My Response to an Article on ITMangersJournal.com

RE: ITMJ First Person: Climbing the corporate ladder -- but to where?

Thoughts on Becoming an IT Executive

Before I went off to start my own company I happen to have been in the same situation as the author finds himself in at the moment. The majority of what I have found though points to the fact that companies do not want to hire an executive in their late twenties and with good reason. There are exceptions to this of course and it’s not as if this is a rule because there are many IT executive in the country whom are currently in their late twenties but most of the time you will find this the exception and not the general trend.

With that said you need to know that most of those executive that are there now were you at one time. They were the elite in their late twenties in their own area of expertise whatever that might have been, not necessarily IT. I reference sports as an analogy, there are a lot of really talented high school athletes in this country but with few exceptions not many make the jump from high school to the professional arena. Most of these elite high school athletes go on to become collegiate athletes where this next level either weeds out the weary or the unqualified before moving to the next level of professional athletics.

Now coming back away from the sports analogy I would say that the most fruitful option would be to enjoy your middle management experience while working over the next five to ten years and expand your education such as obtaining your BBA and/or MBA in Information Systems Management. From what I have seen of the recruiting for IT executives is that companies want an individual with an average of ten to fifteen years IT management experience and they mostly say "prefer an MBA." This is stemming from the fact that the people who have come before us in this field as executive mostly only ran IT from business perspective relying on technical managers to compose and draft the companies technology development and maintenance. Let me now qualify my remarks as this is not always the case so please do not be offended if you are an executive or know one to which this does not apply.

In my opinion if want to go the executive route for a major company you will need to play the professional executive game and put in the time. I would say that 90% of the time the requirement for the IT executive position will require you to have an MBA or an advance degree of some sort related to the IT or business. If you are looking at working for a publicly traded company on one of the stock exchanges then the requirement of an MBA and fifteen years of experience will almost certainly jump to 99.9% of the time. The stock markets not only weigh a company’s stock price against current and project earnings but also among other things, such as the experience and education of its senior executives and leadership. In most circumstances it still reflects better on investor confidence to see that the company’s executives are highly educated and seasoned professionals. In my experience this just seems to be the natural course at this level of business.

Now I have a feeling that you and I are both certain enough about our own abilities that today you at 26 and I at 27 could handle the role of an IT executive. However, put your self in the position of seasoned investor. Now what opinion would you take of reading that the senior IT executive role of a company to which you have invested your money had just been filled by a man or woman in their late twenties with no advanced experience or education in business? You are also relying on a person that has not spent their life in business and been fully tested by the potential stresses involved in a decade and a half of management responsibility. Believe it or not a lot of people fall out of management every year due to the fact they are just burnt out on the experience. Personally, if I were an investor I can say it would not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about where a company was heading by the placement of an untested person in an executive position regardless of the individuals actual abilities.

In closing, I believe it all goes back to my point that if you want to go the IT executive route you really should know how to play the game. This means that you will need to continue to distinguish yourself above the rest in experience and education. So, if you put in the fifteen years of distinguished “in the trenches work,” you don’t burn out and you get your advance business degree then I think you’re definitely on the path to becoming that executive you want to be.

by: Bill Daugherty
http://www.daugherty-is.com