🚨 Introduction
Digital transformation is no longer a technology initiative. It’s a leadership imperative.
Yet most companies are still hiring, as they did in 2005, filling org charts with “business” and “tech” leaders as if they should operate independently.
That division no longer works.
In the first three parts of this Series, we explored why traditional models — from Plan-Build-Operate to project funding and fake Agile — fail to deliver real change.
Now, in Part 4, we confront the root of the issue:
The future of IT isn’t just about platforms or frameworks — it’s about people. And the future belongs to hybrid executives.
📌 Executive Summary
Transformation fails not just because of bad systems but also because of misaligned leadership. In this article, I unpack why today’s most impactful leaders are neither purely technical nor purely operational but a hybrid of both.
You’ll learn:
- Why the old “business owns strategy, IT delivers execution” model is broken
- What defines a true hybrid executive
- How to identify and grow cross-functional leadership in your organization
- Why range, not role, is the new superpower
🧱 1. The Myth of the Divide
For decades, companies operated with a clear line:
- Business teams set the strategy.
- Technology teams built what they were told.
It was clean. It was structured. And it’s completely outdated.
Today’s business challenges — AI integration, data governance, customer personalization, and platform strategy — are deeply technical and strategic.
And yet, many organizations still reinforce the divide with siloed hiring, misaligned metrics, and reporting structures that discourage collaboration.
🔄 2. Transformation Has Outgrown the Org Chart
Let’s be blunt: you can’t deliver continuous transformation through traditional roles and hierarchy.
The demands of modern business require:
- Real-time decision-making
- Deep cross-functional collaboration
- Comfort with complexity, uncertainty, and iteration
You can’t achieve that with a COO who doesn’t understand how AI reshapes operations, or a CIO who doesn’t understand margin pressure or go-to-market strategy.
The pace of change has outgrown the job description.
👤 3. Enter the Hybrid Executive
The most valuable leaders today don’t live in one domain. They operate across them.
A hybrid executive is someone who:
- Speaks fluently in both business and technology
- Translates vision into architecture — and architecture into outcomes
- Breaks down silos instead of reinforcing them
- Balances delivery with discovery
- Leads with empathy, but demands clarity
They might have CIO, CDO, CTO, COO, or CPO in their title, but their impact reaches all.
They lead with range, not rank.
🧩 4. What Makes a Hybrid Executive Different?
Hybrid leaders are not unicorns. They are developed, not discovered.
Here’s what sets them apart:
Systems Thinkers: They connect the dots across customer, data, tech, and strategy
Value-Oriented: They speak in business impact, not platform specs or project plans
Outcome-Driven: They prioritize clarity over control and trust their teams to deliver
Translators: They bring clarity between engineering and executive leadership
Builders: They architect both capabilities and cultures
They understand that transformation doesn’t live in a deck — it lives in how people think, work, and are empowered.
🛠️ 5. How to Build (and Empower) Hybrid Leaders
If hybrid leadership is the future, the question becomes: how do you cultivate it?
Start here:
- Reevaluate hiring criteria. Stop looking for deep functional loyalty and start looking for range, systems thinking, and cross-domain curiosity.
- Realign metrics. Move away from output-based KPIs toward outcome-driven, customer-focused goals that require joint accountability.
- Break the org chart. Don’t just embed IT into the business; embed business thinking into IT. Flatten the silos. Mix the DNA.
- Give permission to cross boundaries. Hybrid leaders thrive where collaboration is rewarded and bureaucracy is not.
- Invest in leadership development. Create space for high-potential leaders to work on enterprise-wide problems that span strategy, product, and technology.
⚡ 6. Why It Matters Now
AI, automation, and digital ecosystems aren’t just technology shifts — they’re operating model shifts.
To lead in this era, companies need:
- Fewer domain specialists in silos
- More integrators who connect the dots across functions
- Leaders who think in systems and act on outcomes
The old “stay in your lane” approach is dead. The future belongs to leaders who build highways between them.
🔁 Conclusion
🚫 Stop hiring for alignment with legacy roles. ✅ Start hiring for the range required to lead transformation.
Your future CIO should speak business. Your future COO should speak data. And your executive team should act as one operating system, not a collection of isolated parts.
Transformation isn’t powered by tech alone—it’s powered by the people who know how to use it to move the business forward.
Hybrid is the future. Rethink the role. Rethink IT.
➡️ Next in the Series
In Part 5, I’ll explore the tension between output and outcome and how measurement models can accelerate or suffocate innovation.
🔔 Follow me to catch the next post, or subscribe at matt-rider.com for the whole Series.
👤 About the Author
Matt Rider is a veteran CIO with 25+ years of leadership experience across global financial institutions. He specializes in enterprise transformation, digital strategy, and building AI-ready operating models. Through the Rethinking IT series, he challenges legacy assumptions and helps leaders architect what’s next.
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