The CIO’s First 100 Days series in Forbes explores what the CIOs at some of the world’s most recognizable firms did, and what they could have done differently at the onset of their tenure.

by Peter High, series on Forbes.com

In a recent article, I highlighted a number of lessons, some of them common, and others unique, to which I will develop the series titled, “The CIO’s First 100 Days.”  For years, the CIO was among the “c-level” executive with the shortest or near shortest average tenure. The reasons for this were manifold including the fact that the average c-level executive (almost all of whom outranked the CIO) did not clearly understand technology, and it was easy to choose the CIO as a scapegoat if things were amiss within the company generally or within IT more specifically. Given the fact that so much that is managed by the IT leader can be esoteric in the minds of other business executives within the company, it is essential to push hard in one’s first 100 days to build relationships, to communicate a plan, and to track progress against that plan. Column pieces will be published over several weeks, and will include the following discussions with leaders  about their 100-day strategic plans:

• The CIO’s Reputation Is Cemented In The First 100 Days
• Randy Krotowski, Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Caterpillar
• Bill Krivoshik, Chief Information Officer of Time Warner
• Ken Piddington, Chief Information Officer of Global Partners
• Kevin Hart, Chief Technology Officer of Cox Communications
• Kim Stevenson, Chief Information Officer of Intel
• Marc Saffer, Chief Information Officer of J.Crew
• Jay Ferro, Chief Information Officer of the American Cancer Society
• Brook Colangelo, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Stuart McGuigan, Chief Information Officer of Johnson & Johnson
• Martha Heller, Chief Executive Officer of Heller Search Associates
• Jason Molfetas, Chief Information Officer of Amtrak
• Kim Hammonds, Chief Information Officer and Co-Head Technology & Operations at Deutsche Bank
• Dale Danilewitz, Chief Information Officer of AmerisourceBergen
• Jamie Miller, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of General Electric
• Mike Lucas, Global CIO of Hogan Lovells
• Stephen Gold, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of CVS Caremark
• Charlie Feld, Chief Executive Officer of the Feld Group Institute
• Doug Tracy, Chief Information Officer of the Computer Sciences Corporation
• Stewart McCutcheon, Chief Information Officer of Ecolab
• Tom Murphy, Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the University of Pennsylvania
• Serge Leduc, Chief Information Officer of Canadian National Railway
• Martha Poulter, Chief Information Officer of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
• Jim Dubois, Chief Information Officer of Microsoft
• Steve Betts, Chief Information Officer of Health Care Service Corporation
• Robert Webb, Chief Information Technology Officer of Etihad Aviation Group
• David Bray, Chief Information Officer of the Federal Communications Commission
• Dick Daniels, Chief Information Officer of Kaiser Permanente
• Linda Clement-Holmes, Chief Information Officer of Proctor & Gamble
• Eric Sigurdson, co-leader of the Information Officers practice at Russell Reynolds Associates
• Trevor Schulze, Chief Information Officer of Micron Technology
• Jim Fowler, Chief Information Officer of General Electric
• Amy Doherty, Chief Information Officer of AARP
• Marcy Klevorn, Chief Information Officer of Ford Motor Company
• Paul Chapman, Chief Information Officer of Box
• Greg Meyers, Chief Information Officer of Motorola Solutions
• Mike McNamara, Chief Information Officer of Target
• Diana McKenzie, Chief Information Officer of Workday
• Mike Giresi, Chief Information Officer of Royal Caribbean Cruises
• Norm Fjeldheim, Chief Information Officer and Head of Global Facilities of Illumina
• Tom Miller, Chief Information Officer of Anthem
• Bill Miller, Chief Information Officer of NetApp
• Cynthia Stoddard, Chief Information Officer of Adobe
• Paula Tolliver, Chief Information Officer of Intel
• Fletcher Previn, Chief Information Officer of IBM
• Clay Johnson, Chief Information Officer of Walmart
• Dinu Parel, Chief Information Officer of Dover Corporation
• Naresh Shanker, Chief Information Officer of HP Inc.
• Elizabeth Hackenson, Chief Information Officer of Schneider Electric
• Jim Fowler, Chief Information Officer of Nationwide