The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals.

As information technology and systems have become more important, the CIO has come to be viewed in many organizations as a key contributor in formulating strategic goals. Typically, the CIO in a large enterprise delegates technical decisions to employees more familiar with details. Usually, a CIO proposes the information technology needed by an enterprise to achieve its goals and then works within a budget to implement the plan.

The prominence of the CIO position has risen greatly as information technology has become a more important part of business. In some organizations, the CIO may be a member of the executive board of the organization. No specific qualification is typical of CIOs in general. In the past, many have expertise in computer science, software engineering, or information systems, but this is not universal.

In recent years governments and government departments have employed CIOs and recruited them from the private sector. The main reason for this is that as government departments have modernized their processes they have made costly IT mistakes and now require highly experienced IT executives to cut the best deals for their organizations.

Typically, a CIO is involved with analyzing and reworking existing business processes, with identifying and developing the capability to use new tools, with reshaping the enterprise’s physical infrastructure and network access, and with identifying and exploiting the enterprise’s knowledge resources. Many CIOs head the enterprise’s efforts to integrate the Internet into both its long-term strategy and its immediate business plans. The CIO is evolving into a role where he/she is creating and monitoring business value from IT assets.

Source: Wikipedia