What is he?

These terms name executive positions, manager of all informatics systems and resources afferent to them from a company.

Depending on the organizational specific and needs, both the name of the job and the responsibilities can vary. Therefore, if the IT Head is present in non-IT companies and names the person who runes the afferent department, CIO (Chief Information Officer) names o similar position, but in big companies, corporations, regardless of the working field. Moreover, the CTO (Chief Technical Officer) is usually the one that runes technical or development teams from a company offering IT services/products/solutions.

What does he do?

Among the responsibilities we can list:

- Defining the IT strategy, aligning the set objectives to the general objectives and strategies of the company;
- Setting/assuring budgets and human, financial, material resources needed for a good development of the department’s activity;
- Setting acquisition politics in the IT department or acquisition of IT solutions/products for the company;
- Establishing partnerships with divers suppliers;
- Management of the IT products/solutions portfolio;
- Management of projects that are developed by the subordinated teams;
- Establishing some standards applicable in the activity of the department he coordinates.

What’s his position in the organizational chart?

As a rule this type of manager is subordinated directly to the GM or CEO. Also the technical/IT/development department is subordinated to him.

What interactions does he have?

Internally, the IT Head/CIO/CTO interacts with all managers on the same hierarchical line. Externally, he interacts with IT services/products/ solutions suppliers, with the company’s clients and partners.

What objectives can be set?

From the quantitative point of view, there can be set time/budget delivery objectives of all the projects he coordinates. Qualitative, he can have improvement objectives for some processes, manuals, projects, products, individual or even departmental performances.

What are the job requirements?

If the IT Head/ CIO must be good managers, the CTO is required to have managerial abilities doubled by excellent technical abilities and knowledge. Innovation, capacity to anticipate, to communicate and collaborate, to understand both the general context and the details, mustn’t lack.

The studies required for the job described are necessarily technical/IT bachelor degrees. Moreover master degrees in management are recommended.

Regarding other types of qualifications, the needs are different from one company to another. The so-called “soft-skills” (leadership, coaching, communication) mustn’t be forgotten, the position being an executive one.

How do we measure the performance of these positions?

What matter most are the professional abilities and knowledge, motivation, adhesion towards the company, knowledge of the company’s market, as well as the IT market. As for the concrete performance indicators we can list: communication abilities (transmitting and listening, both oral and in written), capacity to keep confidentiality, leadership, ability to organize both resources and time, team spirit, capacity to innovate, capacity to take decision (correctly and in optimal time), strategic abilities and many other depending on organizational environment/culture needs.

What are the wage limits?

Depending on the company’s size and specific, and also on the employee’s professional experience, the net wages start (in Romania) from 1500Eur and can go up to 5000Eur a month. To these wages there can be added benefits packages specific to the managerial and IT positions (different performance/fidelity/confidentiality/non-concurrence bonuses, car, health insurances etc).

Article published in 123/March 2010 number of Market Watch magazine