Nissan CIO leads 2014 CIO 100 with Telefonica and FT CIOs

Stephen Kneebone, European CIO of global car manufacturer Nissan heads the 2014 CIO 100. This year’s CIO 100 sees two English CIOs with international roles head the table as they, and Christina Scott, CIO for the Financial Times news organisation, are all actively involved in enabling their organisations embrace the challenges of the digital revolution.

The 2014 CIO 100 was the hardest yet to judge, CIO UK’s Editor in Chief Mark Chillingworth said, as the baton was passed on from celebrated 2013 leader James Thomas of University College London Hospitals.

“The achievements of all the CIOs in the CIO 100 are incredible and in particular this year’s top three, Stephen Kneebone, Phil Jordan of Telefonica and Christina Scott of the FT.

“The CIO 100 judging panel of former C-level business leaders all agreed that the challenges of driving a digital agenda into a car manufacturing business and enabling it to think of itself as a retailer too during a recession is impressive,” Chillingworth said.

“Nissan is the first one to be driving the true multi-channel experience. They are looking at themselves as retailers and should be applauded for that,” said judge and CIO columnist Mike Altendorf.

“He shows really good collaboration skills for this industry,” added former CIO and CIO 100 member Ian Cox.

Nissan is a major manufacturer in the UK, its Sunderland plant made 501,756 cars in 2013 and since the plant opened in the 1980s it has manufactured over seven million cars.

Nissan’s Kneebone was very closely followed in the CIO 100 by Phil Jordan, Global CIO for Telefonica.

TelefonicaGroup is a broadband and telecommunications operator in 25 countries and serves around 331.8 million customers worldwide, best known in the UK as the parent to mobile network 02.

Jordan impressed the judging panel with the significant number of deliveries he has achieved as a technology leader in the last 12 months. The scale of Jordan’s role and the level of transformation to the operations at Telefonica are incredible. Like Kneebone at Nissan, Jordan’s CIO strategy clearly reflects the need for all organisation to understand and react to the impact of digital and mobile technologies.

CIO Christina Scott has been with the FT since May 2012 and in those two years has put the technology department at the heart of the FT business. The CIO 100 judging panel felt this was an important decision as media organisations will continue to face digital disruption from new formats and devices.

“She’s using the cloud capacity to run quick experiments and a lot about the cloud is about testing and trying things,” says former CIO and judge Richard Sykes.

The CIO 100 is an annual listing and community event that showcases the transformational achievements of CIOs in or from the UK.

CIO Editor in Chief Mark Chillingworth said: “The CIO 100 is an insight into the diverse organisations where CIOs are leading change, whether it is a multi-national corporation, NHS Trust, national company, charity or local authority, the role of technology to make a difference is valuable to all of these organisations. It my aim as the Editor of the CIO 100 to demonstrate the skills and achievements of CIOs no matter the size of organisation or budget.

“This has been a hard year to judge the CIO 100, but I have been very impressed with the transformational abilities of the entire CIO community,” Chillingworth said.