CIOs, Coffee, and Chaos: A Day in the Life of Digital Leadership

CIOs, Coffee, and Chaos: A Day in the Life of Digital Leadership

• By Victor Ekwere Jnr
• 04/17/25

6:00 a.m. The sun's barely up, but the CIO's inbox isn't sleeping. Overnight alerts, a vendor pulling a fast one, and a frantic message from a VP who somehow deleted an entire shared drive — yep, just another morning before the first cup of coffee.

Welcome to life as a modern chief information officer, where strategy collides with surprise, and the pace never really slows down.

Morning Kickoff: Plans vs. Reality

The day should start with big-picture thinking. But let's be honest — half the time, it's firefighting. You're bouncing between reviewing cloud spend, fielding texts about the HVAC system going rogue (IoT strikes again), and trying to reschedule a meeting that's been moved three times.

You wanted to work on digital transformation plans. Instead, you're scrambling to cover a surprise spike in software licensing fees and roping in legal over a phishing attempt that almost fooled someone in finance.

Oh — and the WiFi's down on the third floor. Again.

Midday Madness: Meetings and Mayhem

By mid-morning, it's meeting mode. DevOps check-in? "No, that feature can't go live yet." Quick sync with marketing? "Yes, we do need to talk before buying that shiny new platform." Then there's the vendor call packed with enough jargon to make your head spin — "synergy," "frictionless," and something about blockchain.

Lunch happens ... kind of. You're chewing on trail mix while toggling between Teams calls and e-mails, decoding tech problems and managing expectations in three different languages: business, IT, and "crisis."

Afternoon Surprises: When Security Gets Loud

After lunch, a simple server update ends up locking HR out of their system — right during open enrollment. Slack's blowing up. Your phone's ringing. And you're already prepping the CIO dashboard for the weekly exec check-in.

Then your cybersecurity team flags some weird traffic patterns from a new SaaS tool. Is it a real threat or just a bad config? You delegate — and hope.

Meanwhile, a VP's iPad isn't syncing. Again.

Late Afternoon: A Shot at Innovation

Around 4:00 p.m., you finally hit a rare calendar block labeled "Think Time." You grab it with both hands. A chance to breathe, sketch out a few bold ideas, maybe even envision a world where systems play nice and legacy tech doesn't hold everything back.

You're starting to get excited — then a message comes in. The videoconferencing technology for classes just went down. During a live student session.

Here we go again.

Wrapping Up: Reflect and Reset

By 7:00 p.m., you're still at it. A few last e-mails, a glance at tomorrow's meetings, and maybe a quiet moment to take stock. Yeah, it was chaos — but also progress. A junior dev led their first deployment. A professor finally conquered two-factor authentication and sent a thank-you note.

At the end of the day, this role isn't just about tech. It's about people, culture, risk, and vision. And yes — plenty of coffee.

Real Talk

Being a CIO isn't about hiding in a server room with a hoodie and a Red Bull. It's about leading through unpredictability, adapting fast, and keeping the ship moving forward — even when the waters get choppy.

So here's to the digital leaders. The ones juggling cloud migrations, cybersecurity threats, and executive expectations. We see you!