The CIO Role Has Already Changed. Has the Person In It?

Over the past few months I've had a lot of career conversations with CIOs. Some sitting in role, some looking for their next move. ASX-listed businesses, mid-market companies, a few in the middle of significant transformation programmes. Different industries, different tenure, different pressures. But a handful of core themes kept coming up, and I thought it might be useful to shine a light on some of these - especially as the CIO role continues to evolve beyond that of 'just' a technologist.

The role has evolved dramatically since I ran my first CIO search back in the mid-2000's. The board expects more. The CEO wants a strategic partner, not a technology manager. And the questions coming across the desk have shifted from "is the infrastructure stable?" to "how do we govern AI responsibly?" and "are our people actually ready for this?"

That matches what the research is saying. In the 2025 State of the CIO survey, 82% of respondents said CIOs are now taking the lead on digital transformation, and 77% said their CIO has a genuine educational partnership with the CEO and board. Only 16% of technology leaders expect a traditional, functional IT focus three to five years from now. The role is moving fast toward something that looks much more like enterprise-wide orchestration than IT operations.

But here is what the research doesn't capture, and I think many of those conversations revealed: the people best prepared for this new mandate are not always the ones who have held the title the longest. Which is frustrating for someone looking to break into the role - a task that is always difficult in the Australian market.

The role has already changed. Many who hold it haven't.

The CIO's expanded mandate now runs in three directions at once. The first is AI governance and ethical oversight. As organisations deploy AI at scale, responsibility for model risk, infrastructure integrity and regulatory compliance is landing on the CIO's desk whether they asked for it or not. The second is workforce transformation. CIOs are now being held accountable for whether the organisation can actually use the technology it's investing in, which requires a much closer working relationship with HR than most IT leaders are used to. The third is genuine board-level partnership. Not the occasional technical briefing, but a continuous, proactive role in shaping how the enterprise thinks and invests.

Deloitte's 2026 Global Technology Leadership Study surveyed over 660 senior technology executives and captured this point well. Leaders are caught between the ambition of an AI-driven world and the structural reality of legacy operating models, constrained budgets and talent gaps. Forty-one percent of tech leaders report the business sees them as unable to keep up with demand.

That gap, between the mandate and the execution, is where I see some of the most experienced CIOs struggling. Not because they lack capability, but because the role they were shaped by, and for, no longer exists in the same form, and many of these CIO's have struggled to keep pace from a professional development perspective.

What does future-ready actually look like?

Across the research and my own conversations, five capabilities consistently show up in the leaders who are navigating this transition well.

1. Bilingual fluency: speaking both P&L and architecture

The CIOs who are landing well right now can move between a board conversation about financial returns and a technical conversation with an engineering team without losing credibility in either room. Executive search firms are increasingly explicit about this. Candidates who can only operate comfortably in one language are being passed over. The ability to translate between business value and technical reality, in both directions, has become a core requirement.

2. AI governance as a leadership discipline, not a technical function

The future-ready CIO does not just deploy AI. They govern it. That means owning the frameworks for model risk, building the guardrails that allow the business to move quickly but safely, and being able to tell a coherent story to the board that holds together AI economics, ethics, reliability and regulatory compliance at the same time. That is a fundamentally different capability from running an AI implementation project.

3. Outcome orientation over deliverable orientation

One CIO I spoke with recently put it simply: the job is now about "ensuring every digital investment drives measurable outcomes." That sounds obvious, but the shift from managing technology delivery to integrating business value requires a different relationship with the CFO, a different way of defining success internally, and a different kind of conversation at every board meeting.

4. Workforce transformation leadership

This is the one that surprises people most. CIOs are now accountable for whether the rest of the organisation is ready to use AI effectively. That is not a technology problem. It is a change management problem, a culture problem and increasingly a talent development problem. The leaders getting this right are building close operating partnerships with HR, developing clear AI skills progression frameworks, and modelling the behaviour themselves rather than delegating it.

5. Cross-functional orchestration

The modern CIO's portfolio spans what used to be several separate roles. Data governance is increasingly consolidating under the CIO as CDO functions either report in or disappear. AI strategy sits either directly with the CIO or in close coordination. Security and compliance require constant dialogue with the CISO. The future-ready CIO is not managing IT so much as orchestrating intelligence across the enterprise.

The cohort insight many organisations are missing

Here is the observation that consistently catches hiring organisations off guard. In several of these capabilities, the rising cohort of VPs and senior directors who have not yet held the CIO title is often better prepared than many current incumbents.

They grew up in environments where AI fluency was expected, not exceptional. They have spent time in cross-functional product and transformation roles rather than siloed IT functions. Their instinct is to measure outcomes rather than manage deliverables, because that is the environment that shaped them. And they tend to be more comfortable with the sustained ambiguity that now defines the role.

What they often lack, and where the experienced CIO still holds real advantage, is hard-won operational credibility, institutional knowledge and the ability to navigate complex stakeholder environments under prolonged pressure. The most impressive first-year CIO I have seen recently was not someone who had held the title before. It was someone who had spent three years working at the CIO's shoulder, absorbing the political and relational complexity of the role, before stepping into it.

The implication for organisations hiring or developing for the CIO role is significant. Tenure in the title is not the same as readiness for the title as it now exists. The question worth asking is not "how many years has this person been a CIO?" but "how prepared are they for the CIO role this organisation actually needs right now?"

The career path is changing too

The research points to a CIO career arc that typically spans 15 to 20 years, eight or more distinct roles, and experience across multiple organisations and often multiple industries. The typical profile combines a technical undergraduate degree with an MBA or equivalent business education, which reflects the bilingual fluency requirement. It has never been an MBA-only path or a pure technology track. It has always required both.

But the experiences that matter most are shifting. Cross-functional leadership, running operations, transformation programmes or P&L-bearing functions outside of IT, is increasingly the differentiating experience at the top. Deep industry knowledge matters less than the ability to learn quickly and operate credibly in unfamiliar environments.

The rising cohort understands this intuitively. They are actively seeking experiences outside IT. They are putting their hands up for strategy conversations. They are building relationships across finance, HR and the board rather than waiting to be invited in. In many ways, they are already behaving like the CIO they want to become.

What this means in practice

For organisations assessing or hiring for the CIO role, the future-ready profile demands a different kind of evaluation. Technical track record matters, but it is table stakes. The real questions are around strategic acumen, AI governance maturity, cross-functional credibility and the candidate's capacity to grow with a mandate that will continue to shift rapidly over their tenure. Growth Capacity!! Check out this article on Growth Capacity.

For technology leaders building toward the role, the direction is clear. The next CIO will spend more time governing intelligence than managing infrastructure. More time at the board table. More time on workforce readiness than on system uptime. Getting there means deliberately acquiring the experiences, relationships and capabilities the role now demands, not just executing well in the role you currently hold.

The future-ready CIO is, at its core, a cross-functional transformation executive who can hold technical credibility, business fluency and governance leadership at the same time. That is a genuinely rare combination. The organisations that know how to find, develop and retain it will have a real advantage in the years ahead.

Charles Baker is Founder and Managing Partner of Vantyr Group, which combines executive search, leadership assessment and integration coaching for senior technology leaders.