The 2012 CIO 100 is our ranking of the top CIOs in the UK. This listing awards the IT leaders and company directors that are transforming their organisations through technology leadership.
View the CIO 100 in groups of 20, starting with the top 20 companies in this year's CIO 100.
1. Easyjet
Easyjet and its CIO Trevor Didcock epitomise the real story of British business and the role of the CIO by demonstrating a creative zeal to reinvent a sector with technology at the heart of how the organisation does business.
2. Severn Trent Water
Myron Hrycyk joined utility company Severn Trent Water at probably one of its most decisive moments in the history of the Midlands based company. As a new board of directors took control of the then Birmingham based company following a series of regulatory fines Hrycyk stepped on to the board as CIO and set about leading a significant change management programme with Severn Trent Water.
3. Thomson Reuters
Jane Moran, global CIO for Thomson Reuters, led the integration of the Thomson Corporation and Reuters in 2008 following the Canadian Thomson acquisition of London based Reuters. Today the merged Thomson Reuters has 55,000 employees in 103 countries and provides news, financial, legal and scientific information to many major markets and companies.
4. Marks & Spencer Group
British retail has lost Woolworths, a once venerable name on the national high street, but although it has had difficult times, Marks & Spencer (M&S) is doing everything it can to ensure it does not suffer the same fate. As with all retailers, a dogged pursuit of multi-channel retailing and a strong supply chain are key to survival and success and taking responsibility for these is Darrell Stein. The CIO is on his second career stint at M&S.
5. COLT
Like many telecommunications providers Colt has had to modify its strategy to recover from the falling revenues that are generated by voice communications. Colt has become a major provider of technology services and using its Colt network and datacentres has become a leading private cloud computing provider.
6. Betfair
Online gambling has been a growth sector and has largely weathered the downturn. Betfair stands out amongst its rivals for its exchange ethos that enables gamblers to bet in game and against each other rather than against the betting book of the operator. Betfair has more in common with eBay than more traditional sports betting operators and as a result is a technology company.
7. The Welsh Assembly Government
The CIO 100 judging panel felt unanimously that the CIO for the Welsh Government and James Thomas at place number 8 demonstrated the transformative zeal, vision and understanding of the real role IT plays in the public sector to shoot into the top 10 and push their Whitehall CIO compatriots out of the leading group.
8. University College London Hospitals
The University College London Hospital (UCLH) is one of the most complex healthcare organisations in the city and is continuously called upon to bear the brunt of emergencies. It's Director of ICT James Thomas's job to ensure the systems that support the hospital are up to the job. Like the rest of the NHS, the hospital is highly regulated and scrutinised in terms of quality of care and expenditure.
9. The Cooperative Group
The Co-operative Group has graced the UK’s high streets since 1844 when it was founded in Lancashire. A desire to be different to regular retailers permeates the entire organisation from its ownership status, its attitude towards farmers and suppliers and even to its IT policy. There are two halves: the Trading Group and Co-operative Financial Services, Ian Dyson is director of IS for the Trading Group, which is the supermarkets as well as services including its pharmacy chain and funeral services, legal provision, travel and car sales divisions.
10. Hiscox
Insurance specialists Hiscox is increasingly moving towards transacting directly with customers over the internet, and Group CIO Andrew Turner has also been managing a rationalisation and transformation of the IT infrastructure within Hiscox to enable the company to move to a direct business model.
11. Tesco
Retailer Tesco is considered to be a bit of a darling in the CIO world; after all there are not too many global corporations from this, or any, shore that have a former CIO as their CEO.
12. Procter & Gamble
Household goods manufactured by Procter and Gamble (P&G) sells products in 180 countries to 4.4 billion consumers with global sales reported to be worth £51 billion. According to P&G 98 per cent of UK households own at least one P&G brand and the same picture is true at varying degrees across the world. Globally P&G is the largest consumer goods manufacturer.
13. Asos
Online fashion retailer Asos has grown from a two-person operation a little over a decade ago to between 700 and 800 people today. Asos websites record eight and half million page impressions a week and has a conversion rate of three per cent for those visits. The retailer is seeking to become a mobile device oriented company, in a reflection of the technology and information usage patterns that West has encouraged.
14. Visa
CIO Steve Chambers has been spending the last six years developing a European-wide payments platform¬ at Visa Europe with €0.5bn to spend and an 800-plus strong development team.
15. Alliance Boots
Judging took place while Andy Haywood was still in post at Boots before he set off for the Cooperative Group. In the UK Boots has 2500 stores, the head office and a significant supply chain.
16. JLT Group
JLT is an international risk specialist and employee benefits organisation; one of the largest companies of its type in the world. It’s a London Stock Exchange listed company with a global presence in the risk and insurance market as well as pensions and benefits sectors, employing over 6000 people worldwide. JLT reported turnover app¬roaching £620m with a profit before tax of around £100m in a difficult market in 2009.
17. Unilever
Global CIO Willem Eelman is at the centre of a transformation in business focus at consumer goods manufacturer Unilever, famous for PG Tips tea, Persil washing powder and Bertolli olive oil. The company is transforming its supply chain into a demand-driven value chain that shifts the corporate focus away from how many units of product can it sell to retailers and instead focuses on the end customer.
18. BT
“A strategic priority of BT is value-added services over broadband. For consumers we must be a broadband telco offering selling services that leverage that broadband pipe. The broadband pipe is not the boundary of our services to you,” says CIO Clive Selley of the business model the once nationalised telecoms operator pursues.
19. The Metropolitan Police
2011 will probably go down as the Annus horribilis for the Metropolitan Police as it was revealed to be at the centre of too close a relationship with the newspaper empire of Australian Rupert Murdoch. However, it is in difficult times such as these that a good CIO stands out and Ailsa Beaton has been pushing through a transformation of processes at the Met that are clearly needed and the CIO has kept a steady eye on her watch while the organisation was rocked by shock after shock.
20. Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs
Mark Hall is HMRC’s director of IT Services and also deputy CIO. Phil Pavitt, formerly CIO at Transport for London and Centrica, is the organisation’s Director General of Change and its CIO. While Hall does report directly to the straight-talking Pavitt, he says that the Director of Change half of the job fills most of Pavitt’s time. Hall is well respected by a number of commentators as having a straight focus and calm manner that is needed to guide the sheer high levels of change required at HMRC.
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