Be the Business ─ CIOs in the New Era of IT

Remember the '70s? Way back then, IT was a mainframe that sat in some room and only two people had a key. Flash forward a decade, and IT was a limited set of systems irrelevant to the vast majority of employees and customers. But today, all of the sudden, technology belongs to everyone.

Because of the suddenness of this revolution in technology adoption, the IT organizations in most companies have not had enough time to evolve into a "comfortable integration" with the rest of the company. This lack of comfortable integration has led to some strange phenomena including: shadow IT, the "everyone is a CIO" phenomenon, where most employees think they can run IT better than the CIO. It also translates to CIOs are being held responsible for driving adoption in areas where they cannot possibly have as much influence as other executives, and the emergence of odd new executive hires like "Chief Innovation Officer" and "Chief Digital Officer."

In Be the Business, Martha Heller tackles some critical questions for the modern-day CIO at the center of it all:

When technology all of a sudden belongs to everyone, what does that mean for IT?
When technology is your company's differentiator, how does your IT operating model change?
When technology is the business, how is technology leadership distributed across and through the enterprise?
How much more responsibility can IT take on? How long can the center hold?

Through interviews with dozens of CIOs, Heller has created a snapshot of what CIOs are doing to lead IT in a climate where technology belongs to everyone. She addresses how CIOs are changing their operating models, their approaches to talent development, their assessment of the new IT provider marketplace, and most importantly, the skills and behaviors critical to CIOs who are achieving success in an ever changing landscape. As a master storyteller, Heller incorporates philosophy, humor, and pragmatic advice into a book that both informs and entertains.

Martha Heller is one of the most widely followed voices on IT leadership and the role of the CIO. She has been a CIO magazine columnist since 1999, and is the author ofThe CIO Paradox: Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership.

Martha is president of Heller Search Associates, an executive recruiting firm that specializes in IT leadership positions nationwide across all industries. She has spent 15 years working with the CIO community at the highest levels. Based on this experience and extensive interviews, outreach, and her work as an executive recruiter, Martha has distilled empirically backed insights into what it takes today to be an IT executive capable of driving transformation.

In 2004, Martha founded the CIO Executive Council, CIO magazine’s professional organization for CIOs. In addition to her blog on CIO.com, Martha engages extensively with the technology executive community through social media and her widely read e-newsletter, The Heller Report.”

Martha is a highly sought after public speaker, regularly addressing and engaging with members of the IT profession at executive events held by The Research Board, the National Retail Federation, the Technology Business Management Council, Forrester, Harvard University, MIT, CIO magazine, ServiceNow, Box, and Cisco.