The future of the CIO role: products, property, professional services, or all of the above?

Computing speaks to Tom Clark, CIO of Leeds Building Society about how his role is broadening out, and examines other CIOs who are adding new domains to their scope

The future of the CIO role could be to take charge of more support areas of the business, potentially including products, property and consulting services.

Whilst at the Financial Times, Christina Scott, now deputy CTO at News Corp, took on products into her area of responsibility, becoming Chief Information and Product Officer.

And whilst working together at engineering giant Aecom, then IT director Matt Sharp and CIO Steve Capper likened set up a commercial consultancy service, offering their department's expertise externally.

More recently Computing spoke to Tom Clark, CIO of Leeds Building Society. He has taken over poperty and business services, in addition to his IT responsibilities.

"I took them over 18 months ago," said Clark. "Where is the CIO role going? It's running these facilities, including procurement, document management, and all incoming and outgoing paper. The skills that CIOs offer also apply around managing SLAs, vendors, helpfdesks; it all works across other areas.

He added that this work wouldn't be possible without strong support.

"I have some very strong heads of department otherwise it wouldn't be possible. The new responsibilities add another 25 people to my teams, plus the vendor management element."

But it does come with an increased workload, Clark admitted.

"With my responsibilities for the properties, last year we revamped every branch. So we shut each branch on a Saturday night, redecorated and refurnished, then opened up again on the following Wednesday. We did two per week. It was great because the business saw minimal disruption, and the feedback on the outcome was great," he concluded.

Where do you see the CIO role going? If you're a CIO, what new responsibilities have you taken on? Let us know in the comments below.