Pressure-test your tech plans with a CIO.
CIO IQ® puts a seasoned CIO beside your team for recurring, strategic advice on IT and AI: three decades of IT and data leadership, including ten years of AI leadership. You work with Jeff Roberts, our Founder and Principal Consultant directly, with senior judgment and no new executive on your payroll. Starts at $1k per week. Independent of your vendors.
Who is thinking strategically about your technology?
Most mid-market teams spend their days keeping systems running and secure, and that uses up the time. The bigger risk isn’t downtime. It’s falling behind strategically while competitors quietly pull ahead with technology and AI.
CIO IQ® is our foundational advisory service. Your advisor, a five-time CIO, meets with you on a recurring basis, reviews where your technology stands, and helps you decide what to do next. We treat AI strategy and IT strategy as one strategy, because AI built on a platform that can’t carry it stalls.
What we help you with.
CIO IQ® is a flexible advisory seat. These are the kinds of problems we help organizations solve, from a hard look at the budget to audit and governance.
Budget review
A line-by-line look at your IT, data and AI spend, searching for gaps and opportunities before the budget is set.
Contract negotiation
Better terms on renewals and new deals, guided by a CIO who has negotiated these contracts before.
Vendor performance analysis
Are your vendors delivering what you pay for? We measure results against your contracts and expectations.
Strategy aligned to leadership
A plan that lines up IT, data and AI with your leadership team’s vision for the organization.
Process and organization optimization
Where your tech processes and team structure slow you down, and what to change first.
Audit and compliance gaps
A gap analysis against the standards that apply to you, with governance recommendations.
The CIO behind CIO IQ®.
Jeff Roberts founded Innovation Vista after five tenures as a mid-market CIO. Across three decades of IT and data leadership, the last ten years have centered on AI, treated as part of IT strategy, data architecture and business strategy rather than a bolt-on project. That is the experience you get in every CIO IQ® conversation.
Three decades of IT and data leadership
Dozens of M&A transactions and digital transformations, and IT organizations turned into profit centers.
Ten years of AI leadership
He is the primary architect of our public thesis and predictions on what AI means for the mid-market.
Five CIO tenures
A finalist for Enterprise CIO of the Year, he has mentored more than 20 future C-level executives.
IT and AI, advised as one unified agenda.
CIO IQ® covers the full IT and AI spectrum. If your IT leadership is already in place and you only need help with AI, we scope the engagement to AI. Either way, your advisor understands the whole technology stack, because we believe you can’t guide AI strategy without it.
One senior CIO, every time
Recurring meetings with a five-time CIO. The same person every time, so nothing is lost in a handoff.
Where you really stand
An expert read of your technology’s strengths, weaknesses and risks, including whether your IT and data can support AI at scale.
A roadmap that connects
A strategic roadmap that ties each AI initiative to the infrastructure needed to deliver it, and to the growth it should fund.
Moves ranked by impact
Specific recommendations to Stabilize, Optimize and Monetize your IT and AI, in the order that pays back.
What a board expects you to answer.
Boards press CEOs harder on technology and AI every year. CIO IQ® helps you give four credible answers.
Growth, not just cost
Are IT and AI working as growth engines, and can you quantify the return on what you spend?
The right expertise
Is someone with real experience unifying your technology, your AI and your business strategy?
One connected plan
Are your AI initiatives tied to your IT architecture, or running off on their own?
Risk, managed
Are cybersecurity, compliance and disruption being handled by someone who has handled them before?
Strategy your vendors can’t give you.
Many mid-market companies rely on their MSP or IT vendor for strategic insight, and it rarely arrives in time. A CIO IQ® advisor has nothing to sell you. The only job is to line up your technology and AI with your growth strategy.
Nothing to sell
Your advisor has no incentive to oversell tools, or to keep things simple for their own team.
Knows the platform
Standalone AI consultancies hand you a roadmap. Your advisor has run the IT underneath it, so the roadmap is one your platform can carry.
Senior judgment, part-time
You get the judgment of a CIO with three decades of IT and data leadership, without adding an executive to the payroll.
Priced to start small.
CIO IQ® starts at $1k per week and can scale to about double that when you want more of your advisor’s time. If you need key deliverables sooner, or want your advisor to take responsibility for more of the technology environment, we tailor the scope and the budget to fit.
Need someone to lead, not just advise?
When you’re ready for more, Contract CIO+® matches a former CIO from your industry to your leadership team, and a vCAIO gives your AI program one accountable owner. See all services.
per week
Recurring meetings with a five-time CIO, with an assessment, a roadmap and recommendations.
Will my advisor be from my industry?
CIO IQ® is delivered by our Principal consultant, whose career spans several industries. For strategy and judgment, that breadth is the point: the same patterns show up everywhere. When you need a leader who has worked in your sector and can run your technology day to day, Contract CIO+® matches a former CIO from your industry, drawn from our team of 450+.
A conversation with our founder, not a sales rep.
Start with a short, free exploratory call.
Tell us where your technology and AI stand and what you’re trying to do next. You’ll talk with Jeff Roberts, our founder and a five-time CIO, who would be your advisor, and you’ll leave with a clear view of whether CIO IQ® is the right fit.