Lou DiLorenzo Jr. is a Principal, Lara Abrash is the Chair, and Anjali Shaikh is a Managing Director at Deloitte LLP. This post is based on a Deloitte memorandum by Mr. DiLorenzo Jr., Ms. Abrash, Ms. Shaikh, Cary Oven, Caroline Schoenecker, and Erika Maguire.
As technology continues to be an important driver in business transformation across organizations, there’s been a steady increase in boards looking to appoint board members with technology experience over the past few years. According to Deloitte’s 2023 Global Technology Leadership Study, 67% of organizations surveyed say at least one of their board members has experience in a technology leadership role,[1] compared to 56% in 2020.[2]
Despite technology and telecommunications being the most common industry background for new directors,[3] there is often still a gap in how well the board and technology leaders (chief information officers, chief technology officers, chief information security officers, etc.) are connecting on technology topics. Only 36% of board members surveyed report having full confidence in their technology leaders, and more than four in 10 C-suite executives say their board’s oversight of technology matters is not sufficient in either scope or depth.[4] Part of this disconnect could stem from boards governing multiyear transformations and capital spend, but still feeling like technology spend and costs are a black box since technology leaders struggle with measuring and articulating the business impact of technology investments.[5]
