The Seven Questions to Ask the CIO You Want to Hire
Paulo Aziz Nader is a Partner at Amrop Brazil, an angel investor, a board member at several scale-up companies in Brazil and a member of Amrop’s Global Digital Practice. Over the course of his career he’s recruited a large number of CIOs and developed a keen understanding of the qualities and skills that define the role.
Paulo shares his insights and seven critical questions that can help uncover the strengths and perspectives of a CIO candidate, ensuring that they align with your organization's goals and culture.
CIO: Chief Technology Officer, Digital Architecture and Execution Officer
A good CIO is not just someone who delivers working systems. It's the person who makes the rest of the company think more simply, operate more intelligently, and decide more quickly.
The CIO is the guardian of digital coherence: The link between what the strategy aims for, what the operation supports, and what the technology can handle.
Digital transformation isn't written in a PowerPoint presentation - it appears in everyday behaviors. In the way people work, integrate, automate, and learn. The invisible architecture - processes, teams, integrations, governance - can reveal more about the CIO than any "innovation" case study.
One thing that has remained constant throughout time: most conversations about technology are superficial - full of jargon, fads, and solutions that shine on the slide, but break in real life.
What has changed: Technology has become a commodity, and tools are now bought.
But... architectural clarity, disciplined execution, and a practical vision for the future don't come in any CIO/CTO package.
And CEOs are still unsure if there's anyone on their team who actually "implements technology". Or someone who truly underpins the company's strategy, operations, and digital future.
Among other factors, this happens because few people know how to actually interview a technology leader. In fact, many people don't even know where to begin to assess whether they are dealing with the right person.
For example: Not thinking beforehand about the skills, behaviors, experiences and competencies that are truly relevant to your company's current context - and about the questions that reveal technical and strategic maturity - seems obvious, but it causes problems.
In a world saturated with hype, buzzwords, and rehearsed answers, true competence may lie hidden in difficult choices, trade-offs, and the ability to think before configuring. We are no longer looking for someone who knows what to install, but for someone who knows how to decide.
This material is a suggestion for disrupting the conversation.
The 7 Questions
- Which technology did you choose not to adopt - and why?
- When were you able to translate "digital transformation" into daily behaviors?
- What is your blind spot as a technologist?
- What hindered you the most when scaling a technology? And what helped you the most?
- Which initiative you led had the greatest impact on the business? Why?
- What was the most complex incident you had to resolve - and how did you structure your team to handle it?
- When is it time to rebuild - and not just patch things up?
Why these questions?
These questions help you to go beyond the "what" - and discover the "who."
1. Cutting through the noise: Go beyond the technical jargon and understand how the CIO thinks about architecture, impact, and governance.
2. Exposing the essence: Reveal judgment, trade-offs, technical principles, ethics, and how to operate under pressure.
3. Measuring maturity: Understand whether the person leads through reflection, or simply by following trends.
And don't forget to conduct competency-based interviews (it's not enough not enough, but it's half the battle).
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To find out more contact Paulo Aziz Nader or a member of Amrop’s Global Digital Practice in your country.