I’ve come to realize that being a CIO is as much about everything outside technology as it is about technology itself. I need to understand customers. I need to be able to negotiate. I need to influence people over whom I have absolutely no authority. I need to know when to challenge the CEO,  and when a particular hill simply isn’t worth dying on. I need to be able to walk into a board meeting and explain a complex technology risk without drowning everyone in acronyms, but equally without simplifying it to the point where it becomes meaningless.

Over the years, I’ve also had to understand acquisitions, regulation, geopolitics, organizational design, workforce transformation and commercial strategy. None of those things would once have been considered core technology disciplines. Today, I’d struggle to imagine being an effective CIO without understanding them.

And then, of course, AI arrived and somehow made an already broad job broader again. CIO.com recently reported that in more than 75% of enterprise CIO searches conducted by executive-search firm Caldwell, candidates are now expected to be “board ready”, able to engage directors strategically and speak the language of business leadership.