The role of the Chief Information Officer has changed more in the past decade than almost any other seat at the executive table, yet the way many organisations define and hire for it has not kept pace. Briefs still open with infrastructure, delivery milestones and systems integration, while the businesses writing them increasingly expect their CIO to drive business transformation, manage enterprise risk and influence strategy in the boardroom. The result is a persistent gap between the role as it is written and the role as it is actually performed.
The data makes that gap difficult to ignore. We analysed CIO job descriptions over the past 10 years and the differences are stark. A decade ago, 38% of CIOs reported directly to the CEO; today the figure is 63%. The focus on technology operations fell from 40% to 18%, while strategy and business rose from 25% to 37%. Risk and resilience responsibilities doubled from 10% to 20%, while the emphasis on people and culture leadership tripled from 5% to 15%. The CIO is increasingly expected to operate as a commercial leader and strategic business partner, rather than solely as a technology specialist.
Where organisations get this wrong
Many organisations start their search with an outdated view of the role they are trying to hire. Businesses entering a period of buy-and-build activity, AI-led change or transformation needs a CIO who can exercise judgement under conditions of ambiguity and connect technology decisions to business outcomes, yet the specification it takes to market often over-indexes on operational responsibilities and underweights the strategic, commercial and leadership capabilities the role and business now demand. This risks capable candidates being assessed for the wrong qualities, and the appointment is set up to underdeliver before it even begins.
Many companies also underestimate the importance of executive judgement. 90% of our current and recent CIO search mandates list executive judgement as an essential requirement, alongside ambiguity tolerance, cross-functional influence and scenario thinking. This reflects the reality of modern leadership, where decisions increasingly need to be made before all the facts are available. More than 80% of business leaders report making high-stakes decisions without all the data they would like, while technological, regulatory and geopolitical change continues to accelerate. The role demands more than execution. It requires the judgement to make consequential decisions when certainty is unavailable and the stakes remain high.
What this means for boards and investors
The success of a CIO search is often determined before the search even begins. The mandate must reflect where the business is heading, not where it has been. This is particularly important in private equity-backed businesses, where technology is increasingly viewed as a key value-creation lever. Today, 63% of investors cite digital maturity as a priority in the first 24 months after investment, while CIOs are typically expected to demonstrate impact within 12 to 18 months, compared with 24 to 36 months in listed organisations. With value creation expected early in the investment cycle, there is little room for a CIO who needs time to grow into the strategic demands of the role.
Hiring the right CIO starts with an honest assessment of where the business is trying to go and the leadership required to get it there. The organisations that get this right treat the mandate as a strategic decision in its own right, appointing leaders whose commercial judgement, stakeholder credibility and risk awareness are weighted as heavily as their technical depth.
Our latest whitepaper, The Changing Face of the CIO, draws on 10 years of data to explore how the role has changed, the capabilities that matter most today, and how boards, investors and executive teams can maximise the impact of their CIO appointments.
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