Build your ‘CEO playbook’
According to Ronanki, achieving the CEO goal role requires IT execs to take a two-pronged approach: refine and polish your existing tech executive expertise while actively seeking opportunities to hone new skills that will prepare you for the realities of the next level.
Luckily, as a high-performing tech executive, you already developed a lot of CEO skills, says Ronanki. “You’re used to aligning stakeholders on a vision, rolling out solutions that delight your constituents, and translating all of that into a financial lens.” All it takes now, he adds, is being able to apply those skills across all functions, not just IT or digital.
This will mean having enough depth in each function to know how to orchestrate it in concert with the overarching business strategy. To do that, you will need to pounce on new opportunities, says Ronanki, recalling the pivotal experiences that shaped his ascent to the top seat. As a partner at a global consulting firm, he jumped at the opportunity to become an offering leader. Not only did this cement his appreciation for the criticality of customer satisfaction, but it also taught him the importance of brand, employee engagement, and building high-performing teams at scale, which are all table stakes for head honchos.
“Be prepared to take on roles that don’t necessarily change your title,” says Ronanki, in reference to the often nonlinear path to CEO. For Ronanki this meant taking on a P&L ownership role at Carelon, Elevance Health’s services arm, where he brandished his ability to impact top and bottom line economics by spearheading the development of a platform to digitize interactions between consumers and healthcare providers. The platform, which improved experiences for health plan members as well as the company’s margins, was also offered up to the broader market, carving out a new, technology-driven revenue stream, the holy grail for tech chiefs seeking expanded responsibilities in the C-suite.
Ronanki’s ability to efficiently forecast revenue and margins, two additional skills he sees as paramount to leading a company, served him well in this role. “To do this well, you really need to know how the business works, and by extension, how political, economic and societal forces will impact it,” he says.
Even if you can’t get a P&L role, you can still challenge yourself to demonstrate that growth and margin improvement are linked to technology inextricably, says Ronanki. He explains it’s often hard for tech leaders to “draw the line between the growth of a company and the company’s technology strategy.” Those that best articulate the relationship between tech and growth to their peers in the C-suite and to the board will enjoy elevated stature.
