CIO magazine’s interview with John Connolly, Tube Lines’ director of information, highlights a growing trend for IT to sit outside its more traditional remit and to encompass the wider information needs of the business.
“He is the first person in his position at Tube Lines to sit on the executive committee and with a head of information management, Liz Scott-Wilson, having recently been appointed, and a head of IT, Adrian Davey, already in situ, he feels he has the team to address both opportunities and problems.
“Before, you either worked for the FD or the chief executive and IT reported to the FD,” Connolly says. “That’s OK if you’re trying to run IT as a back-office transactional service but if the dilemma is how you manage information, it’s not such a good place.”
That level of executive intimacy and freedom to focus gives Connolly the opportunity to drive the information agenda at Tube Lines, a key aspect of which is organising the reams of content implicit in upgrading track, stations, signals, and trains and maintaining infrastructure.”
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There’s been a really interesting discussion about this on LinkedIn in the “CIOs.com: Chief Information Officer Network” group — it’s gotten 92 responses in the past two weeks (by far the most for any discussion in the group) and prompted some interesting debate. Clearly this is a hot topic!
My favourite answer came from a head of business intelligence, who said that “rather than the reporting line it rather depends on the skills, abilities and knowledge of the CIO (and the person they report to, regardless of whether they are the CEO or CFO).”
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