Does CIO stand for "career is over"?
Not at banks, say many in the industry.
In the 1980s, as more and more companies began to call their top technologists "chief information officer," there was a lot of talk that these executives would gain more respect, prominence, and importance. Then, almost as fast, CIOs' stock appeared to fall.
It's easy to trace fortunes of technologists by looking at the business press. A 1988 American Banker story based on a survey of top executives was called "Topmost rung still eludes bank operations personnel." By 1990 the survey responses led to a story that found CEO's had a greater appreciation for technology and technology executives.
More recent news articles have suggested the importance of the CIO position had failed to live up to expectations touted several years ago. One Wall Street Journal story noted that CIOs at some companies are not involved in meetings where senior managers plot strategic plans.
But surveys of bankers continue to show that CEOs and other top executives value information technology highly. A recent survey conducted by the Swift international payments network found that 89% of international banking and payment services executives agreed that the back office would be important to their organizations' performance over the next five years. That includes 30% who said it was extremely important.
And it's not hard to come up with a list of prominent bankers who are CIOs, or who rose up through the operations side: Michael R. Zucchini, vice chairman at Fleet Financial Group and Citibank's Colin Crook, to name just two. And Art Ryan, who last year left his job as president of Chase Manhattan Corp. for the top job at Prudential, had risen through the New York bank's operations side.
"Two years ago, there were all these articles about how (CIOs) were superstars, this was the up and coming thing, you had to have this position. And now, all of a sudden, they are turkeys," said Thomas Perna, executive vice president at Bank of New York. "Here is a good example where it's been consistent. It's always been important."
Bank of New York's top technology executive, Richard Pace, sits on the senior policy committee.
The high-visibility guys who are out there claiming they are going to lead their organizations and revolutionize them that have had the highest mortality rate," said Mr. Pace.
Craig D. Goldman, Chase's chief information officer, said the perception that CIO has come to mean "career is over" is related to "war stories" where executives were faced with a gap between what the business needed and what technology was able to deliver.
