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Insight
For CIOs and digital leaders, the shift towards a technology-forward higher education sector has been visible for years. Their responsibilities have steadily expanded as more of their institutions’ core work has come to depend on digital systems, data, cyber resilience, AI, and technology-enabled change. What is changing now is that the rest of the sector is catching up to this reality.
Every major institutional ambition now has a technological dimension, from student experience and research capability to workforce productivity, operational resilience, public trust, and financial sustainability. Many CIOs anticipated this shift and have spent years strengthening digital foundations. The challenge now is for universities and colleges to recognise that digital capability can no longer be treated as a support function when it is central to how strategy is delivered.
Our new paper, ‘The CIO moment: From institutional service to strategic power in higher education’, draws on interviews with postsecondary sector CIOs, Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), and digital leaders across Canada and the UK. It argues that digital maturity depends less on technology adoption than on an institution's ability to align leadership, governance, processes, and capability around shared goals. Technology enables change, but institutions determine whether that change succeeds.
The CIO cannot deliver institutional transformation alone. But any institution pursuing serious change now needs the CIO at the table as a trusted strategic partner: someone who can help translate ambition into the technical, operational, and financial realities required to make it happen.
Get in touch to discuss how your institution can strengthen digital leadership, modernise its operating model, and make technology a core strategic capability.
Connect with Darren Leafe, Tim Kennedy, Tyrone Collins, Lexi Fourie, and Dylan Houghton on LinkedIn.
Authors
Darren Leafe
Principal
Darren has worked in education, government and the public sector for over 25 years. He designs, develops and delivers customer-centric digital solutions that deliver long-lasting change
Tim Kennedy
Principal
Tim is an expert in higher education strategy, operating model design, budget model change and implementation, and transformation leadership.
Tyrone Collins
Director
Tyrone has over eight years’ experience in consulting and business analysis and has worked extensively in the higher education, vocational education and energy sectors.
Lexi Fourie
Director
Lexi is a data-driven consultant with extensive experience working with software and platforms companies and higher education institutions.
