Andres Carvallo may have moved from CIO to chief strategy officer, but that doesn't mean he thinks the top IT post is outmoded. "Absolutely not," says Carvallo, of Proximetry, a wireless network performance management vendor in San Diego. "CIOs are incredibly important. The companies that don't have true technology people at the highest levels are usually getting their lunch taken away."

The sea change brought about by cloud computing is changing the role of the CIO, says ex-tech-chief Jesus Arriaga, now a consultant with CIO Strategic Solutions.

As IT departments do more with less using cloud and other services, staffs are shrinking, but "the amount of people you have in your command or supervision does not dictate how effective you are," he says. "The cloud has opened a world of opportunity to help grow a company in more strategic ways than ever before. It's forcing CIOs to re-look at what they're doing."

Beyond that, Arriaga believes the job will merge into dual roles, such as CIO/chief marketing officer or CIO/chief operating officer. "The CIO role is just as important as it has been, but now CIOs need to be technical and have that strong business background, too. Those are the ones who will be successful."

-- Todd R. Weiss