Key Attributes of a CIO Part 6 - Lessons Learned at Central Ohio IT Leaders.org

February 22, 2019 3 min Read

With a great deal of help, I put together an IT leadership development program - Central Ohio IT Leaders.org - in 2017 for aspiring CIOs in Central Ohio.  The following message is my effort to share what I have learned from the tremendous CIO guest speakers that have presented as part of the program. Central Ohio IT Leaders.org is a peer group that meets monthly to network, discuss ideas, learn from experienced speakers, and establish collaborative relationships with the goal of nurturing the next generation of Columbus IT leadership. Several times throughout the year, the peer group will host CIO guest speakers to discuss various aspects of IT leadership. The following lesson learned is based off of my interpretation of a recent presentation by Angelo Mazzocco, CIO of Central Ohio Primary Care (COPC).

Over the past five weeks, I have described Angelo’s presentation on ‘Attributes of a CIO,’ how I interpreted the presentation, and what our class discussed, agreed and disagreed on.  In this installment, I am asking you for your input.

To review – the Attributes of a CIO are as follows:

  1. Understand how your organization operates horizontally
  2. Leverage your strategic vendors for ideas and share your vision
  3. Build a network before you need it
  4. Learn every interaction point that IT has with the business, and the key stakeholders
  5. Create a great professional culture
  • How would you prioritize the five attributes listed above?
  • Why? Does your organization presently have attributes and priorities around this role?
  • How about your role?
  • What would you change or add?

I am asking that you respond and we will discuss the direct responses during our March class.  Make your opinion be known! Please email me your feedback at steve.gruetter@expedient.com or on my LinkedIn feed.

In next week’s post, I will share another my interpretation of another presentation that was delivered to the IT Leaders class by one of our great local technology executives. In addition to Angelo, David White, Ben Blanquera, Bruce Barnes, Doug McCollough, Chris Berk, Mark Sims, Jeremiah Gracia and Paul Koehler have also presented to the IT Leaders program in the past.  We look forward to having Partha Srinivas, Ervan Rodgers, Shauna Latshaw, Mike Fulton and Kathleen Starkoff present to our current and future classes.

My goal is to create 40 blog posts in 2019 with my thought on the presentations from this outstanding group of speakers.  We will begin to take nominations for participants for the next IT Leaders class beginning at the CIO Tomorrow event on Tuesday, April 30, 2019. The next class starts in September 2019. In next week’s post, I will share another key attribute of the CIO role that was discussed at Central Ohio IT Leaders.org.

If you’re interested in discussing the IT Leaders program, digital transformation, cloud technology or how to get involved with Central Ohio’s IT community, please reach out to me at steve.gruetter@expedient.com.

Steve Gruetter Steve Gruetter

Subscribe to Our Blog