MacKenzie is one of a growing number of business leaders choosing to recruit CTOs, CISOs and interim CIOs. Rather than hiring a full-time permanent technology leader, temporary executives are hired for periods of six months to two years.
The demand for short-term technology executives has exploded in recent years. Between 2020 and 2021, the demand for interim CIOs, CTOs and CISOs has increased by 83%, according to Business Talent Group, a subsidiary of executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
The main advantage of hiring CIOs on a short-term basis is that companies can bring in an experienced professional with a specific skill set. For a startup such as ClasséRight, an interim CTO means hiring someone experienced in building SaaS infrastructure from the ground up and able to support rapid growth.
In younger companies or in a newly created company from a parent company through a merger or acquisition, an interim CIO can help lay the right foundation. “Startups and private equity-acquired companies are unlikely to have IT leadership,” says Jaco Vermeulen, portfolio technical director at consultancy BML Digital. In those cases, he says, an interim CIO will recommend and establish the IT requirements, which requires different skills than those used in BAU work.
“Of course, a permanent CIO can do that. But they usually focus on long-term strategy and experienced, permanent CIOs want to enter into stability,” says Vermeulen.
After a year of working with an interim CTO, Classé Right has recruited a new CTO with experience growing market share and working with investors. The company chose to hire another interim executive, MacKenzie explains. First, because the company is changing so rapidly, the skills required of its CTO will likely be different a year from now. Second, working with interim CIOs reduces risk, MacKenzie says. “That means you won’t be in a situation where six months later it doesn’t work out and you realize you should have hired the other guy,” he says.
More importantly, RightRanked is heading into a seed funding round and the decades of experience the new interim CIO has brought to the company are key. “When talking to investors, the idea of not having a technical co-founder is massively frowned upon. But we can tell investors, this is how we got from A to B and now we have this CTO that can get us to C. Our current CTO has years of experience and is helping us navigate this stage of our business and to avoid the mistakes he has seen happen before.
An interim CIO will recommend and establish IT requirements, which requires their own set of skills
ClasséRight is typical of start-up companies hiring interim CIOs and CTOs today, Vermeulen says. “Companies can always appoint a permanent CTO or CIO if needed,” he adds.
However, it’s not just startups that recruit interim CIOs. Vermeulen recently completed an interim CIO assignment with a UK holiday park operator with 30 locations across the UK. As the company’s CIO, I helped drive a modernization program that included creating a work from anywhere (WFA) program for employees and migrating multiple on-premises systems to a cloud-based application suite.
In established organizations, an interim CIO can offer a fresh perspective that combines experience and independence, says Vermeulen. “I have a certain freedom as interim CIO, and I can say things that permanent staff members might not feel comfortable saying,” he says. “For example, companies often approach transformation projects with a fixed idea of what they need – for example, that they need AI. As interim CIO, I’m in a great position to challenge those preconceptions and say, okay, what do we want to deliver and is this the right technology to deliver it? »
For large organizations, interim CIOs can play a valuable role in advancing digital transformation projects, often bringing years of experience with them. “During the pandemic, we’ve seen many organizations who may not have thought IT was critical to their business, realizing that in fact it was completely critical and they had been left behind,” says Vermeulen. “We are now at a point where boards are happy to invest in IT and appointing an interim CIO could be key to making the most of this opportunity.”
It’s important to note that an interim CIO isn’t right for every company or every situation, says David Brandon, CTO at BML Digital and current interim CTO at ClasséRight. Having the right cultural fit and agreeing on expectations is key because an interim CIO doesn’t have the luxury of spending a few months finding their feet, he says. “Both parties need to do their due diligence to make sure it’s a good fit. You need to be able to get under the skin of an organization quickly and get started quickly,” he says.
With ClasséRight, Brandon spent a lot of time with the company’s senior management before agreeing to join the team. This builds trust so MacKenzie is comfortable giving her interim CTO the freedom and autonomy to make decisions for the business. “Although we have an interim CTO, I talk to him like I would talk to anyone we employ. We had to build a culture where he feels completely part of the team,” says MacKenzie.
Being fully involved as a temp has advantages for Brandon. “Adapting to a new culture is always a challenge, and it can be difficult. But I was not an expert in the security sector before taking on this role. I learned a lot about remediation and vulnerability management that I can use in my other role,” he says.
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