CIO Reporting

we are a 300 person software company - growing reasonably well currently IT reports to CFO; primary mission has been a "utility" - security, responsiveness and availability, as well as web content management we are moving to add project management as a responsibility and adding a CIO to be responsible for developing information on project definition, work with functional leads on value, and scope resources, so exec staff can prioritize I am looking for input on when reporting structure chnages from CFO to CEO, and what the drivers would be for that chnage All input appreciated.

Answers

Mark Stokes CFO • July 22, 2009

Is it generic desktop support and network maintenance or are they managing uptime for your product delivery and developing new capabilities for your internal users, etc.

Bob McCarthy CFO • July 22, 2009

developing new capabilities - we are moving to add project management as a responsibility and adding a CIO to be responsible for developing information on project definition, work with functional leads on value, and scope resources, so exec staff can prioritize

Mark Stokes CFO • July 22, 2009

I have seen the CFO to CEO transition of IT happen at many different sizes. I think a few things play:

1)How core is IT to what your company does/delivers. The more core, the more the CEO wants to own it because it directly effects customer outcomes and company performance. The less core, more mundane, well, why would they want to own it?
2)The "C" in CIO means a lot. If your CEO wanted that title it may mean he/she expects it in the "top-tier" exec team.
3)I'm going to refer back to #1. That's really what drives this: the more strategic to the company, the earlier you are likely to see it taken over by the CEO in a direct relationship with the CIO. This is irrespective of entity size.

John Kogan CEO/CFO • July 22, 2009

I generally agree with Mark's comment above but another factor is whether the CEO has an internal or external focus. I have had CEOs who wanted to manage every detail and as soon as they could justify adding the executive they would pull the function onto their direct team (e.g. IT, HR, etc.). Others are so focused on marketing, sales and biz dev that they don't want to be bothered with the operational details. Caveat is, as Mark said, that if IT is so core to what the company is doing that will tend to trump all. And the transition could come at any time.

Scott Lane CFO and CRO • July 23, 2009

I have also seen this under a Chief Risk Officer (CRO). In some cases this makes sense as I.T. is a pervasive operational risk category (i.e., ops risk can be managed via people, processes, systems, and facilities).

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