From technologist to ‘digital governor’: State CIO role has evolved dramatically

DENVER — Since 2023, the job of state chief information officer has changed hands 44 times, with incumbents serving on average for around 30 months in their role. And with 36 states set for governor elections next year, more change may follow in the CIO’s office.

Given that change and the turnover in state governments’ technology leadership, the role of the CIO itself has evolved, according to the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ Annual Survey. No longer is the CIO expected to be purely a technologist with in-depth knowledge of infrastructure, machinery and the inner workings of a data center, for example.

Now, their role has shifted to be that of a strategist and communicator, and most importantly a change leader who can help guide their governments through challenging times. NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson said on stage at the group’s annual conference last week that CIOs have had a “changing role” over the last couple of decades away from a “conventional technical guru” to a “business leader.”

NASCIO’s past surveys illustrate the shift that has taken place. In its 2023 iteration, the organization predicted that within the next three years, the CIO’s primary role would be to set strategic direction and policy for its customer agencies, and to act as a broker of services. In 2022, NASCIO found that the most important leadership traits or attributes for CIOs to be strategist, communicator and relationship manager.

“Philosophically, this is almost a sense of a digital governor,” said David Stevens, chief strategic advisor for state and local government at World Wide Technology. “It's a very different breed going into the future with the complexity and the nuances of technology today and artificial intelligence. You look back maybe 10 years ago, they were hyper focused on operations and behind the scenes, not necessarily communicating effectively with legislators.”

That communicator role is critical for CIOs, especially as they push their legislatures for more money in state budgets for technology so they can fulfill their strategic goals in cybersecurity, modernization and more. Some have slipped into that interlocutor role seemingly seamlessly.

North Dakota CIO Corey Mock spent 16 years in the state House of Representatives before being appointed to his role by Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong late last year. In a panel discussion at NASCIO’s annual conference, Mock noted a “growing disconnect” between state IT leaders and policymakers, and said his role has been partly to help bring the two together.

“They don't live in the world of tech,” Mock said. “They don't understand it the same way as your practitioners, your technicians, your developers, even your regular users. Their motivations are different; their questions are different. They have a whole entirely different way of thinking. For me to have that political experience, to understand the budget, that was how I saw my role: to be the bridge between our IT organization and our agencies and then the legislature, help develop those relationships, establish trust, translate between the two so that everybody is somewhat speaking the same language.”

Part of that role as a strategist requires CIOs to be effective change leaders for their organizations, especially as states embrace AI, cloud, machine learning and other emerging technologies while they retire legacy systems. Mock noted that needing to be change managers has taken on an added importance given the uncertainty surrounding the future of the federal government’s workforce and its relationship with states and localities, which he said has led to “unanswered questions across the country.”

“[It] really suggests this unbelievable level of uncertainty,” Mississippi CIO Craig Orgeron said. “We're taught, don't follow the bright, shiny object, but the things that are changing, and the pace with which they're changing, and the leadership is going to be required to grapple with it seems significant. The intense democratization of technology, where it's going, the use of that technology to augment, not necessarily automate, is a significant shift in how we think about it.”

Managing relationships, then, is key, especially across agencies that may have limited technical expertise but still have big dreams about what they want to see from technology.

“It's challenging because they've got a lot of people to make happy,” Lou Karu, state and local and education leader at software security company Rubrik, said in an interview at NASCIO. “Some agencies, I think, want to partner more tightly and more closely and are open and want to work together with central IT and that state CIO. Other agencies really want to stay in their fiefdom and don't want to be touched, and think they can do it better.”

And while it may be tempting for CIOs to be completely risk averse, they are constantly being urged to find a way to balance the need to innovate with the need to keep their states safe.

“The top challenge is striking a balance between innovation and risk,” one CIO told NASCIO’s survey in an open-ended response. “As new emerging technologies advance governments’ ability to deliver inclusive public-facing digital services, the state CIO’s role is to ensure innovation is conducted responsibly with the appropriate guardrails.”