Myron Hrycyk, chief information officer (CIO) of NYK Logistics UK, has taken no chances with his career, recognising some years ago the necessity to augment his technical prowess with the business acumen implicit in an MBA. “I felt it would give me some confidence in talking about business issues with business people,” he says.

It certainly helped him land his position at NYK, a logistics and distribution company that employs over 5,600 people in 34 locations across the UK and Ireland, driving the supply chains of major clients including Jaguar and Sony. Hrycyk has only been in the job for a year and says his business skills were a vital ingredient in securing the post.

“I actually think the recruitment process of a CIO is a good measure of where that company sees the role of the CIO. NYK offered what I was looking for, which was a board role, to contribute as part of the business team and to contribute to business strategies­ while bringing the IT element with me. For me, the recruitment process was 80 per cent about business fit, working with fellow board members as part of the team, and 20 per cent about my technical skills,” he says.

“A lot of the IT stuff was accepted as if I should be able to do that anyway, they were more interested in me as part of a team. If you go through a recruitment process where 80 per cent of the focus is on your technical ability and 20 per cent on your business skills then the business is looking for a very technical IT-led role, possibly not someone that is going to work as a business person, as a CIO might expect to.”

In turn you might be looking at an employer that may not view the role of CIO at board level as particularly indispensable worth a thought if you value your seat at the top table.

Looking ahead at the direction of the CIO role, Hrycyk says he is already bearing witness to how the work is evolving into a less technically-centric task. In line with his recruitment, around 20 per cent of his time continues to be taken up with the more old fashioned IT work investigating new technologies that might reduce the cost base or drive innovation but the majority of his brief takes him deep into strategic territory.

“I find that my time is increasingly focused on strategic stuff, working with my business colleagues on business strategies and creating an aligned IT strategy,” he says. “That strategic element is always there you don’t just do a strategy and then leave it a month before coming back to it, you are always looking at it again and trimming it, asking if it is still relevant and if we got the right strategy.”