How CIOs Get Onto Corporate Boards

The following is an excerpt from The CIO Paradox: Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership, by Martha Heller.

[Part 3 of 3]

[Read Part 1: The Bias Against CIOs on Corporate Boards]
[Read Part 2: The Case for CIOs on Corporate Boards]

The economic crisis of the last four years may actually have created an opportunity for CIOs to sit on boards: with risk on everybody’s mind, with boards reevaluating their needs, and with CEOs—the most popular pool of candidates for board positions—in shorter supply, the time may well be ripe for CIOs to ascend to their rightful place at the boardroom table. So, just tear out these few pages, wave them in the face of your nearest board chair, and make your case about why you should be selected to serve. But before you do, let’s talk about some other actions you should probably take to position yourself for board activity.

Leverage your own company’s board

As an executive at Delta and Home Depot, Bob DeRodes spent quite a bit of time with his companies’ boards. “At Delta, I was the CEO of a subsidiary company, and at Home Depot, I was a member of the executive team, and our CEO wanted us to be at all of our board meetings. I found that the experience you gain from watching boards, their chemistry (or lack of chemistry), and how they operate is very valuable,” he says.

DeRodes, a board member at NCR and Veracode, does acknowledge that there is a world of difference between presenting to your own board and sitting on a board as a director. “Going back in my career, I can remember a number of times I was summoned to the board,” he says. “I was whisked in, nervous as hell. Then I’d try to give the best pitch of my life, and get whisked out again.”

The real opportunity is in demonstrating to the board that you are that rare breed of leader with a perfect blend of business acumen, strategic thinking, technology expertise, and executive presence. “This is a chance to build your reputation as an individual who can be trusted with large decisions,” says DeRodes. “It’s a chance to show that you are a creative thinker who can identify and solve large problems, as opposed to somebody who worries about budgets and is a caretaker of an environment. Your chances of making the right impression on the board are diminished if you just come in and say ‘Here’s my budget and I’m hitting it.’ ”

Most board members are well connected and know which boards are looking for technology expertise. “If they can tell their networks, ‘I know the CIO at the company where I’m on the board. He or she comes in and briefs us every quarter and is really impressive and knows the industry really well,’ that would be a good starting point,” says DeRodes.

While presenting to your own board is not a direct route to your first board appointment (and you’re certainly not going to spend the whole meeting glad-handing and asking for referrals) building credibility and relationships among your own board members will position you well for board work.

Now may be a good time to ask yourself: How good am I at board presentations? Do I wow the board with my knowledge of the business and the impact that IT is having on its growth? If you are not truly capitalizing on the opportunity to impress this influential and captive audience, you might want to hire a coach and master the art of presenting to the board.

Target your vendors

As I mentioned earlier, boards often appoint executives from their biggest partner companies to strengthen an important relationship. Often, many large service organizations have a customer board, and participation there can also offer valuable board experience. “These customer boards have the ear of the CEO,” says DeRodes. “I can tell you that at HP and IBM, the CEOs pay close attention to those boards, and their lieutenants are in almost all of the meetings.”

While customer boards play more of an advisory function than corporate boards, which play a governing function, they give you exposure to people outside your company. And if you can influence the product direction of one of your major vendors, that’s a nice fringe benefit.

Pick up a new title

If a board of directors is going to appoint a CIO, they will be more likely to favor the candidate who has taken on more than IT. This is what I refer to as the “CIO-and phenomenon,” where CIOs are adding SVP of customer care, chief human resources officer, or VP of strategic planning to their titles. Just as Doreen Wright was head of HR for Campbell Soup during part of her CIO tenure, a CIO who takes on more than IT demonstrates a broader set of leadership skills and changes those die-hard perceptions of CIOs as pure techies. “It’s all about the diversity of your work portfolio,” says Wright, who also served as CIO at Nabisco, and currently serves on the boards of Dean Foods and Crocs. “For a CIO to be asked to join a board, they need to be known for work that is broader than the CIO title.” If you Googled Wright during her tenure at Campbell Soup, you would find interviews with her on workforce diversity and leadership development, in addition to articles about her in CIO magazine.

This, of course, puts me in mind of another paradox: As CIO, you need to grasp the big picture and the smallest detail, you need to manage a team of techies and teach them to “talk business,” you need to balance cost containment and innovation, and you need an intimate view of every single process in your business. The job is hard and, it seems, beyond the grasp of most mere mortals. The Paradox? As tough as the CIO role is, it is not enough simply to master it. If you want to move forward in your career, you should probably pick up another title as well.

Join the right company

When Doreen Wright was at Campbell Soup, her CEO, Doug Conant, believed very strongly that each member of his executive team should sit on a board. “He knew that it would give his executives the ability to become better leaders and it would bring important knowledge back to Campbell Soup,” says Wright. “By serving on boards, we learned new ways of doing things. We were getting an external perspective, which was invaluable. It also taught us how to be more effective with the Campbell Soup board. Serving on an external board immediately increased our credibility with our own board.” If, unlike Doug Conant, your CEO sees no value in your joining a board and will not support your effort, either give up on the dream or give up on the company.

