CIOs are uniquely positioned to step into the CEO role. However, the transition to CEO requires more than just technical expertise—it demands a broad range of skills and experiences. Steve Bandrowczak, CEO of Xerox and former CIO, is a prime example. In a recent Nutanix Masterclass, Bandrowczak shared his personal journey from night shift computer operator to leader of one of the titans of technology.
In charge of the whole company, CEOs are responsible for the performance, risks, and strategic direction of the business. “What keeps the CEO up at night is revenue, profit, and shareholder returns,” Bandrowczak says. But beyond these financial pressures, a CEO also faces the challenge of defining an organization’s culture to ensure it can respond to the market and attract the right talent to deliver that response.
“It’s about the impact that we have on the employees and the community. The job is not about you; it is about what you can do to make people and the organization successful. CEOs inspire people, mentor, create leaders, make the complex simple, create energy, and are humble. You have to do all these things on the way too.”
The CIO’s unique skill set
As technology continues to play a central role to business success, CIOs have developed a valuable set of skills that can help them become CEOs. In his CIO career, Bandrowczak was involved in mergers and led a business-wide modernization that closed down datacenters to deliver savings and implemented new customer-centric technology. “The CIO can drive revenue,” he says, reflecting on his time at organizations such as DHL, Lenovo and Nortel.
As organizations have become increasingly digital, the CIO has been at the forefront of working with a diverse workforce that includes young and overseas talent. This has given CIOs first-hand experience in managing cultural change, which will benefit them.
Despite these beneficial experiences, Bandrowczak and his peer Dr. Art Langer, Director of the Center for Technology Management & Digital Leadership at Northeastern University, agree that CIOs must continue to broaden their skills if they want to leap to CEO. “Never get comfortable with your leadership style,” Langer says. “Your leadership style has to change if you are to be a CEO and become very good at non-technical oriented areas of the business.”
Bandrowczak says CIOs need to remember that CEOs are not born; they are made and made by how they develop their careers: “I was made into a CEO based on my career, which gave me the requirements to be a CEO, including the failures that you learn from.”
One such failure came during his time at Nortel, Originally, Bandrowczak was the CIO, but as the Canadian company navigated its financial difficulties, it asked him to step down into a sales-based role. Bandrowczak saw this as an opportunity: “I wanted to learn how you run a sales and marketing team.” He says this was a case of identifying where he had gaps in his experience and skills as a business leader and using difficulties to his advantage. “I understood what my gaps to being a CEO were, and I was constantly building my resume, and I was always communicating that I wanted to be a CEO.”
Building a broad skill set for leadership
CIOs cannot always take other roles to expand their resume, but Bandrowczak says spending time in the field with the sales team and the front-line workforce is valuable both as a CIO, and as a future CEO. Bandrowczak says CEOs have to be talented at recruitment and retention, which CIOs can develop as a skill in their current role. They must also develop experience and skills at capital management, creating revenue opportunities, and understand how the board works: Presenting to a board doesn’t mean you understand the board,” he warns.
In addition, Bandrowczak ensured he had a good network of CEOs and future CEOs. Senior leadership has changed; in the past, being the smartest person on your subject matter was enough; Bandrowczak says this is no longer the case, and all executives need good emotional intelligence (EQ) skills.
Gaining these skills is about ensuring that your career always exposes you to the experiences that shape you as a leader and prepare you for being a CEO. Bandrowczak spent many years at electronics company Avnet, and during that time he was exposed to 40 mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
As a result, he led several company and technology integrations. “You learn how to transform, and you learn a lot about culture and change.” He adds that M&A is also an opportunity to learn about capital management and exposes you to the thinking of the board because you get to see the “why” of certain business decisions. Many CIOs lead the creation of shared service operations, and Bandrowczak says this is an opportunity every CIO should leap at: “With shared services, you are looking across your business end-to-end, and then you drive process improvement and continuous change.”
The disruptive nature of technology to the enterprise in recent years has led to CIOs being in a good position to progress toward becoming CEO. “Few companies are immune to the effect of digital disruption and CIOs are critical to implementing technology driven strategy. CIOs should focus 80% of their time on how technology can be used for competitive advantage. Search firms tell me if they see a resume that is all about operations, then that is not going to be enough,” Langer adds.
The growing case for the CIO
“We believe CIOs are going to be the next prime possibility to be a CEO. We have been through the marketing, CFO, and COO eras, and now, with everything being about technology, then the CIO is an ideal candidate and there are increased conversations between the CIO and board,” Langer says.
“AI, robotics, RPA, edge computing, big data, sensors, video, voice, all of these changes mean as a CIO you have the ability to drive new shifts in how the company works,” Bandrowczak says.
In an increasingly technology-led business environment, CIOs have the opportunity to tackle new challenges and educate themselves to be the ideal candidate for the CEO role. Bandrowczak demonstrates it can be done; who will follow in his footsteps?
©2024 Nutanix, Inc. All rights reserved. Nutanix, the Nutanix logo and all Nutanix product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nutanix, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Kubernetes is a registered trademark of The Linux Foundation in the United States and other countries. All other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s). Certain information contained in this publication may relate to, or be based on, studies, publications, surveys and other data obtained from third-party sources and our own internal estimates and research. While we believe these third-party studies, publications, surveys and other data are reliable as of the date of this paper, they have not independently verified unless specifically stated, and we make no representation as to the adequacy, fairness, accuracy, or completeness of any information obtained from third-party sources.
