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Why Don't More CIOs Become CEO?
jcatcw writes "Thornton May is mystified by the very small number of Fortune 500 companies that led by former CIOs. "Knowing what we know about CIOs — that is, that most are smart, hardworking, supremely aware of how the business works and increasingly savvy regarding the workings of external customers' minds — the failure of more CIOs to become CEO has to be one of the biggest mysteries of our age.""
the failure of more CIOs to become CEO has to be one of the biggest mysteries of our age
Not at all. CEOs are hired by boards of directors, the vast majority of whom are not comprised of current or former CIOs. It's the same reasoning that has lead to the grossly inflated paychecks and bonuses that we see CEOs getting today: many members of the board have apirations to becoming a CEO. It's a continuation of the "old boys' club" on an even more pervasive scale. Until shareholders start demanding different behavior by voting with their investment funds, the situation isn't likely to change.
Perhaps being intelligent, hardworking, and having a thorough knowledge of the company and how it works are not the most important factor in being CEO?
The similarity between CEOs and sociopaths has been pointed out before. From a Psychology Today article
More music, fewer hits
That and because CIOs don't BS enough. CEOs are generally the king of BS in any given organization.
"Most board members are chosen by the CEO"
I sorry, what? AFAEK, the Board hires a CEO to run the company. Members of the board themselves are elected by the general meeting of shareholders.
I don't have a sig.
According to the September 16-17, 2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Edition, about 20% of the CEO's of the top US companies have engineering degrees.
I've also seen articles that mention that companies that are led by engineers tend to report better earnings than companies led my non-engineers, but that was in the days of Jack Welch (former CEO of GE).
If you're C-level, you've got all of the corporate governance bullshit.
The real problem is that in most companies, the entire IT organization is seen as a corporate support cost center, like janitorial services.
Among MBAs, it is an old joke that CIO stands for "Career Is Over." If you're head of products, marketing or sales, you're seen as doing something "core" to the business and its value to customers. If you're CIO, you're seen as managing the IT department and technical product and service vendors -- supporting product development, marketing and sales.
Of course, in many large companies today, IT is the core value and a key driver of value to customers (e.g. FedEx). I might expect to see more CIO to CEO promotions.
I know two CEO's including the one I support on a daily basis as an MIS. He's the one who can't keep from permanently deleting his email and wanting it restored. And he's the one who goes on vacation three to four days a week every week. The second one lives in my neighborhood and is not much better. I can say I have met and do know more CEO's than these and I can provide specific examples of their on-going mistakes and lackidazical attitudes. It can't be described as anything less. IT knows too much. There's no room for the company to claim plausible denyability. And everyone hates the IT staff, even the CIO. Back over your laptop in the parking lot? It's IT's fault.
Given that the average CEO career is now about 4-7 years, and their average salary is less than a partner in a medium-to-large-size law firm, an investment banker, or a mediocre major league outfielder, I think the golden parachute are generally justified.
I'm not sure why there's this impression that CEOs don't work. If they didn't, they wouldn't be there...the board has institutional investors, outsiders and other shareholder to answer to, and that's exactly what they're there to oversee...
lol...
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Actually, I'm putting off writing a Corporate Goverance paper for a boring third-year law school class, and thought I'd try and inject some fact into slashdot. Maybe a futile endeavour...
Those are fairly well-known stats, check google scholar for "CEO tenure" or papers like:
The Impact of Regulation on CEO Labor Markets, The Rand Journal of Economics, Darius Palia
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261(200021
Just one of many...