A CIO-Plus Future?

Gibson, whose CIO-plus role at Best Western marks his third C-level position, started out the way most CIOs used to — as a programmer. "But the longer I worked in businesses, the further and further I moved away from the nuts and bolts of technology," he says. Gibson sees his position as head of IT, distribution and business strategy as just another advancement in his evolution. "It's a natural progression," he says. "People who find themselves in the business of being successful CIOs today are people who would be successful in other areas of the business outside of technology."

Perhaps the majority of IT leaders fall into that category. But not everyone's game for tackling the CIO role and something else, notes Cameron. The increase in CIOs doing double or triple duty in the business does have some in the IT community wondering — or worrying — about what this means for the standalone CIO role.

"I do actually think the CIO role should be a discrete role, one that should be important enough to warrant a dedicated, senior executive position in any company," admits Drouin of TRW. He says the CIO role at TRW is big enough to keep one person busy. "On the other hand, I appreciate the confidence my boss had in giving me a role that is really core to our operations. This was a very personal decision, more about my own development and readiness to take on an additional challenge than it was about my boss feeling a need to expand the CIO role."

The CEO of Sloan Valve recently asked CIO and CPO Coleman if he wanted to drop the CIO part of his title altogether. "My CEO would tell you, IT is becoming the process management department. The CIO is becoming CPO, period," says Coleman. But Coleman plans on keeping the CIO moniker for now.

JDSU's Etterman ultimately gave up straddling the CAO and CIO roles. Earlier this year he hired someone to take over his IT role full-time. "At a certain point, you look around and say, this is really stupid," says Etterman. "The CIO role is big enough. You can figure out how to do a couple more things well. You can't do much more without compromising the value you're delivering to the IT organization." JDSU's CEO and board members reluctantly agreed. "There just wasn't enough of me to go around," says now executive vice president and CAO-only Etterman.

Forrester's Cameron, for one, doesn't think the CIO title is endangered. "The CIO title sticks," he says. "There will always have to be someone in charge of technology."

At Best Western, Gibson plans to keep the CIO title — and the other two. "There's no danger I will turn them over to someone else anytime soon," he says. "On the other hand, I don't know that I'm so emotionally invested that I would be reluctant to do that in the future. I want to be valuable to this organization in a way that works for this organization."