The 7 New Cs of IT Leadership for the AI Era
CIO, Thursday, September 17th, 2026
A revised leadership framework built from CIO conversations: Coherence, Currency, Confidence, Conviction and Compression.
AI is shortening the shelf life of expertise and compressing the time IT leaders have to learn, decide and act, forcing consequential decisions faster with less information and higher stakes.
Drawing on four decades of work with CIOs through the Tech Whisperers podcast and CIO100 Leadership Masterclass, the author revises his long-standing 7 Cs into a new set: Coherence, Communication, Currency, Confidence, Conviction, Courage and Change, all operating under Compression.
Each is illustrated by a practitioner, from BNY CIO Leigh-Ann Russell on Coherence and Johnson & Johnson CIO Jim Swanson on continuous learning as Currency, to Cox Automotive's Marianne Johnson on Courage where no playbook exists.