ABSTRACT
The path from CIO to CEO is certainly less travelled than the road to COO, but it does exist, and CIOs who use their position to build their CEO résumés are the most likely candidates. “When you are CIO, you are practicing some of the skills necessary to be a CEO,” says Mike Kistner, who was CIO of Best Western International and then COO and CEO of Pegasus Solutions, a provider of reservation and distribution technology and financial and marketing services to the hospitality industry. “As CIO, you need to be great at strategic planning, finance, HR, sales, and marketing,” he says. “And with businesses using more data and becoming much more scientific in the way they run, someone with a technology background could be a great candidate for the CEO role.”
