CIO: 'Career is Over' or the new route to being the CEO?

CIOs are no longer thinking of their title as Career Is Over, but can they make it in other senior executive roles?

When Philip Clarke was made CEO of Tesco in 2010, it marked an important milestone within the IT industry. Clarke's story was astonishing; he started stacking shelves at the company when he was 14, but what the technology industry found even more fascinating was that he was an IT leader who could make the leap to a CEO role at a hugely successful business.

Time changes everything: just four years later and Clarke has been ousted by Tesco's board amid chaos at the company after a £263m accountancy black hole was uncovered. Clarke's predecessor, Sir Terry Leahy, blamed the company's woes on Clarke's weak strategy.

Clarke's tenure as Tesco's CEO hasn't done CIOs who are looking for a step up any favours - the opposite of what was being said in 2010 when he was being hailed as an example to the rest of the industry.

But this hasn't stopped CIOs from wanting to move up from a pure IT role. In recruitment firm Harvey Nash's CIO Survey 2014, 28 per cent expected their next immediate career step to be in a senior role outside IT, such as the CEO, MD, CFO or COO roles.

Ross Stacey of Harvey Nash's CIO practice claimed this is because of the necessity for technology skills outside of the IT department, and the end of the notion of a ‘career CIO'.

By this he meant an increase of people coming into senior IT roles that have experience outside of technology. These people often see IT as a stepping stone to something else, he said.

As Duane Anderson, COO of US digital marketing agency Marquette states: "The best executive to run IT does not necessarily mean someone who grew up through IT anymore".

According to News UK's COO Chris Taylor, who was promoted from his CIO role, the path that many CIOs take in their careers enables them to acquire a number of skills which can be applied to a number of different senior roles. These skills include crisis management, project management and handling resources.

"[These skills] can act as a real springboard for people who want to move beyond the person who just runs the technology function, whether that's in operations or in other parts of the business," he told Computing.

Over half of the CIOs surveyed by Harvey Nash had at least one year's experience outside IT with 39 per cent gaining that in general management and 33 per cent in operations.

Marquette's Anderson also made the leap from CIO to COO and he believes that successful CIOs understand the business strategy of their organisation, the changing market and industry dynamics, and are able to craft a plan which meets those needs.

He said these are all skills which are required of any successful CEO or COO too.

But not everyone agrees; Simon Kouttis, technical lead at executive search agency Stott and May stated that CIOs are being recruited for CTO roles as opposed to COO or CEO roles.

He said the firm was recently engaged to fill a senior government CTO role and that the most appropriate candidates for the role were CIOs from the private sector.

Kouttis said that his firm have not moved CIOs to CDO roles or vice versa, in fact it looks for senior developers or digital directors instead to make the move to CDO when the demand comes in. But there are examples of the switch from CIO to CDO, such as Jos Creese of Hampshire County Council.

Meanwhile, Harvey Nash stated that two of the four candidates being interviewed for a FTSE250 company COO role have an IT background - one who is a CIO, and another who is a CDO.

But while the job switches may be prominent, Anderson warned those who are working in IT to make sure they are ready to make the jump.

"If you're in a business-facing IT role and not in a position where you could be considered for a business leadership role, it's a fair assumption you may not be doing as well in your core IT role as you think," he said.