Would that more CIOs come from the ranks of consultants!

It's a bit like cops and criminals, I suppose; the best detectives are those who can put themselves in the place of the criminal, understand his motivations, anticipate his moves. Dealing with consultants is an inevitability in the CIO space today... unfortunately, many do not manage the interaction well, either by being overly suspicious and making poor use of the advantages that consultants genuinely can offer, or by being overly trusting and being taken for a ride.

So employing a former consultant as a CIO may be the best possible answer, at least in that respect. As a consultant myself (with no desire at all to become a CIO, mind you), I believe there are other advantages as well. While many CIOs do come to their position with relatively varied backgrounds (not always appropriate backgrounds, but varied, at least), the depth of experience a consultant can amass in a relatively short amount of time usually eclipses that garnered by corporate executives in the same span, and it's more useful experience in many ways as well. Almost by nature, consultants find themselves working in challenging situations, and in a variety of environments and industries, and those who are good at the actual business of consulting (as opposed to those VARs who simply masquerade as consultants but really offer only one or a handful of possible solutions which they will attempt to impose on any situation) will learn a great deal from the flexibility required to successfully address all the angles on similar problems in different industries. This gives them a toolbox with options in it that executives who have worked at one company or in one industry their entire career simply will never consider... and that is a powerful advantage for a business seeking to innovate with technology.

There are downsides as well, of course. Lack of familiarity with the corporate culture can be a drawback. Consultants also often have difficulties successfully adapting to the long-term view; their engagements last a handful of months, and only rarely do they see the true outcomes of their efforts on the ground. Many are better suited to that sort of changing environment and may be restless and unsuccessful in the corporate grind.

But if you can find a consultant tempermentally suited to settling down for a while and running an IT shop, don't hesitate to consider them seriously for the CIO position.