Rajeev Ronanki on earning the leap to CEO

Create your ‘CEO playbook’

In accordance to Ronanki, accomplishing the CEO purpose role necessitates IT execs to choose a two-pronged method: refine and polish your current tech government know-how even though actively searching for opportunities to hone new expertise that will get ready you for the realities of the upcoming degree.

The good thing is, as a substantial-accomplishing tech govt, you currently made a lot of CEO competencies, claims Ronanki. “You’re utilized to aligning stakeholders on a vision, rolling out methods that delight your constituents, and translating all of that into a money lens.” All it takes now, he provides, is being equipped to apply these capabilities across all features, not just IT or digital.

This will indicate owning sufficient depth in each purpose to know how to orchestrate it in live performance with the overarching small business method. To do that, you will require to pounce on new chances, states Ronanki, recalling the pivotal ordeals that formed his ascent to the top rated seat. As a husband or wife at a international consulting business, he jumped at the opportunity to grow to be an giving chief. Not only did this cement his appreciation for the criticality of buyer fulfillment, but it also taught him the significance of manufacturer, worker engagement, and setting up superior-executing teams at scale, which are all desk stakes for head honchos.

“Be ready to consider on roles that really do not necessarily alter your title,” states Ronanki, in reference to the usually nonlinear route to CEO. For Ronanki this meant getting on a P&L ownership function at Carelon, Elevance Health’s products and services arm, the place he brandished his capability to impact best and bottom line economics by spearheading the growth of a system to digitize interactions amongst individuals and healthcare providers. The system, which enhanced encounters for wellbeing strategy associates as effectively as the company’s margins, was also provided up to the broader industry, carving out a new, technological innovation-driven profits stream, the holy grail for tech chiefs seeking expanded duties in the C-suite. 

Ronanki’s potential to competently forecast revenue and margins, two more techniques he sees as paramount to major a corporation, served him nicely in this purpose. “To do this properly, you genuinely need to have to know how the organization performs, and by extension, how political, economic and societal forces will effects it,” he claims.

Even if you can’t get a P&L role, you can even now challenge by yourself to reveal that development and margin enhancement are joined to know-how inextricably, says Ronanki. He points out it’s frequently challenging for tech leaders to “draw the line amongst the growth of a company and the company’s technological know-how technique.” Those that greatest articulate the romance between tech and advancement to their peers in the C-suite and to the board will love elevated stature.