More companies need to act like Charles Schwab & Co., whose co-CEO, David Pottruck, considers technology "one of the core competencies for business leadership." Every management succession plan at the brokerage takes technology competency into account. Schwab executives must understand the basics of networks, systems and applications, and know how to plan and evaluate IT projects. "It will signal the technology group that you are interested and competent in their realm," Pottruck writes in his book Clicks and Mortar. "You will become a partner rather than a patient."
So while the trend is for CIOs and other top IT execs to hail from outside the IT organization, that doesn't excuse them from rolling up their sleeves with the system admins and programmers from time to time. It pays to be well-rounded, whether you're in finance, business development or IT. Children's CIO Daniel Nigrin (who, incidentally, was brought in after the hospital did its ERP due diligence) is an endocrinologist, but he also has a master's degree in medical informatics and isn't above hacking code. "Not having that experience would make me a lot less credible on the IT side," Nigrin says. "If I were just a doc, I couldn't do this job. But if I were not a doc, I couldn't do this job."
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