CIO – tech, exec or waste of space?

The role of the CIO and head of IT was one of the hot topics at this week's silicon.com CIO forum, with some people questioning whether it should be techies or businessmen who fill the position.

Ex-CIO and silicon.com columnist Rene Carayol provoked some debate by suggesting that boardrooms have lost faith in IT and that more business people are getting the top IT job because it is easier to teach them about technology rather than to teach an IT person about business.

We asked our readers how they view their CIO, IT director or head of IT – with the option of "a techie", "a businessperson", "a mix of the two" or "a waste of space".

The majority of readers were split between "a mix of the two" (32 per cent) and "a waste of space" (33 per cent).

Interestingly just 15 per cent see their IT chief as "a techie", while 20 per cent see them as "a business person".

The results, which admittedly are nothing more than a straw poll of some of silicon.com's readers rather than scientific research, highlight the continuing gap in perception between how CIOs see themselves and how everyone else sees them.

A Gartner report earlier this year found that CIOs and IT directors rank last among eight senior executive positions which CEOs think are important to the strategic direction of the company.

Read silicon.com on Monday for the results of our latest CIO Jury in which we ask our IT execs whether it is in fact easier to teach a businessman about the technology instead of the other way around.