Special: What kind of CIO are you?

The two company insiders are the professional and executive CIOs - the former having spent most of their career at their current organisation in a tech role and the latter having spent most of their career at the organisation but in a variety of non-tech general management and executive roles.

The two company outsiders are the paratrooper and consultant CIO. The paratroopers tend to be most in demand and the highest paid and have spent their career across different organisations in different vertical industry sectors, usually moving on every time they have completed a big transformation project. Platts describes them as "CV managers".

He says: "The paratroopers think about the names they work for. They move around and they want a new challenge."

The consultant CIO usually has broader general management experience than the paratrooper, gained across sales, marketing, operations and IT but often just in one particular industry sector.

The type of CIO in situ at an organisation is also rarely an accident. The different CIOs tend to be more suited to particular phases of a business cycle that a company is going through.

The research says: "For example, the promotion of a professional CIO usually signals satisfaction with the IT status quo, whereas the recruitment of a paratrooper is almost always associated with a desire for significant change. Consultant and executive CIOs are usually brought in when more of a business focus is required."

The CIO's future career is also heavily influenced by which category they fall into and as business and technology continue to converge it is the consultant CIO whose star is currently rising.

Platts says: "These are the ones I see getting role extensions such as [head of] shared services or director of transformation."

Throughout this week silicon.com will be profiling real-life examples of the different types of CIOs, including Reuters' David Lister, former Barclays CIO David Weymouth, Siemens CIO Gordon Lovell-Read and former AstraZeneca CIO Paul Burfitt.

Here are the four different types of CIO:

Paratrooper CIO
The paratrooper is a strong and independent outsider usually headhunted into an organisation when major change is on the agenda, and they rarely stay around for long - three to five years - once it is completed.

Platts says: "The paratrooper feels safe by being a completely self-reliant James Bond character."

Click here [page 2] for the full paratrooper CIO profile.

Professional CIO
This is the company insider closest to the traditional image of the top IT executive and someone who has worked their way up through the ranks on performance and merit.

Platts says: "They are deeply loyal to the company. If you have a professional CIO who has been in the place for a while the chances are it is because they have been doing a good job."

Click here [page 3] for the full professional CIO profile.

Executive CIO
The least technical of the four different types of CIO, the executive is the general manager brought in by the CEO and the board to get the IT operation back on track.

Platts says: "They are brought in to ride shotgun. The executive CIO can come in when there is a lack of trust and the executive team is deeply cynical about IT. They are brought in when good management is needed."

Click here [page 4] for the full executive CIO profile.

Consultant CIO
Another outsider but whereas the paratrooper CIO is brought in to bring about transformation and change in a relatively short period of time the consultant's change brief is usually more long-term.

Platts says: "The consultant CIO is genuinely skilled in business and IT. They build relationships, don't piss people off and have a clear customer focus. You get that profile by periods in general management."

Click here [page 5] for the full consultant CIO profile.