You are a successful mid-market CIO who is ready to apply your IT leadership talents on a larger stage. But before you start sending your résumé to the Fortune 10, you may want to ask yourself a critical question: How scalable are my skills?

As anyone who has implemented enterprise systems can tell you, if you ignore the scalability factor, your system wont last three years. Given that you probably want your next CIO role to last at least that long, it is helpful to understand what you need to think about before moving to a larger organization. To get that perspective, I spoke with CIOs who have taken this path and made a successful transition. They offer this advice.

Prepare for the Size Question
Before you worry about succeeding at a larger company, you should focus first on making it past the hiring committee, many of whose members may be concerned about your ability to scale. In November 2006, Todd Thompson left his role as CIO of $1.7 billion airline JetBlue to assume the same job at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, the $6 billion hospitality company. As he expected, the interview team focused on his ability to succeed in a larger organization.

My answer was that at JetBlue, where I grew a team of 70 to 200, I proved that I could scale very effectively, he says. I also made the point that there are some complexities in an airline environment that make a $2 billion company feel a lot bigger from an IT perspective.

CIO Jonathan Manis moved from Provena Health, an organization of six hospitals and 16 long-term care facilities, to Sutter Health, which, with 26 hospitals, is one of the nations largest nonprofit healthcare systems. Like Thompson, he also fielded questions about scale.

I knew that if they didnt ask it they were thinking it, so I decided to address the issue head-on, he says. I talked about my military experience in terms of geographical dispersion and span of control and related it to the Sutter role. Theyre thinking, How does this guy go from $1 billion to $7 billion? I wanted to get it out on the table and out of the way.

The takeaway: Focus on points of relevance between your experience and the new role. Show how much more important these points are than sheer numbers.

Sharpen Your Influencing Skills
In April 2006, Eric Goldfarb left his position as CIO of PRG-Schultz International, a $300 million financial services firm, for the CIO role at BearingPoint, which has $3.4 billion in annual revenue. Since BearingPoint is not the first large company Goldfarb has worked for, he has learned to observe differences in culture and management style and shift his focus accordingly.