Trusted peers in 2001?

New to being a CIO?

It was 2001 and I had just been appointed to the CIO role for a moderately sized multinational retailer called Michael Hill International. It was listed on the New Zealand stock exchange with the global head office based in Brisbane.

So, what now.... I had a lot of great ideas on how we could drive the business forward and there was plenty of literature which could guide me, but where could I get real world mentoring from CIO's who had been doing the role for some time. Were my thoughts prone to the unknown, risky or just going to be expensive and difficult to achieve. One of my favourite phrases is "you don't know what you don't know".

I needed that sounding board and Brisbane in 2001 wasn't full of CIO groups. In fact there were none.

The digital landscape was different back then. Digital hubs where either in their infancy or non existent. There were no online tools for collaboration no linked-in groups, CIO collective or council. The vendors back then tended to keep all of us completely separate and isolated.

So what did I do...

I started a group myself. I cold called the few retail organisations I knew in Brisbane and within 6 months there were 6-12 CIO's meeting regularly talking through vendors, ideas, obstacles and anything else on our mind.

Need something? Just do it!