Meridith Levinson

Real employees who received poor performance reviews from Cheryl Smith, senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO) of US$57 billion McKesson Corp.

Despite the chatter about CFOs taking over IT, the business world obviously still holds the CIO in...

Faced with a tight budget, Alliant Energy Managing Director of IT Gregg E. Lawry knew he had to find a resourceful way to keep his troops' spirits up, so last August he started encouraging them to organize fun office activities, such as potluck lunches and guess-the-baby contests. As a result, six IT employees in each of the company's three offices spend a few hours each month planning activities for the Alliant IT group.

Several companies have recently put their finance executives in charge of IT. Waste Connections Inc. is just one of them. Last April, the Folsom, Calif.-based disposal company named its Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer Michael Foos as its first-ever CIO. Other companies in which the bean counters have recently taken over IT responsibilities include Central Bancorp, Harmon Auto Glass and Somnus Medical Technologies.

At Hon Industries, a furniture and hearth manufacturer based smack in the middle of America

These are the days of doing more with less. Companies are increasingly asking their CIOs to assume additional responsibilities. James D. Nikolai, CIO of Jefferies & Co., was recently appointed as chief administrative officer. Nikolai will still spearhead technology initiatives at the New York City-based investment bank (where Jeff Bezos worked before starting Amazon.com). Now he will also lead the company's clearing, execution and securities lending businesses.

On weekday mornings, Kim Bahrami's alarm goes off by 5 a.m. She pulls on her sweats and heads into the early dawn for a brisk walk. In those quiet moments when she's striding along the neighbourhood streets alone, the CIO of the state of Florida has time to brace herself for the coming day.

Five years ago, Howard Frank joined the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business as dean. He had recently ended a four-year tenure with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, which invented the technology that became the Internet, and the wide-eyed technologist was looking forward to his next challenge: He wanted to make the Smith School the premier technology-oriented business school in the world.