CIOs are in a unique position to lead the most critical conversations businesses now face in the wake of global AI. Three discussions - the philosophical, the practical and the positional are essential.

CISOs are overwhelmed and often short-term. Neither need be. As CIOs, you have the opportunity to make them a hero. You just need to help them through one big problem with three strong moves.

CIOs typically shoulder responsibility for technology failure. But CEOs and Boards don’t get a pass. Lack of courage and loss of vision are at the heart of the failure, and CIOs can step up beforehand to change and focus the conversation around business and customer experience, not just bottom lines.

CEOs often look to be succeeded by someone like them. But the great CEOs have led their company to a place that requires different skills for a better future. And that will be found in the technologist.

Stakeholders know the value of the CIO. The last thing they want is for their CIO to be led down a wrong path, distracted by the agenda of others, and misdirected by trends that lure them into waste.

Hiring a Chief Information Officer (CIO) is more critical than ever. The cost is too great to fail. 4 mistakes in particular add up to a costly hire. 6 often overlooked traits are exactly what you are looking for in your next CIO.

Boards don’t want to get caught in a crisis, let alone one in which they were warned but caught unprepared. Boards need to challenge the paradigms by which they think of security, increase their knowledge of security as a business strategy, and respond with concerted management, strengthened posture and preparation.

The CEO needs a CIO who knows how to read context. It improves their effectiveness as a team leader, as a decision-maker, and as a communicator. To help them do so, make sure that they have a coach, a learning community and more context-conversations than content-conversations.

The CIO and board of directors must implement a new dashboard that indicates secure risk management, business alignment and incident responses are in place and functional.

The CIO is here to stay. They are the bridge for customer experience, business priority and technology solution. Most of all, they teach everyone how to think differently, not just to know more.

Decisions are never meant to be made in a void, and information alone isn’t education. Wisdom is the pool in which information and context swim together. Very few board members have technology experience. Less than 10% have technology subcommittees from which to draw. What is a board to do?