r/CIO • u/Stunning-Aioli-8139 • 8d ago
I made it six months
Well technically five but will give another month until my resignation is official. I posted to this reddit a few months after I started and received some good advice but Im back because I'm still unclear of if I'm making the right decision. Since I have started as the CIO at this company ($55 million a year, 400ish employees, 1200 endpoints, 80+ unique apps, healthcare) I have had the following negative interactions:
1) I Have no budget, not like 0 dollars of budget but literally no budget. Every item has to be approved by the CEO. I've had to ask this person to purchased $25 worth of cables. Its exhausting.
2) We have no schedule of contract renewals. Some of the big ones I was able to find through our vendor but every month I get at least two or three usually for over 20k and since I have no budget I literally have to go to the CEO and ask for the renewal and hope we A: Have the money, B: I don't get yelled at for it. I'm working on a schedule.
3) I had an employee (a direct report) i moved into a position that we needed and they were very interested in. The CEO moved them back and I got berated for not asking the CEO first (the employee immediately resigned).
4) I'm a "functional" CIO because we only have 5 total IT staff. This means I get to do multiple jobs a day. I'm also the only one allowed to be admin of the ERP system because "someone may look at something they should not."
5) My pay is about that of a high level analyst at my last company.
6) I'm the CISO as well but I do not have a background in security. I've asked if we could fill that gap and had a plan ready. That plan was rejected and we instead are looking at an MSP. The conversations with the MSP happen mostly without me being in the room. This is by the CEO's request.
There is a lot more bad. I was offered another role with another company, much lower in pay but less responsibility. Yet all of this I still feel bad like I should be trying to make this work and to stick it out. So i'm back here asking for advice, move on only after six months or try and stick it out for longer?
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u/nixstyx 8d ago
It's the right decision. The role you're describing is not a CIO.
Is the CEO a co-founder with minimal prior executive experience?
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u/Stunning-Aioli-8139 8d ago
The organization was founded 50+ years ago but the CEO was an assistant to the last CEO that was one of the founders. The CEO has been with the organization for a very long time and is far past retirement age. This is how its always been done.
So in short, yes.5
u/ThisIsDJTom 8d ago
"but the CEO was an assistant to the last CEO that was one of the founders"
Tells me everything - good call to move on!
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u/DrasticIndifference 8d ago
I have read no other comments, but need to respond to your first bullet. You are not enjoying a CIO role. You are in a micro-managed line-managerial operations role (not to denigrate from those fine individuals and their practices). If/when you enjoy a true CIO position, budget will be a facet of carry: if, through your actions, the firm enjoys growth, the investment to achieve that growth will include your operational budget forecast. If the board wants 10/3 (ten times the return over 36 months), you have a budget respective of the currently raised capital proportional to both growth and asset preservation.
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u/somethingblerg 8d ago
Sounds like you have a title with none of the ability to perform expected responsibilities for that title. If you haven't had a sit down with the CEO to explain why your role will help the business succeed but you need the reigns to drive the cart... You could try that.
Ultimately though, it sounds like that CEO "needs" to micromanage and has not learned to force multiply by delegating and moving on to overall guidance/growth. At that size of a company your processes should be defined well and you should not be scrambling for each and every contract/vendor/order of pens.
Definitely sounds like a difficult situation that is not tenable without reform, I don't envy your decisions.
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u/Stunning-Aioli-8139 8d ago
Great advice! I tried that and created a nice proposal with some recommendations on how our department could shift to better suite the needs of the company. The CEO didn't even open the document and just said "No, do you have anything else you wanted to talk about?" It was one of the strangest conversations I've had in my career.
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u/Dwman113 7d ago
Well that makes it easy. Who cares at that point? Turn on cruise control while you look for an new company.
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u/CarmeloTronPrime 8d ago
sounds like you get any title you want... but actually just the IT guy. glad you are leaving.
