Shawn says @ Sloan

Shawn Says @ Sloan – First of an occasional series with Shawn Banerji

Shawn Banerji is a seasoned headhunter at Russell Reynolds Associates.  I caught up with Shawn him to get an inside view on the exciting if somewhat enigmatic world of head-hunters.  Read on to learn more about this world and Shawn’s insights on the state of the CIO role.  Are you being hunted now?

Born in Calcutta, India and having lived in the United Kingdom and the United States, Shawn is quite the global professional.  He spent his formative years in the United States and is currently based out of New York.  He has been with Russell Reynolds for 9 years and has been in the talent acquisition & management industry for 15 years.  You can meet Shawn Banerji in an online exclusive at the MIT Sloan CIO Corner and at the CIO Symposium later this month.

Shawn, give us a pen-sketch for the headhunting industry.  Who are you and how do you operate?

The competencies that go into being an effective Executive search consultant, ‘aka headhunter’ are really not very different from the skills required to be a good strategy or management consultant.  You need to be an exceptionally good listener, have well developed analytical skills, be fast on your feet and consistently put the interests of your clients first.  As a recruiter, you are exposed to diverse people and varied business models.  The ability to diagnose a clients business needs and translate those needs into business requirements with a corresponding human capital solution is what the business is all about.   We are the vehicle for organizations to identify, attract and ultimately retain their most important assets, their people.

I wear two hats in my job.  In the Information Officers practice we recruit for CIO, CTO and business information officer roles across most industries including the financial services sector where we have done work in brokerage, asset management, insurance and the like.  Other sectors that we cover include energy, natural resources, consumer, media, healthcare and business services.   We also focus on heads of corporate or global shared services at the Vice President, President and General Manager level.  For service providers we recruit at CEO, President and COO level.  Our portfolio is rounded out by covering BPO, KPO, Human Resources, Analytics and F&A sectors.  We have discovered that there is significant synergy between these areas and the CIO function.

What are some of the recent trends you see in the CIO recruiting space?

More and more organizations are looking to drive business transformation through the better alignment of technology and in many cases the corresponding creation of    shared service operations (IT, HR, F&A, Procurement, etc..) and in many cases because of the technically enabled nature of many of these business processes, CIO’s are the key leaders driving these changes. 

Companies are embracing shared service models for governance purposes in order to create greater transparency across the enterprise as well for operating efficiency purposes.   As such the optic of shared services is shifting from historically that of a cost center to one driving growth and profitability.   Companies have awakened to the reality that at their core, many ‘vendors’ are essentially for profit shared services operations and are now seeking to manage their own shared services operations like a business.   Given the challenges that companies face in building effective SS operations, only a select number of organizations have been genuinely successful in driving business transformation by leveraging SS.  Rigorous change management is not easy, and doing it consistently is even harder for many businesses.  Although its important to remember that SS and Six Sigma are only two tools in the broader transformational tool kit , individuals with Six Sigma and related process reengineering/improvement experience are finding themselves in heavy demand, as they are perceived to be adding value in driving such transformations due to the rigor required to drive such change.  Finding the right people to drive such transformations is not easy.  There is not a large pool of individuals with PROVEN credentials in this space. 

The implication for many organizations is that having a business oriented CIO leader is critical and correspondingly, there is a premium on Chief Information Officers who can drive business change through the practical application of IT across a host of functions.   My belief is that these changes are creating greater opportunities for CIO’s to make meaningful business contributions and my message is, and not to diminish anyone’s professional ambitions, there are many compelling opportunities for information officers to drive change without obsessing about becoming the next COO or CEO.  

In many cases we are seeing CIO’s transitioning into Heads of Shared Services roles because leading a shared service team plays to the strength of the more commercially inclined CIOs.  

Separately, we see very few business executives taking on the CIO role and when we do see people from outside the technology function tapped – they tend to be from functions such as human resources, finance and procurement.  The underlying business processes for these functions are technology enabled giving leadership some degree of technical competency at least at the management level.   When this type of appointment is made, it is almost always an internal one.  In the past companies would on occasion place a business executive in the CIO office as a placeholder till the executive is moved to a new role.  In some of those cases the company didn’t fully appreciate the complexity and impact of IT but events such as Sarbanes Oxley really woke many people up to the fact that the IT function is key.  This practice of ‘parking’ senior executives in the CIO office has lessened and when we see such an appointment these days, its quite often for key strategic purposes.

For the record, we have never heard of or done an ‘outside’ CIO search for a company looking to hire a CIO from a ‘line’ business role.  

What are some of the core competencies one needs to become an effective CIO?

One needs a host of skills and attributes to be successful but there are an emerging set of core competencies that tend to be critical and static for most successful Information officers.  These competencies span a combination of superlative project and program management, the ability to develop talent, productively manage vendors and a large dose of business acumen and common sense. Additionally, given the globalization of business and the global nature of many vendor partnerships, individuals who are comfortable or at a minimum flexible enough to operate in that global context is also key.  One of the dirty secrets of IT is that it does not have to be as complicated as some people make it out to be or perhaps some CIO’s would like it to appear.   IT is a business function, like HR, finance, sales and marketing. The best salespeople are in some ways using science as part of their sales process.  They utilize best practices and leverage a repeatable methodology … it’s the same with marketing … there is a science.   You add creativity and there you are – results.  Technology is intimidating and a lot of people shy away and assume they don’t get it.  Some CIOs like to perpetuate this myth and throw jargon around.   

Successful CIOs are transparent in their dealings , demonstrate a measurable value proposition and are successful as the business information officer.

As we sign off let me leave you with a parting comment for CIOs and aspiring CIOs … “Don’t fret unduly about becoming a COO or CEO … being in a business oriented CIO role where you can meaningfully partner with other functional colleagues and line management in order to drive results and positive change is an excellent job to be in….”. 

That’s something we can all agree on!  Look out for a series of occasional articles by Shawn under the new feature “Shawn Says at Sloan”.  Let us know what you think and let the conversation continue at the MIT Sloan CIO Corner.