Procter & Gamble
Vittorio Cretella is the chief information officer at Procter & Gamble
- The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent economic impact will be a key test for companies. And to make it through, chief information officers are relying on one another.
- While networks among peers in similar positions are not uncommon, CIOs are increasingly tapping into both formal and informal groups to help manage the ever more complex duties of the role.
- At Cisco, for example, former CIO Guillermo Diaz Jr. helped lead the "CIO Exchange," an annual conference of roughly 120 top tech leaders.
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The coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout from it will be a major test for corporations. To get through the crisis, chief information officers are turning to a powerful resource: each other.
It isn't uncommon for those in similar leadership positions to exchange best practices and other advice.
But CIO networks are becoming increasingly critical as tech leaders spearhead digital overhauls that are reverberating outside the IT department and touching all aspects of the enterprise - from the supply chain, to legal and human resources.
Informal groups and more formal cohorts - some by invitation only - serve as an opportunity for CIOs to bounce ideas off each another, solicit opinions about certain vendors, and highlight both mistakes and success stories to help others pursuing their own overhauls.
And now, as businesses navigate new remote-work environments and plan for a potential economic recession as a result of the coronavirus, those networks are serving a new purpose.
"Connecting with my peers (other CIOS), we learn mutually about things, even more than we do by reading books," Procter & Gamble CIO Vittorio Cretella told Business Insider. "I speak with my peers all the time, and these days it makes a big difference. The current crisis is one of the subjects we discuss."
Among the major gatherings that have helped create such a strong network within the community is the CIO Exchange, which is led by former Cisco CIO and current Kloudspot CEO Guillermo Diaz Jr.
The annual conference of roughly 120 top tech leaders proved to be a perfect setting to get tips and other advice to navigate the increasingly complex role.
"We all had the same challenges. You're trying to run the aircraft carrier while driving the speedboat," he said. "You have to be driving the agile mindset within the company. You have to be driving the security. It has to be faster and more secure; it's not an either-or. And you have to be a cultural ambassador."
Finally getting a 'seat at the table'
Unlike other positions in the C-suite, the job description of a CIO can vary widely depending on the organization.
Some corporations are continuing to outsource the bulk of their development of new tech to third-party entities. But increasingly, companies are looking to bring that in-house - which is creating entirely new requirements for leaders.
And for RedHat CIO Mike Kelly, it's that increased advocacy of the role technology can play in driving improved performance that is spurring so many conversations.
"For the longest time, we were all trying to get that proverbial seat at the table," he said. "CIOs understand the business and they understand the technology, and they understand how the technology can help advance the business. And sometimes we didn't have a good place for those ideas to be heard. That's changed now."
Such a shift, however, is not easy. Many digital transformations are failing to produce the desired results. It's why an openness to sharing missteps is so critical.
"Mistakes must be seen as opportunities to learn, not failures. And if the ego gets in the way and people don't want to speak about that mistake or what they learned, then you have a problem," said Cretella.
Outside of just managing the new demands of the role, CIO groups can also be a key resource for minority groups like women, who are still vastly underrepresented among technology leaders.
A group of female CIOs in Silicon Valley, for example, get together for informal dinners once a quarter.
"I am in a space where there aren't a lot of females," Ellie Mae CIO Linh Lam said previously. "It's a pretty tight circle."
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