Moving up the Food Chain

Lous Rosenfeld on "Information Guys" one day getting the keys to the manor.

You know, I've wondered something like this ever since I started in the IT world. It seems that accounting, finance and operations management are the disciplines that corporate board like to see in their CEO's (which may partially be because that's what your board people are).

In a different tack from Lou, I've always wondered if IT people would one day achieve that goal in large enterprises. I think Lou's question is just an extension of that: Will Information people one day be asked to helm (and in some cases, turn around) companies?

I tend to think so, especially as the challenge of managing information and knowledge becomes more and more vital to the bottom line of major corporations. But I would see it happening for pure "Information guys" that helm EIA groups long before IT gets that kind of shot. No knock on IT senior execs and CIOs (a lot of which are also accounting/ finance guys), but IT departments must repair their reputation of being a corporate "necessary evil" (a la, I hate you, but I need your technology) before any board will ever give an IT guy that kind of control...

In any case, as information becomes more vital, so do the roles of those that have the skills to deal with it.