The Uncomfortable CEO

Information technology (IT) is often organized as a cost center and excluded from active decision making relative to achieving the company’s strategic goals. Uncomfortable CEOs are dissatisfied with this status quo. They have the vision to understand that viewing IT as a mere commodity service provider falls far short of realizing its full potential. Importantly, they translate vision into action and prepare to respond to key challenges. These include: • More than 50 percent of all capital expenses incurred by businesses worldwide go to IT. However, most business leaders remain skeptical as to whether their IT investments bring business relevance to their corporations. • IT organizations need to demonstrate the core capabilities of deep business understanding and resilient leadership. • Corporations must develop and select IT leaders who can deliver positive business results in a rapidly changing, highly volatile, and unpredictable business environment. Therein lies an opportunity! Uncomfortable CEOs have the capacity to change before the case for the change becomes obvious. They have learned how to strategically leverage IT by linking it to planning, operations, finance, and innovation development. IT is an essential component to achieving an organization’s vision. IT is capable of providing invaluable insights that can have the greatest impact on both productivity and profitability for the entire organization. "The Uncomfortable CEO™" is a handbook for CEOs and other senior executives that lays out the argument for leveraging IT’s key role in the business world of the twenty-first century and provides guidance for doing so successfully. The author explores thought-provoking ideas and challenges your executive thinking to reveal the business relevance of IT. Thirty leadership actions provide a clear step-by-step guide for CEOs to lead their IT organizations toward the highest-leveraged function.

Information technology (IT) is often organized as a cost center and excluded from active decision making relative to achieving the company’s strategic goals. Uncomfortable CEOs are dissatisfied with this status quo. They have the vision to understand that viewing IT as a mere commodity service provider falls far short of realizing its full potential. Importantly, they translate vision into action and prepare to respond to key challenges. These include: • More than 50 percent of all capital expenses incurred by businesses worldwide go to IT. However, most business leaders remain skeptical as to whether their IT investments bring business relevance to their corporations. • IT organizations need to demonstrate the core capabilities of deep business understanding and resilient leadership. • Corporations must develop and select IT leaders who can deliver positive business results in a rapidly changing, highly volatile, and unpredictable business environment. Therein lies an opportunity! Uncomfortable CEOs have the capacity to change before the case for the change becomes obvious. They have learned how to strategically leverage IT by linking it to planning, operations, finance, and innovation development. IT is an essential component to achieving an organization’s vision. IT is capable of providing invaluable insights that can have the greatest impact on both productivity and profitability for the entire organization. "The Uncomfortable CEO™" is a handbook for CEOs and other senior executives that lays out the argument for leveraging IT’s key role in the business world of the twenty-first century and provides guidance for doing so successfully. The author explores thought-provoking ideas and challenges your executive thinking to reveal the business relevance of IT. Thirty leadership actions provide a clear step-by-step guide for CEOs to lead their IT organizations toward the highest-leveraged function.

JOSÉ IGNACIO is an international citizen who has lived on three continents. He is an entrepreneurial, highly accomplished, award-winning global IT executive and CIO. He started his career with The Procter & Gamble Company in Mexico and was later transferred to the Latin American headquarters in Caracas, Venezuela, where he became the regional CIO responsible for fourteen markets and 2,200 direct reports and seven-figure budgets. He has proven ability to direct successful global business-driven IT solutions and mergers and acquisitions. He was transferred to Ohio in the summer of 2006. He led a global initiative to enhance P&G’s distinctive customer-facing go-to-market capabilities, while increasing sales productivity among 10,000 sales associates in over 150 countries. With a genuine interest in understanding the needs of P&G’s key global partners, he led a systems strategy to consolidation of separate (local) systems into a manageable portfolio of fewer, (global) solutions, which translated into more effective selling and incremental revenue. He also launched P&G’s Global Shopper Based Services to enhance solutions in terms of broader access to shopper insights and allowing efficient analytics for almost all customer teams around the world. Throughout his twenty-five-year career at Procter & Gamble, José Ignacio held leadership positions in multiple functions (commercial, supply chain, consumer market research, IT, and global shared services), and worked with the top five global retailers (Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, Target, Metro), as well as with distributors and small independent stores. He is frequently recognized within the industry for blending business acumen and IT strategy. He was named to HITEC 100 America’s Most Influential Hispanics in Information Technology in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. His board experience includes: Industry co-chairman of CECRAL (LatAm ECR Association) Advisory Board Member for Transora in South America Mentorship chair at HITEC’s Board of Directors Member of i.c.Stars* (Chicago) Program Committee Co-chairman IERG (International Executives Resources Group) Chicago chapter José Ignacio is a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), Mexico, with a B.S. in computer science. He resides in Chicago, IL, with his wife and three children.