Financial services CIOs need passion

Traditional Financial Service organisations are very conservative when it comes to IT and expect the same of their CIO's. Financial and corporate governance have just heightened the sense of entrenchment against the unknown - or more clearly the not-understood. Passion=Risk and hence is the wrong message to convey. The bigger job is to make other executives 'buy-in' to change without necessarily understanding every detail. This is common with financial products and instruments when presented toa board (who understands how tax wrappers work) but not with IT. The role of the CIO is become more of an evangelist and the passion needs to be directed into presentation and 'public relations'.