The CIOs InformationWeek profiled this yr shared a typical actuality: Main IT means main change — typically large change. Throughout industries, CIOs described a task that extends past instruments and methods, calling for enterprise judgment, change administration and the flexibility to construct belief — all amid a yr of head-spinning AI developments and geopolitical uncertainty.
“There are at all times pressures across the anticipated enterprise worth you should obtain within the enterprise relative to all of the know-how developments,” Shelia Anderson, govt vp and chief data and digital officer at Unum Group. “How do you leverage these new and rising applied sciences to drive worth by means of innovation?”
Simply as putting have been the paths that introduced these leaders to their roles. Whereas some rose by means of the IT ranks, others arrived from exterior conventional profession tracks, with backgrounds in product growth, operations, engineering and stock management administration.
No matter the place their careers started, these CIOs shared a transparent view of what efficient IT management requires at present: clear targets tied to enterprise worth, shut cross-team collaboration, and sensible guardrails for deploying rising applied sciences akin to agentic AI.
Two profiles on this assortment highlight IT leaders exterior the CIO position — a chief working officer and chief safety officer — who echoed comparable themes. Like their CIO friends, they emphasised the necessity for management that spans know-how and the enterprise.
“I like know-how, however I additionally love technique. I like enterprise,” stated Nate Baxter, president and COO at ScottsMiracle-Gro. “Coming with that technical background, I may take advanced issues and distill them into helpful factors … and get a corporation to rally round and ship outcomes on.”
As CIOs plan forward for 2026, there may be worth in inspecting how friends have addressed challenges starting from AI deployments and upskilling workers to securing enterprise information and ROI.
