This is a fascinating but also precarious time to be a CIO, particularly one with global responsibilities. CIOs are being given more strategic roles than ever before, yet they're simultaneously seeing their budgets cut while expectations remain unrelenting, and of course the global recession only complicates the situation. CIOs are being asked to drive business change while at the same time many are trying to replace old and inflexible infrastructures with modern and flexible ones. They're being given responsibility for establishing global standards in applications and related processes, but sometimes without the organizational authority to enforce those new standards. And across the globe, CIOs are fighting the stubborn perception that IT in general and CIOs and their teams in particular are cost centers rather than creators of value and accelerators of innovation.

In this best-of-times, worst-of-times scenario, CIOs can find enormous value in seeing how their peers around the world are dealing with these difficult and urgent imperatives. So InformationWeek's Global CIO has developed a couple of projects to give you some of that global peer-level perspective:

• In the Global CIO 50, we've identified 50 of the top CIOs from around the world and profiled them and the strategic contributions they're making to their companies. We selected CIOs and their companies based on market leadership, innovative IT-enabled business practices and results, and the achievement and impact of the individual CIOs.

• The Global CIO research report, "Small World, Big Opportunities," is based on an exclusive, primary-research survey conducted across multiple countries to determine top priorities, approaches, and attitudes for CIOs around the world. We received more than 2,000 completed surveys, but because we wanted to focus on CIO-level reactions, we culled the 861 responses from CIOs and VPs of IT and built our study on their input. The entire study is available for sale here.

Among the key findings from our Global CIO best practices report are the three top priorities cited by CIOs from around the globe: working to spend less money on internal IT issues and more on external, customer-facing projects (our old friend, the 80/20 ratio); developing and refining new ways to capture and communicate the business value of IT efforts and expenses on global projects; and shifting the internal outlooks of worldwide IT organizations to reflect global perspectives rather than domestic ones.

And you'll see those themes reflected in the achievements of the Global CIO 50: UPS CIO Dave Barnes noting that UPS aircraft now fly more miles outside the continental United States than inside; Coca-Cola, recognizing China as its third-largest and perhaps fastest-growing global market, opening a $90 million innovation and technology center in Shanghai; LG Electronics CIO Kim Tae Keuk leading an effort to replace more than 80 different ERP systems around the world with a single, global system capturing 440 business processes; and more.

So please come meet the Global CIO 50. While it's up to you to act locally, we hope this package helps you think globally.

The Global CIO 50
Select a name below to read their profile
Jean-Michel Arès	Coca-Cola	New tools help teams borrow what works
Laxman Badiga	Wipro Technologies	Building IT for scalable software services
Dave Barnes	UPS	Technology is built from the start to be global
David Briskman	Ranbaxy Laboratories	Priorities include speeding products to market
Rob Carter	FedEx	Standard tech at hubs in China, Germany, U.S.
Gilberto Ceresa	Fiat Group	Digital design-to-production for speed
Laércio Albino Cezar	Banco Bradesco	Testing biometrics on its ATM machines
Ashish Chauhan	Reliance Industries	ERP used across the conglomerate's units
Chen Jinxiong	Fuzhou General Hospital	IT helps serve booming patient demand
Guy Chiarello	JPMorgan Chase	Integration and innovation drive his team's agenda
Sumit Chowdhury	Reliance Communications	Leads the telecom's IT and its IT services arm
Jody Davids	Cardinal Health	IT-driven transformation with customer focus
Dorival Dourado Jr.	Serasa	Data-driven innovation key to credit data growth
Dan Drawbaugh	Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center	Defies IT boundaries by driving global expansion
Feng Taichuan	Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical	Controls cost and risk, making data accessible
Vikas Gadre	Tata Chemicals	Works with groups outside India, especially on ERP
Arun Gupta	Shoppers Stop	Leads IT for retail stores and heads a business unit
Michael Heim	Eli Lilly	R&D portfolio now managed globally, centralized
Mark Hennessy	IBM	Global IT plan: Simplification before automation
John Hinshaw	Boeing	IT critical to complex global supply chain
Yasuyoshi Katayama	NTT Group	Focused on next-gen networks and new businesses
Kim Tae Keuk	LG Electronics	Business needs process expert, not "technician"
Daniel Lebeau	GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals	Getting vaccine test data out of Africa -- faster
Li Hong	Sinosteel	IT key to move to services and related businesses
Liu Zhixuan	Shenzhen Airlines	Data helps segment customers, offers new services
Alan Matula	Royal Dutch Shell	Innovator in unified communications worldwide
Sunil Mehta	JWT	Brings innovations of global ad company to India
Jai Menon	Bharti Enterprises	IT leader on businesses from wireless to agriculture
Jedey Miranda	Eaton Latin America	IT innovation is part of growth plan
Jonathan Mitchell	Rolls-Royce	CIO and director of business process improvement
Randy Mott	Hewlett-Packard	After transformation, pushing to the next level
Tania Nossa	Alcoa Brazil	Network reaches mines in the Amazon forest
Filippo Passerini	Procter & Gamble	IT "consumption reports" saved $3.5 million
Christopher Perretta	State Street	Align IT with customers, not "the business"
Steve Phillips	Avnet	From regional IT teams to a unified, global team
Wilson Maciel Ramos	Gol	Innovation's baked into the tech strategy
J.P. Rangaswami	BT Group	Has brought people in from beyond telecom
Haider Rashid	ABB Group	Driving to make a more simplified organization
Toby Redshaw	Aviva	Web 2.0 push typical of "big and agile" philosophy
Anantha Sayana	Larsen & Toubro	Measures business-IT alignment in each division
Manjit Singh	Chiquita	Bottom-line discipline, SaaS believer
David Smoley	Flextronics	Connecting global supply chains, driving SaaS
Song Shiliang	Giant Interactive Group	Tech is central to online game company's strategy
Ralph Szygenda	General Motors	Rewriting the rule book for outsourcing
Steve Tso	Taiwan Semiconductor	Experience from marketing to R&D to IT
Patrick Vandenberghe	ArcelorMittal	After megamerger, apps need consolidating
Pravir Vohra	ICICI Bank Group	Leading IT and process automation strategy
Wu Dawei	JuneYao Group	Modernized call center, infrastructure, services
Zhang Jun	Li Ning	Retailer integrates design, supply chains, retail
Zheng Jiancheng	Belide Group	Sales data drives short fashion product cycles

CIO profiles from India and Brazil were written by Network Computing India and InformationWeek Brasil, InformationWeek sister publications.