How to become a CIO? [closed]

Question

According to this blog, one could become a CIO if one meets the following criteria:

1. BSc in Computer Science
2. Proven experience in Project Management
3. Specialized in an certain area by becoming certified
4. IT Governance and Risk Management
5. MBA

Discussion

I wonder whether the above mentioned criteria would be sufficient to become a CIO. I think that soft skills are important as well to be promoted to such a function right? I do not think whether only mastering hard skills would be sufficient to become a CIO.

Answer 1

I really hate this kind of discussion, as if there's a mold that fits a good CTO or CIO.

Let's examine the qualities of a good executive rather:

1. Practices enabling and empowering engineers and local team leadership
2. Deflects bureaucracy from external sources
3. Helps remove organizational blockers to change and improvement
4. Does not mandate architecture from the top down
5. Acts as an evangelist for software first solutions
6. Promotes automation and solid foundations for solving problems rather than implementing patches
7. Knows how to avoid unrealistic deadlines and demands quality, but not perfection, over quantity of features
8. Uses data to solve problems and constantly evaluates the integrity of the data gathering
9. Values iterative development rather than long, cumbersome planning processes
10. Values education and internal training & advancement over outsourcing

I'll add some more if I can think of them. We need to stop assuming a CTO or CIO is a list of resume qualifiers and start hiring people who really understand the process of building, maintaining, and delivering software from sun rise to sun set.