DAVE GOFF VP and CIO Emulex

How long at current company: 18 months

Career accomplishment I'm most proud of: The development of highly motivated, capable, and collaborative teams, spanning my tenure at various companies, including Emulex, Texas Instruments, and AMCC. I've been fortunate to have worked with some great teams, and that's what I value most.

Most important career influencer: My parents, who instilled discipline, structure, and integrity, were my primary influencers. Early in my career, Ron Moyer, my first manager at Silicon Systems, taught me the importance of project management, budgeting, and meeting strict project deadlines. Finally, CIO Pat McGinty showed me the importance of effective business writing, presentation skills, and analytical thinking.

Decision I wish I could do over: When a dynamic, productive, and positive team is central to your philosophy, I think you tend to regret the decisions that did not fully meet individuals' expectations.

The next big thing for my business will be ... virtualization, which has the potential to transform architecture and provisioning, and to significantly impact TCO. The continued advancements in software solutions, such as global supply chain management and enterprise application integration such as Web services, also are a major focus area.

Best advice for future CIOs: Build a great team that's passionate about what they do and willing to share their knowledge and experience--one where they trip over each other to help their colleagues.

IT budget: $12 million

Size of IT team: 45

Top three initiatives:

• Build a more complete and robust application solutions portfolio. Address gaps and fortify application solutions to better meet the needs of our business.
• Solidify our core foundational and infrastructure services. For example, we're in the process of deploying IP telephony, a new switching and routing architecture, and a wide area network.
• Provide effective and timely information to enable better business decisions.

How I measure IT effectiveness: Close working relationships with all functional areas are critical. They're the ultimate judges --they let us know if we're meeting their expectations.

Colleges/degrees: Studied computer science at the University of California, Irvine

Leisure activity: Boating and wakeboarding

Best book read recently: Blueprint To A Billion: 7 Essentials To Achieve Exponential Growth, by David G. Thomson

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be ... skippering boat charters in the Caribbean.