The first launch of the Top 100 IT Leaders project has been successfully completed
On July 3, 2024, the first launch of the "Top 100 IT Leaders" project was completed. The project, organized by the international professional IT community Global CIO, aimed to highlight IT executives, leading digitalization within companies, such as CIOs, CDTOs, CTOs, and CISOs, and allow them to talk about their career paths, key achievements, and competencies.
Sixty-eight IT executives from 15 countries, including Brazil, India, USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia participated in the project. It comprised three key stages: application submission, and competency validation — where community members voted for participants’ leadership competencies — and concluded with a closed online meeting for project members.
"Our professional community brings together outstanding IT leaders from around the world, and we believe it is important to celebrate their achievements," stated Alisa Plotnikova, Executive Director of the Global CIO community, during the opening of the meeting. "The Top 100 IT Leaders allowed us to meet more experts with extensive IT experience, whose competence is acknowledged by their peers."
Then members of the Top 100 IT Leaders were invited to discuss key digitization challenges relevant to different industries. A common theme among several participants was the approval, distribution and optimization of the IT budget. Another prevalent issue is information security concerns and technical debt while technologies are rapidly changing. Across various countries and industries, many IT managers are facing a lack of qualified employees. During the ideation session, IT leaders not only highlighted the challenges they see but also shared approaches with colleagues to help overcome them.
At the end of the meeting, the voting leaders were awarded:
- Rodrigo Silva, CIO at Silimed (Brazil), became the leader of the voting overall and received the most votes for leadership qualities;
- Voters for Wael A. Alfattani, CIO from General Authority for Competition (Saudi Arabia) noted his outstanding Team building skills;
- Fahad Almoqhim, CIO at Saudi Accreditation Center, was awarded for IT strategy development and implementation;
- Alessandro Tomazela, CIO at Braskem (Brazil), received most votes for Risk management skills;
- Ahmet Hakan Goral, CIO at Boutique Rugs LLC (Turkey), became a leader in voting for the commercial success of implemented solutions and previous achievements.
“I'm so proud to be part of this community. From my point of view, leadership is basic for CIOs, because we are in charge of inspiring teams, driving strategy and collaborating.” – highlighted Rodrigo Silva. Wael A. Alfattani noted that all the achievements and successes of the CIO are also a result of the team's contribution. Fahad Almoqhim spoke briefly about digital transformation at the Saudi Accreditation Center and highlighted the skills required for an IT leader to implement IT strategy successfully.
The professional community Global CIO plans to make the Top 100 IT Leaders project an annual event and regular meetings of community members. The professional community congratulates the participants of the Top 100 IT Leaders and invites IT executives to take part in the next launch of the project in the spring of 2025.