Build your executive search networks

“There are two ways that boards select their directors,” says Wright. “Either they conduct a formal executive search, or they will act on a referral.” Most large search firms have vertical practices (financial services, retail, industrial) and functional practices (CIOs, board practices, CFOs, heads of HR). When the CEO needs to recruit a new board member, she will approach the firm’s board practice leader for the search. If the requirements include a heavy focus on technology, that board practice leader will go to the CIO practice leader and ask for names. If you don’t already have a relationship with the CIO practice leaders at the major search firms, now would be a good time to start. “Two of my board appointments came to me this way,” says Wright. “The company engaged a search firm and told them, ‘We want a woman with a financial services background who has had experience with risk management and transformation.’ ” That recruiter walked right over to the head of the CIO practice and asked for suggestions. The CIO practice leader said, “Call Doreen.”

The other route to board work is for the CEO to reach out to his own networks for suggestions. “At the end of the day, if your name isn’t known among CEO or executive search networks, you are never going to make the list,” says Wright. This is no different from anything else in your career. It’s all about your networks.

Talk to your head of HR

Most likely, the human resources leader at your own company has a relationship with the major executive search firms, having hired such a firm to find the people who populate your executive boardroom. Once you’ve made the case with your CEO for joining a board (and gotten him to make some calls on your behalf), meet with your HR leaders as well. “Your HR leader can call his recruiter friends and say, ‘We have a great CIO and we’d like him to get some board experience. These are his skills; this is where he could contribute. Can you keep him in mind?’ ”

HR leaders have some leverage with executive recruiters. Get them to put the word out to their executive search networks so that your name is bandied about in the right circles. “I received many calls when I was CIO of Campbell, precisely because of this,” says Wright. “My head of  HR gave out my name and people would call me for board work. It is an effective path, because your HR partner is in a position to describe you very well.”

Wait until you retire

When I was in third grade, my classmates and I were given the assignment of calculating our age in the year 2000. When I discovered that I would be thirty-four, I was horrified. How, at thirty-four years of age, would I enjoy all the hovercrafts and Mars adventures that would surely be in daily operation? I would be so old. I think that, similarly, many of us assume that when we retire, all we will  want to do is travel and grow tomatoes. But that may not be the case. You may actually want to continue to engage as an executive, and board service could be just the thing.  “Boards of directors may be concerned that a sitting CIO does not have the capacity to contribute to a board,” says Wright. “The CIO’s own CEO might have the same concerns. You may have a better shot at a board appointment if you wait until you retire.”

Join the board of a not-for-profit organization

Doreen Wright sat on the boards for a large number of not-for-profits before she sat on her first public company board. “You get a lot out of the experience,” she says. “These boards are not as professional or business oriented, and of course you don’t get paid, but you do get some pretty great experience.” Nonprofit boards are still boards, and they exhibit many of the same dynamics as their corporate counterparts. “How do you work together? How do you delegate responsibilities? How do you get things done? Nonprofits offer a chance to learn how to work as a governing body,” says Wright.

In addition to allowing you to contribute to something you care about and give back to your community, nonprofits offer a path to new networks as well. “Who do you think sits on nonprofit boards?” asks Wright. “All of the business leaders who share your passion. A bunch of CEOs and CFOs will be sitting on the board of your city’s ballet company; these are the people who hire public company board members.”

Do you go to your college alumni events? Do you still network with the members of your MBA class? In addition to nonprofits, there are other natural networks that you can leverage to widen your circle of friends. Bob DeRodes has participated in a number of local nonprofit boards, and values the experience. “You need to join a local board to get a sense of what a board does, how it operates, takes minutes, calls to order, all of that,” he says. “And technology people are in high demand at not-for-profits. These organizations are small and need IT advice.”

Do the Google test

About a year ago, I Googled myself (a phrase that still sounds slightly off-color to me, no matter how often I hear it), and I found something quite scandalous. Right at the top of the search results page was a story about a twenty-two-year-old woman from Iowa named Martha Heller who had engaged in a fairly bizarre entrepreneurial pursuit. (That’s all common decency will allow me to publish here. Go use your research skills to figure out the rest of the story yourself.) So here I am, publishing consistently for more than twelve years, and I am upstaged but one wacky woman doing one wacky thing. So, I hired a search engine optimization consultant who fixed that particular situation.

If you do the Google test yourself, what do you find? The first thing that someone recruiting for a board are going to do is research the referrals they are given. Whatever you find when you Google yourself is what they will find. Recruiters and board members will want to know if you gave the commencement address at a local university or if you’ve established a new leadership development program in your company. “Get out there, speak, get published, get noticed,” advises Wright. “You have to work to get yourself known.”

Make sure you really want this

You know the joke: What’s the difference between an introverted CIO and an extroverted CIO? The introverted CIO looks at his shoes when he talks to you. The extroverted CIO looks at your shoes. “Some of the most brilliant and successful people in technology are just not great conversationalists,” says DeRodes. If your clear preference is to read a book rather than walk into a room filled with people, you might not belong on a board.

Conclusion

The fact is getting a paid directorship on a corporate board is really hard. No matter the strength of your desire, if you don’t have the right background, track record, credentials, and networks, it may simply not happen for you. Join a nonprofit and enjoy the new experience, the new people, and the opportunity to give back.

However, if you do have a background that traverses IT and P&L leadership, if you are CIO of a respected company whose CEO values board experience in his executives, and if you have great networking skills, then start your board appointment plan now. Enlist the executive leadership team of your company and set a strategic plan to secure your first corporate board appointment. Compliance, risk, innovation, and mobility are all taking center stage for almost every industry on the planet. There has never been a better time for CIOs to serve on boards, and it is high time that boards saw the light.