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In this podcast, Hank Leingang, the former global CIO for the Bechtel Group and the former CIO for Viacom, talks about the leadership qualities global CIOs need in order to be effective across the enterprise.

Within the last five years, the qualities needed by global CIOs of Fortune 2500 companies have changed radically. The CIO role has become more pervasive, touching just about aspect of the enterprise, as well as every constituency the organization has. As a result, CIOs have to be more than  technologists. Of course, they need to understand how different technologies relate to one another to drive business processes. More important, CIOs need to be business leaders who can do the following:

• sit at the executive management table and collaborate with other team members;
• exhibit some depth around their opinions;
• understand how things get done in the organization;
• influence others;
• listen and learn;
• collaborate with business unit leaders;
• and communicate effectively with all constituencies from the start.

Hank Leinging understands the role of the global CIO for a major company. He spent five years as the global CIO of Bechtel Group, Inc. and seven years as the global CIO of Viacom. Today, he is a senior consultant at Korn/Ferry International, one of the world's largest executive search firms. He works with clients to identify their enterprise IT needs and to fill those positions with qualified executives, such as CIOs and CTOs, and people who report to them.

Leingang says that the assessment for CIOs, for example, goes far beyond the functional competencies an organization needs. He says, "We look at a candidate's leadership characteristics and reputation in the industry. A CIO's longevity in this environment requires the ability to develop and to execute a communications plan. CIOs need to understand their constituencies and proactively to communicate with them, rather than reacting to them. Because the CIO role now touches just about every part of the organization, you might provide products and services that meet customers' needs, you might drive new strategic opportunities for the business, or you might transform how the business operates."

So what is driving a CIO's increase need for this high degree of interaction? Leingang says it has to do with what he calls the commercial architecture.  While the technology architecture looks at all of the diverse technologies in the portfolio, the commercial architecture looks at all of the diverse, global relationships between the entities that supply these technologies. These suppliers could include in-house sources, third-party sources, or a combination of the two. Leingang says, "The commercial architecture manages all of the relationships with those suppliers across the global enterprise.  To this end, CIOs have to structure all of these relationships, and integrate them into the technology portfolio both locally and globally so there is no disruption. CIOs have to accomplish these things while driving innovation."

In this podcast, Leingang goes into more detail about what qualities global companies want in CIOs, how the CIO role has changed, why some CIOs have trouble achieving business impact of IT, and how the next generation of CIOs differs from current CIOs.

Bio
Hank (Henry) Leingang is a senior consultant and key member of Korn/Ferry International's Information Technology Officers Center of Expertise. Based in San Francisco, Leingang helps drive the firm's executive search capabilities around the CIO function. Before joining Korn/Ferry, Leingang was president, CEO, and a board member of ITM Software, before BMC Software acquired it. He previously was president and CEO of ThinkLift, a business and IT strategic consulting firm. He spent five years as the global CIO of Bechtel Group, Inc. and seven years as the global CIO of Viacom. He also had held IT leadership positions at Triangle Industries, Interspace, and Touche Ross. Leingang has a B.S. from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Southern Illinois University. He serves on the board of directors of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Resources
Enterpriseleadershp.org Podcast – Hank Leingang, Former Betchel CIO:Get Ready to Maximize Business Impact of IT
http://www.enterpriseleadership.org/blogs/podcasts/2009/03/05/hank-leingang-former-betchel-cio-get-ready-to-maximize-business-impact-of-it

CIO 2.0: The Chief Impact Officer, CIO Update
http://www.cioupdate.com/insights/article.php/3739126/CIO-20-The-Chief-Impact-Officer.htm

Production Credits

Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer

Audio Editing by Doug Marcis