CGO Goes Mainstream
Posted by Mark Ontkush in Green computing | 23 March 2007
It's nice to see an idea go mainstream. Ted from InfoWorld expanded on the idea of the CGO which I have written about a few times, here and here. Obviously the position is being framed out, and doesn't even exist yet in most companies. Ted quotes Rich Walker from GreenBiz with his ideas:
"A CSO is an advocate and educator, a visionary, a change manager and a cheerleader, and above all else, a results-driven manager." "CSOs must serve at least three roles: They must look inward, end-to-end driving business opportunity; they must look outward, walking the talk and communicating with customers and other stakeholders; and they must lead. A CSO must articulate, implement and sustain the organization's vision of sustainability and provide visibility and transparency of that vision both internally and externally."
This is a first stab, and it's not a bad one. But it reflects the same problem we are having with the CIO role - it mixes up the role and manager and leader, where the individual is never sure whether they are supposed to optimize the existing process, or invent new processes. This clearly needs to be worked out before the role is created; we don't need another top level C position with the same murky job description. For me, the CGO is pure leadership - find the new things that will drive our business forward that are environmentally friendly in tech, then we will turn them over to the CIO to build them out.
