Creative solution desired

A multi billion dollar publishing company with trade educational and business and professional business units needed a Chief Information Officer. However, the company was seeking more than someone to keep the systems running. They wanted someone who could help senior management strategize how to manage the digitization of "content" and help identify new business models to exploit the value of the franchise. The company had commissioned two separate search efforts both of which failed to deliver anyone senior management was excited about.

Our mission:

Senior management was seeking an individual with strong management skills who viewed information technology as central to the business. The thinking was that someone from a big bank or financial services firm would have the "DNA" to help craft pragmatic technology strategies to assist senior management in defining its "digital future". Previous efforts had brought forward capable information technology executives experienced managing large staffs and large budgets but none excited the management team and the CEO was losing patience. We were asked to quickly identify a couple of prospective candidates and encouraged to be creative

Results:

We recognized that the missing ingredient seemed to be strategic vision. Rather than focus on CIO's of mid-sized financial services firms we sourced several of the " deans" of information technology on Wall Street (which had long utilized technology as a competitive weapon). We asked them who they had come across with superior strategic vision and we were referred to an individual whose credentials included a PhD in engineering from MIT and undergraduate degree from Harvard who was a partner at highly regarded strategy consulting firm, went on to lead advanced technology for a major wall street firm, and had recently become President of a custom solutions provider.

We were told he was earning too much money but he might be a good source. In describing the situation we said that our client entertains, educates and informs people and they need someone to help them exploit technology in their business. This peaked his interest and despite a being in more lucrative position, he met the client, they loved him and the search was completed in 32 days. Although it is impossible to anticipate when someone will consider a move to a different industry for less money, our experience suggests it will only happen when the individual presenting the opportunity has enough credibility and experience to spark an interest.