Although the role of the CIO, CEO, CSO and other executive-level officers are fairly well-defined, the role of the Chief Technology Officer is often more ambiguous. In some companies, the CTO heads research and development. In other companies, the CTO is just like a CIO. In still others, the CIO reports to the CTO. And there are also CTOs who work in IT departments and report to the CIO. In short, the lines that divide the job of the CTO from that of the CIO are blurring. Because of this fact, these two executive-level officers must have a close relationship to successfully run an IT shop. But the CTO's seeming encroachment on what was once the CIO's turf also has a lot to do with the evolution of the chief information officer's job, because many companies' CIOs today are so management-oriented that they may not be in tune with technology on a day-to-day basis.
For more on the blurring distinction between CIO and CTO:
- see this ComputerWorld article [1]
Links:
[1] http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=10&articleId=276429&intsrc=hm_topic