CIO ROUNDTABLE -What CIOs Tell Their CEOs

In the arsenal of communication techniques, a message you can deliver quickly can be crucial for time-crunched encounters with the boss.

Question: If you had only a few minutes to tell your CEO about IT, what would you say?

Bob Wittstein, CIO, Sappi Fine Paper North America: Our CEO just started at the end of last year, so I needed a short, one-page trifold handout that said this is IT at Sappi, this is what we do. I always have the pitch from that IT marketing brochure in my head. It includes our mission statement and our strategy: Yes, we keep the engine running. But we’re also about process innovation and about customer-facing innovation. And because we’re part of a larger global company, we have to optimize IT for the entire corporation.

Bud Mathaisel, CIO, Solectron: The CEO is interested in strategy and direction. Strategy conversations are dependent on a stream of things coming together—conditions affecting the marketplace, what we are seeing from the competition, opportunities available through technology. Strategy work takes a block of time. It’s less amenable to quick chat.

Al-Noor Ramji, CIO, BT Group: I would remind him that my job is to improve the customer experience by improving cycle times. If you do things faster and you get it right the first time, financials—everything—improves.