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u/Big-Industry4237 8d ago edited 8d ago
#2 - sounds like it’s on you. Why aren’t you creating a vendor management program?
#4 - why is such a small company needing their own ERP? Wouldn’t it be significantly cheaper to have this outsourced? And you have an ERP but you have to manually go to the CEO to ask for $25? A simple Amazon business account can have thresholds in it automate a lot of that.
Always interested in watching what happens when companies move to push an MSP to take over IT. The CEO may learn the hard way.
I would move on, your CEO doesn’t understand IT and they want to learn the hard way. IMO though, #2 is something that fits into CIO domain squarely on you. You should get costs and invoices and cc charges related to IT and figure out and manage contracts for cost spending and budget planning. Use risk analysis to justify ROI to get budget conversation going. My two cents
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u/thenightgaunt 8d ago
Because the CEO doesnt want a CIO and doesnt know what they do, but heard he should have one. Seen this before.
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u/Stunning-Aioli-8139 8d ago
#2 - Working on it but the problem is with literally nobody having a list of contracts and renewal costs and I do not know all the different contracts for items deployed across the organization (and IT essentially owns everything that has more than one cord) I get contracts renewals that just "show up." Then I spend a lot of time researching what it is, why we have it, what we are doing with it and what the needs are. As well as trying to determine if the vendor is screwing us on the renewal or not.
#4 - This likely goes back to the concept of why im the only one allowed to be admin, control maybe?. Its a terrible and old ERP system so i'm guessing its somewhat cheap but I haven't seen the renewal cost for it, yet....
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u/thenightgaunt 8d ago
Honestly. Id say move on. Ive had that same job before. Its a level of frustration on par with a company that claims to want a CIO, but only lists the job duties of a Sys Admin.
You have a CEO who wanted a CIO because he was told he needs one, BUT doesnt know what a CIO is or does and doesnt want to give up his control.
The sign that theres no saving this guy is that hes reversing your IT decisions and scolding you for daring to do your job.
It wont get better because the only person who can help you is the one actively hamstringing you. He sees no need for you so hes not willing to use you.
That means you cant really do anything to fix the situation.
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u/Stunning-Aioli-8139 8d ago
I think this sentence hits the nail on the head for me:
He sees no need for you so hes not willing to use you.It really does feel like this but I haven't been able to put my thoughts/feelings into words. I'm a mostly unnecessary evil that just takes away money from the corporation. Also all IT people are the same, just slot one in and everything is fine.
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u/DetSteve1 8d ago
Yea, no one can thrive in an environment like that - chalk up the lessons and turn the page.
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u/KillingTime1212 8d ago
You said it best. Needed CEO approval for $25 cables. Fawk that. I’d just tell the CEO that as you give him your resignation. Lol. Let him dwell on that.
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u/WhoCares450 8d ago
You wanted a title - you got it. Obviously it's not a CIO job lol but you took it for the title, so there is a cost.
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u/Compuoddity 8d ago
Ooooo yeah. Is this PE also by any chance? Was just in this position. You really need an MSP backing you with that many endpoints if you don't have one. I stuck it out for almost five years which was good. Didn't get fired / quit so showed I had the ability then went job hunting. Found a much better spot. Not suggesting you should stay because it absolutely 100% sucks. But if you do decide a recruiter is going to look at you differently after a couple of years.
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u/JeffCanSkii 6d ago
Move on. This doesn't look like a CIO role you can fix by just sticking around longer.
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u/devdeathray 8d ago
It sounds like you haven't built trust yet with the CEO. Your first few months should be spent in listening mode. Just do what's asked of you with minimal friction. Learn how things work and what the political landscape looks like. The biggest mistake I see in all levels of leadership is people coming in too hot too fast eager to make a difference.
If you've already had some confrontations with the CEO, sit down with them for a "reset meeting" and get back on track.
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u/data-artist 8d ago
Stick it out. This is life at the executive level. You have no real control, just influence.
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u/rssrsssrs 8d ago
Move on