Tomorrow's CEO may be a geek packing an MBA.
"IT is moving from the backroom to the boardroom," asserted Ron Broaddus, member of the CUNA Technology Council Executive Committee and vice president of information technology, at $500-million Greater Nevada CU in Carson City.
"We are seeing many new CEO's coming up through the ranks of being an IT leader," agreed Jackie Buchanan, also a member of the committee and vice president of IT, of $560-million T&C FCU based in Bloomfield Hill, Mich.
"As that business knowledge and technical knowledge merge, the path to CEO is opening up," Broaddus explained.
Gone are the days when IT executives only played with cables and programmed zeros and ones, members of the executive committee told The Credit Union Journal in an exclusive interview.
Today, chief information officers (CIO) are also business strategists, said the committee members. They can command six-figure salaries to make business units efficient.
"IT has a unique position because it crosses the entire organization," said Rudy Pereira, committee member and senior vice president of operations and technology at $4.4-billion Alliant CU in Chicago. "And IT has become the solution provider as well as the order-taker."
Still, those CEOs with little background in IT may be able to keep their seats, for the time being: there simply aren't enough business-savvy CIOs to go around, said the executive committee.
"I'm not in panic mode, but I am concerned that there may not be enough technical people who also have the business expertise necessary to lead in today's IT environment," said Buchanan. Broaddus agreed: "I have great technicians, but I'd be really scared to put them in front of a board member."
Specifically, good IT leaders must be emotionally intelligent, said Pereira. "They must have the ability to communicate and to paint a visionary picture of how IT can serve the credit union."
That requires a bit of translation talent, Broaddus continued. "You have to be able to take something that's very technical and present it in a manner that explains the benefits to the business units."
In addition, walking the tightrope between the credit union and its third-party service providers demands "extremely good relationship skills," Pereira added. "You don't have a lot of control over these third-party systems that you're responsible for."
Today's top CIO is also open-minded, innovative and collaborative, said the executive committee-virtually, a golden child. In fact, the result is that many small CUs can't afford a top-notch CIO, said Bob Keubler, CIO at $160-million 1st Financial FCU in St. Charles, Mo. The tide may turn, however. "The well-rounded CIO is a fairly new concept," said Keubler. "Though there aren't that many people out there with these exact business skills and personality traits, there are more than enough people who can learn them."
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* CUNA Technology Council at www.cunatechnologycouncil.org
