Hong Kong's leading CIOs of 2011 - enterpriseinnovation.net

Class of 2011
Overall “CIO of the Year”
Joe Locandro, Director of
Group IT, CLP
Winners for “Outstanding
Achievement”
Sunny Lee, Executive
Director of IT, Hong Kong
Jockey Club
Daniel Lai, Head of IT, MTRC
Cathay Pacific; and Tim Sheedy, senior
analyst & advisor to CIOs, Forrester.
Back to basics
For aspiring CIOs, charting the path to
the top involves a matrix of skills and capabilities.
CLP’s Locandro noted that it’s
critical to observe what your start-point is
before determining the required steps.
Much depends on the maturity of the
organization and its view of IT. “If IT is
still seen as a cost center and reports to
finance on every matter then you need to
work on earning credibility and trust,”
said Locandro. “Start with getting the basics
right – fix unreliable e-mail, network
issues or other pain points.”
He added that if IT leaders find that users
are regularly complaining about IT
services then it’s impossible to gain any
trust to focus on anything strategic. With
credibility and trust in place, IT leaders
can then be looked upon to give advice
on business issues and sit in an executive
leadership discussion as an equal.
But even with a strong IT capability
and a leadership track record, IT leaders
must earn that respect over time. “CIOs
cannot just walk into an organization and
receive that level of trust, even the best
CIOs must deliver some major contribution
to earn that trust,” Locandro noted.
He added that it is important to free
time to build relationships with the key
stakeholders, but stressed the need to
manage time. “At this level you need
to spend time with the right people, be
focused on the right things and have the
necessary headroom to think strategically,”
noted Locandro.
There is only so much time in a CIO’s
day and no-one can do everything so a
good litmus test for aspiring CIOs is to
ask how much time is being spent on what
Locandro calls “business-as-usual” activities
such as managing the data center,
monitoring applications and networks.
Take the knocks
Anyone that spends 70% - 80% of their
time on these activities is likely to be operating
at the low to mid level of IT leadership
as they have insufficient time to be
strategic. “The ones that are reducing this
Without the passion you will merely be a very good IT
manager
percentage are the ones creating the headspace
to be effective at being innovative
and strategic,” said Locandro.
Another issue to overcome for IT leaders
is roadblocks and barriers in the path
to being a strategic CIO. Drive, energy
and passion are absolute musts in the
makeup of a modern successful CIO.
“Without the passion you will merely be
a very good IT manager,” Locandro said.
“There will be problems and there will be
rejections but you have to push through.”
He noted that in Hong Kong he sees too
many get dissuaded when they meet any
push-back. It is the drive to succeed and
the personal belief that allows the best to
push through these barriers and have others
follow them, Locandro stressed.
When looking to innovate or build
strategic initiatives, often IT leaders can
often fall into the trap of allowing the environment
to determine their outlook. Locandro
insists that each organization will
operate differently and while some are
highly structured and others operate more
freely, each will have its own potential for
innovation to occur.
What’s your value
“Good people can thrive in all environments
and I believe that IT leaders in
small and growing businesses have the
greatest opportunity to do more with IT,”
he said. “Resources will always be available
if you can prove your value to the
business.”
Locandro noted how it is vital to keep
asking yourself the question of what value
do you bring to the business During
mentorship discussions with up and coming
IT managers, Locandro often asks:
“What is the book value of the IT assets
What value do these IT assets generate
for the business What SLAs and corporate
KPIs are they trying to meet
“If they say their SLA is 99.99% uptime
then that tells me exactly the type
of IT leader that they are and that they
are focusing on traditional IT operations
management,” he said.
He demonstrated that for every dollar
CLP spends in IT, the IT leadership can
show how many dollars return in benefit
is derived and how much of that is
in cash and how much is non-cash benefits.
“It is discussions in these terms
plus knowledge of risk, business yield
and enabling business change that give
CIOs the required credibility in front of
business.” 3
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July/August 2011 Computerworld Hong Kong 15