Now More Than Ever, CIO Means Chief Integration Officer
Heller, Wednesday, March 18th, 2026
After six decades in IT leadership, Charlie Feld, founder of The Feld Group Institute, argues the CIO role is more critical than ever-but only if it evolves. For executives who can communicate how emerging technologies like AI produce results in the context of their business while demonstrating the value of the role, now is the best time to be a CIO.
In 2018, I wrote a response to Tom Davenport's provocative Fortune article, "Why No One Wants to Be a Chief Information Officer Anymore." Tom made a strong case that the CIO role had become thankless-too much heavy lifting, too much legacy mess, too much time playing "wet blanket" to colleagues chasing shiny new technologies.
I agreed with his analysis. I disagreed with his conclusion.