Thank you to all of the CIOs who recently attended the annual Korn/Ferry CIO Breakfast in Silicon Valley.   The feedback we’ve received suggests that attendees felt it was a resounding success.  We were privileged to have three honored guests who together made this a memorable leadership discussion for all:

• Graham Waller, co-author of The CIO Edge, who joined us from Gartner, shared his thoughts on the key skills that are critical to being a successful leader today
• Randy Spratt, CIO and CTO of McKesson, who shared his observations on how CIOs can have a positive impact on customer satisfaction
• Vivek Kundra, CIO of the United States, who spent a few minutes describing the challenges of his role

We appreciate those who shared their experiences and added rich commentary to the discussion. The discussion included a number of topics related to Human Capital Management in the IT organization, and addressed the following themes:

• Developing 2nd tier IT leaders and the IT team in general
• Managing stakeholders (balancing innovation with the near-term demands of business units)
• Recruiting the best IT talent in Asia
• Aligning the IT team across multiple divisions and geographies (several attendees described having 11 or more geographically dispersed CIOs reporting to them)

If you are interested in the presentation from the Breakfast, please click here to download. Additionally, The CIO Edge book is available for purchase here.

Based on the great success of the event in Silicon Valley, we’d like to invite you to a CIO breakfast in San Francisco in late September. Please look for a note from us in the near future.

We look forward to continuing the dialogue with you.

Warm regards,

Bob Concannon and Kristen Badgley