CIO opportunity in Denver

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, a non-profit voluntary health organization, is seeking an Executive Vice President of Technology.  This position is a member of the Society’s Senior Leadership Team and reports to the Chief Operating Officer. This individual must possess outstanding leadership skills and have a demonstrated ability to inspire others to focus on the implementation of top-level strategic and innovative technology solutions, as well as the day-to-day tactics that drive efficiency, effectiveness and value. (To apply, go here: http://my.affintus.com/Job/1145 )

The EVP leads the development, implementation and evaluation of the Society’s strategic plan in the technology area and provides input and support into the Society’s long-range objectives. Collaboration and coalition building is an integral part of the position. It is critical to develop and sustain strong relationships with a wide range of constituents, both internal and external to the Society, and ensure alignment and effective communication with all staff and volunteer leadership within the Society. (To apply, go here: http://my.affintus.com/Job/1145 )

The successful candidate must have a strong commitment to the Society’s mission to mobilize people and resources to drive research for a cure and to address the challenges of everyone affected by MS.  In addition the ideal candidate will be an experienced technology professional with a broad business orientation and key competencies including budget development, strategic thought, project management, vendor relationships and negotiations, software development, technology infrastructure, pragmatic execution and analytical capability. (To apply, go here: http://my.affintus.com/Job/1145 )

The position oversees a staff of 32 professionals: 20 based in Denver, 8 based in New York, and 4 in remote locations.  The position oversees the annual departmental plan and budget, which is approximately $10 million. (To apply, go here: http://my.affintus.com/Job/1145 )

Will you shape the vision?

IT is like business engine, CIOs are accountable for critical part of business that is constantly changing and evolving. Contemporary CIOs should be capable of evolving leadership skills to not only match pace with the changes in technology and the pace at which organization can effectively manage these changes, but also proactively drive changes in business transformation.

Shape the Vision: CIO and his/her team can play a large role in shaping a vision of the firm as a place where passionate individuals want to connect with and learn from one another. CIO offices also have a significant responsibility to choose and deploy the IT that will help their firms realize the vision. Simply put, IT can no longer just be about numbers and algorithms; it has an opportunity to be a significant catalyst for passion and a tool for encouraging questing and connecting the innovation dots.

Ignite Passion: The range of technologies have emerged that can help foster a deeper sense of connection and purpose in employees, ignite latent worker passion and bring together disparate parts of the organization. But these new tools also necessitate a new way of thinking, a creative way to do things and a flexible way to work smartly.

Set Evolution: The emergence of the CIO coincided with the birth of the PC and end user computing. That role certainly matured as the Internet age unfolded. Now, it’s social, mobile, consumerization of IT, Big Data and a major shift in how IT services are delivered (cloud). These changes are inspiring spiritual conversations around the role of the CIO, these are all evolutionary and in some ways even predictable.

What is your new ecosystem?

The need for change is obvious. The CIO as change agent not only touches his/her own function, but also need make influence on entire organization and business ecosystem as well, it takes strategic planning, methodology and practice in orchestrating such transformation. This is a big deal. If the business isn't strategic it will be impossible for technology to be strategic as well.

Define Roadmap: In fact, the required changes, at the most fundamental level, need be well documented. A clearly defined roadmap is available, and industry best practices are in place to serve as a framework upon which the solution can be implemented over time. The transformation to a more proactive service/solution delivery organization with repeatable management processes in place of the 'crisis of the day' leadership model, can be a reality, but only if the CIO is the proactive, visible and charismatic sponsor.

Optimize Process: Meanwhile, to compete, business unit leaders need IT to ensure the availability and reliability of their business process automation tools/technology, so their staff can function as efficiently as promised, back when they justified the tool purchase. In fact, many organizations have little insight into their cost structures and who is consuming the assets. They have no idea where they are spending their money on and often assume it is mainly being spent on items which are actually much lower on the list. Every IT finance group can capture costs but the challenge is to have visibility and traceability between costs and the assets consuming those costs. The leadership team needs IT to be the business process optimization expert for the company, to find creative sources for competitive advantages, to better compete.

Ask for Help: One of the first things a CIO must do in a transformation initiative of this magnitude is to ask the business for help. The effort will fail if the business units are unwilling to invest resources and accept a "period of pain" where service levels may be adversely impacted. CIO can envision themselves talking with business unit leaders, selling them on the challenges and the vision for the future. Will CIO be open to new perspective, willing to adapt the new skill set to the demands of evolving technology or adapt their role to the evolving business requirements for technology? Will CIO be learning agile to understand business ecosystem and connect innovation dot cross-functional, cross-industrial and cross-cultural border? It takes both attitude and aptitude.

How comfortable are you at participating in business strategy conversations?

The job of a CIO is a tough one. Understanding and being able to communicate highly technical concepts in plain business language isn't easy. We all recognize that strategic planning is probably the most important thing we do. How good are we at it?

The business world today is extremely complex. Increased globalization; heightened merger activity; competition from nontraditional sources; shortened product life cycles; and a tightened regulatory environment are just a few of the items affecting a company’s strategic plan. Information technology can affect all of these things… and more.

In addition, many companies use technology as the strategic weapon necessary to survive in the fierce competitive environment. It is the job of the CIO to understand all of the aspects of the marketplace in which the company participates to help it effectively use information technology to address these challenges.

How comfortable are you at participating in business strategy conversations? A great question to think seriously about.

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Is Information Technology a support area?

Is Information Technology a support area? The traditional, "keep the lights on" world of technology just won't cut it anymore. Of course everyone expects their laptop to boot up and connect to the network. No one even thinks about it until it won't.

Our business partners expect more. They want us to be strategic. They expect us to know their goals, strategies and can capabilities. The want to know how technology can help them generate more revenue.

And so a revolution is under way. We aren't the guys who "make the trains run on time" department. Or at least, we shouldn't be.

In today’s world, the technology department cannot just be seen as a support area. It must be seen as a critical part of the business. It’s up to the CIO to drive that point home by positioning himself or herself as a strategic partner—with a distinct set of skills and tools at his or her disposal. Take the time to talk to employees that use technology regularly to really understand how they use it. Listen to business line leaders about what their people want and need to succeed—and explain how new systems can enable them to meet those goals.

via IT Implementation Depends Upon CIOs With Social Skills - The CIO Report - WSJ.

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What kind of business technology scorecard do you use?

I have been working with Nigel Fenwick at Forrester Research to transform my Business Technology focus. He suggest to me that I use a new framework for our balanced scorecard. It made sense so I have transformed our senior management performance standards for this fiscal year.

I highly recommend the approach Nigel is advocating for in his blog. He has some great visuals in it as well.

It's time to re-think the report card used by CIOs to report on BT performance – tomorrow’s BT CIOs must look beyond the traditional IT Balanced Scorecard (BSC).

I realize this is sacred ground for many people in IT (and some of my colleagues here at Forrester), so let me explain myself before I receive a barrage of complaints. The philosophy behind Business Technology (BT) recognizes technology as integral to every facet of every organization – as such, IT is very much an integral part of the business; we can no longer talk about “business” and “IT” as if referring to two distinct things. I’m suggesting that in the age of BT, we need a new scorecard that better reflects the impact of BT on the business.

via Does BT Need A New Report Card? | Forrester Blogs.

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