The Big Red Group’s Brett Raven had his job cut out for him. As the story goes, he inherited a legacy tech platform built over 16+ years by a myriad of software developers and an unplanned architecture. The ageing legacy technology stack was a significant constraint in the desires of growth for the group.
It's wrong to view leadership ability as something you have or you don't, say IT executives known for cultivating leaders among their staff. If a person has the potential to lead, a skillful CIO can recognize this, refine that potential through a set of carefully chosen experiences, and produce a strong leader.
Winners of the 2014 "Ones to Watch" awards -- administered by the CIO Executive Council -- say they're trying to reduce the distance between corporate IT and external customers.
Finding IT pros with business skills has always been a bear. So award-winning CIOs are taking radical steps to train, recruit or grow the hybrid staff they covet.