Campbell Such: The CIO as leadership advisor

Campbell Such

Campbell Such has left as GM IT at Bidfood, a role he held for 11 years. 

He is starting an advisory firm providing leadership and management courses for technical professionals. 

“As we move up the ranks managing and leading … soft skills become increasingly important,” says Campbell, who tackled this theme in his latest column for CIO New Zealand. 

“For years I've seen how, as technical professionals, most of us believe that all we need to be successful in our long term careers is to be really good technically. 

“And that's what we focus on. But it’s only part of the story,” says Such, whose previous roles include IS manager at Healtheries NZ and director of IT at Sinclair Systems in the US. 

“We also need the personal skills that we use to manage ourselves, to motivate ourselves, planning, prioritisation, decision making, creativity, report writing. All of those [are] professional skills that we need to do our job.”

He says these skills are not part of the school curriculum.

“My goal is to make a difference in the world and aim to build a business around raising the awareness of the importance of soft skills for long term career success and to coach, mentor, train and build online courses to do that." 

Credit: CIO New Zealand

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