, the CIO Nation wishes him well.

Gregor will be replaced in September by Robert Alexander, the bank's executive VP for Internet and enterprise customer management.