How to Become a Chief Information Officer

It typically takes at least 15 years of work experience to become a CIO. To become a company's chief officer, a person needs to gain the necessary education, experience, and leadership skills. This is a senior-level position and typically takes significant work experience and knowledge to achieve.

The first step to becoming a chief information officer of a company is to earn a bachelor's degree. The degree a person earns depends on their industry, but typically degrees in programs like business, economics, or finance are the best options to enter the corporate world.

Additionally, a person who wishes to enter senior-level leadership for a company should consider pursuing a master's degree in business or management. The skills learned while studying this degree program are directly applicable to a future position as a CIO and are typically required to obtain the position.

It will also be important to gain work experience; this can help a person learn more about the industry, qualify them for future positions and develop their resume. In whatever entry-level role a person takes, they should learn all they can about the company's hierarchies and organizational structure.

While working, a person should aim to promote the company's values and show leadership skills. This can attract the attention of supervisors and prove that someone is a promising candidate with ambitious career goals.

By exceeding expectations and working hard to contribute to the company's goals, a person can often qualify for management opportunities. When serving in a management role, make mental notes of effective leadership strategies and techniques. These can help later as the team size that a person manages continues to grow.

A CIO makes around $200,000 annually. The typical salary range for a CIO is around $170,000 per year to $350,000 in a year.

However, what a CIO should be paid depends on several factors that significantly impact the salary. These are level of experience, organizational structure, and industry.

Highly experienced chief information officers should expect to earn closer to $200,000 in a year, while new CIOs should anticipate lower salaries that might range from $170,000 to $190,000 a year.

This is also impacted by organizational structure. Salary depends largely on the size and complexity of the organization an operations director works for. If the company is larger and more complex, senior-level positions like the CIO position are harder to achieve and typically pay more.

Alternatively, in smaller and flatter companies, a person can achieve the title of chief information officer with less experience and will typically be paid less.

Finally, the industry also impacts salary expectations for chief information officers. Industries that have a high reliance on information management (like technology, finance, and other similar industries) will often pay their CIOs significantly more money to pull in the best talent available.

The education required to be a chief information officer role is typically a master's degree. This is usually in business administration, finance, or business management.

This is because chief information officers are responsible for managing and successfully implementing the entire company's information and computer technology systems.

This means they need significant education and experience to develop long-term operational strategies and work closely with other executive management team members to meet company objectives.

The chief information officer spends a significant amount of time collaborating with senior-level management to develop performance goals and long-term operational plans.

Their focus in this collaboration will be how to maximize the efficiency and productivity of the company's information technology through extensive process analysis and interdepartmental collaboration.

They will then work with directors to implement strategic plans and other institutional goals to effectively maximize information technology. Additionally, they will analyze current information processes and performance and recommend solutions for improvement when necessary.

Chief information officers need to build and maintain relationships with all department heads, external partners, and vendors to make decisions regarding information and technological activity and strategic goals. They also spend significant time upholding organization policies and standards and ensuring that legislative regulations are followed.

The difference between a CIO and a CTO is the role's focus. The CIO typically looks inward, aiming to improve processes within the company, while the CTO looks outward, using technology to improve or innovate products that serve the customers.

While these roles are fairly similar, they have different primary focuses, day-to-day tasks, and areas of strategic involvement.

The CIO is responsible for managing and ensuring ongoing operations, mission-critical systems, and overall security, from help desks and enterprise systems to service delivery and program management.

The explicit impact of a CIO can be determined with a variety of metrics, though improving the company's bottom line is a must. But the CIO is not only tech-focused: a good CIO integrates the entire IT department with other business units, so knowledge of the common as a whole is imperative.

On the other hand, the chief technology officer focuses on creating and using technology to help the business grow. This is typically done by improving offerings that the company's customers purchase with the help of new technologies.

The CTO focuses on external customers: those who buy your company's products, even if the product itself isn't digital or technology-based.

As customers become savvier and more knowledgeable about the products they use, the CTO must stay innovative and on the cutting edge of technology to ensure the company is offering the best products.

To that end, the CTO is often responsible for the engineer and developer teams who focus on research and development to improve and innovate company offerings.