Becoming a well-rounded CIO takes more than technical credentials: future technology leaders need real responsibility beyond the IT function. That is the concern raised by David Ivell, a CIO.com contributor. He argues that clearer technical career paths can build expertise while leaving some leaders with too little experience of how the rest of a business makes decisions and delivers results.
What does “accidental CIO” mean?
It is not a formal job category. The phrase describes a career shaped by varied assignments and unexpected opportunities, rather than a carefully planned progression through technology roles. Ivell’s point is not that unpredictability is automatically good. It is that those varied paths could give aspiring executives exposure to business problems outside technology.
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In Ivell’s view, the modern CIO needs both technical credibility and a working understanding of how the organization operates: how it serves customers, makes money, allocates investment, negotiates commercially, manages change and communicates with its board. This is his perspective on the role, not a universal job standard.
Why might a more structured technical career path be a problem?
Specialization can build valuable depth. Ivell’s concern is that a career spent proving technical knowledge may provide fewer chances to own business outcomes, make consequential decisions or be accountable for results beyond the technology function. Certificates and technical expertise can show what someone has learned; they cannot, by themselves, show how that person handles a business trade-off or leads change across an organization.
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That is an argument about a possible development gap, not proof that specialization has caused CIOs to become less prepared. The available survey evidence describes the expanding remit of technology leaders; it does not establish that their career paths have narrowed or that CIO readiness has declined.
What does the role’s expanding remit look like?
A Deloitte online survey of 622 US-based senior technology leaders, conducted from March 7 to April 1, 2025, found that 80% said their roles and responsibilities had greatly expanded to meet business objectives. Among CIO respondents, 36% reported managing a profit-and-loss (P&L) responsibility, and 65% reported directly to the CEO. These are survey responses, not estimates that describe every CIO or company. Deloitte’s November 2025 release also frames technology leaders as taking on broader strategic responsibilities.
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Ivell also cites CIO’s 2025 State of the CIO research, saying 81% of IT leaders described themselves as change makers and 77% said they had developed a strong educational partnership with the CEO and board. The linked article does not provide the survey methodology, so these figures are best read as numbers Ivell attributes to that research, not as independently established measures of CIO effectiveness. Ivell’s article presents them as context for the breadth of leadership expected.
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Ivell’s prescription is to seek responsibility, not just proximity. Attending meetings or observing another team can teach you how a function works; owning a decision or outcome gives you experience with its consequences. Useful assignments include:
- Run part of a business: Take a business-unit assignment with P&L responsibility, where you must connect spending and operational choices to financial results.
- Lead a major transformation: Own work that changes processes or ways of working, not only the technology implementation. This builds experience managing organizational change.
- Work across an acquisition: Participate in due diligence and continue through integration, so you encounter both the evaluation of a deal and the practical work of combining operations and systems.
- Negotiate with suppliers: Take part in commercial discussions and learn how terms, costs, risks and relationships affect business decisions.
- Defend an investment: Present a technology proposal to a CFO, making the case in terms of cost, expected business value, risk and trade-offs.
- Present to the board: Explain technology decisions and their business implications clearly to directors, rather than relying on technical detail alone.
The aim is not to collect assignments as résumé entries. It is to gain experience making decisions with people outside technology and being answerable for the outcome.
Why technical depth still matters
Building breadth does not mean abandoning technology expertise. Ivell argues that a CIO needs enough technical understanding to challenge architects intelligently and to assess the implications of technology choices. The leader must also translate those choices for different executive audiences: explaining business cases, risks and the consequences of change in terms each group can use.
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The balance is therefore not technical versus business knowledge. It is technical depth paired with the judgment and communication skills to connect technology decisions to customers, operations, investment and organizational priorities.
What should aspiring CIOs take from the argument?
Ivell’s challenge is to deliberately create the breadth that less predictable careers sometimes provided. That does not mean every future CIO needs the same sequence of roles, or that credentials are worthless. It means career development should include opportunities to own business outcomes as well as demonstrate technical competence.
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For someone planning a path toward technology leadership, a useful question is whether their experience shows how the organization sees the world—not only how technology sees it. An assignment with genuine decision-making authority can help answer that question more convincingly than observation alone.
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