How the CIO Role Changed and Why People Go Interim
Discussion of how COVID and AI elevated the CIO, why outsiders gain quick respect, and motivations behind choosing interim careers: crisis-driven moves, variety, and risk-reward tradeoffs.
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Welcome back to the WB 40 Podcast! In this episode (334), Chris and Julia sit down with special guest Duncan Stott, an interim CIO extraordinaire, to really dive into the high-stakes world of interim management. We explore how the role of the CIO has completely changed, especially since COVID brought tech to the forefront and now with the massive focus on AI disruption. Duncan shares a fascinating insight: interims often benefit from a “quirk of human nature” where organisations listen to them more and offer more respect than their own permanent team, because the outsider is brought in with a specific label to perform a defined job. The decision to become an interim is often driven by a crisis, appealing to leaders who have high confidence in their discipline, crave variety, embrace the high-risk/high-reward aspect of the career, and know they can deliver results repeatedly across different sectors. These roles are urgent, sometimes requiring someone to start within two weeks, typically to handle M&A, an ERP project, or fill a gap left when a permanent CIO is “released”.
But this career choice is definitely not for the faint-hearted, as Chris points out. Unlike permanent staff who might get 100 days to find their footing, an interim typically has to move incredibly fast, often expected to deliver their initial assessment or view within the first five days. This intense pressure requires interims to constantly focus on succession planning and ensuring they leave the situation ready to be handed over to a “grateful client”. Crucially, success requires balancing speed with empathy, especially since the permanent teams often feel “bruised and wounded or bewildered” by previous organizational changes. Duncan highlights the goal of leaving a “double legacy”: achieving the technical delivery while also coaching and mentoring the permanent team to leave the people in a better state. Sustaining this self-employed path requires tremendous effort: you have to treat it as a business, aggressively self-market, build authentic, respectful relationships with a “good handful” of headhunters, and meticulously prepare for interviews—which interims might practice a dozen times a year to stay sharp.
