So, what exactly is a CIO supposed to do these days?

Remember when the CIO's job was mostly about keeping systems running? Today, they're expected to help shape business strategy and figure out what to do with AI (sooner rather than later).

But how are executives actually handling the pressure? And what can CIOs learn from other executives in the field? In the first four episodes of Leading Indicators, Kerry Brown, Lead Evangelist at Celonis and Forbes Technology Council member, and Patrick Thompson, Global SVP Customer Transformation and CIO Hall of Famer, sat down with executives from Mars, W. R. Grace, Microsoft, and Cosentino to talk about what leadership looks like today… and share some inspiring personal stories.

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Marina Bellini, Mars: Even the best technology needs a floor plan

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Marina Bellini's career in technology began with a pile of paperwork. While studying economics in Brazil, she took a night job reconciling transactions at a bank. Hundreds of people were doing the same manual work every evening, and she couldn't understand why nobody had found a better way.

That curiosity eventually took her into consulting and technology leadership. Today, as President of Global Services and Digital Technologies at Mars, she's watched IT move from the back office into business strategy. To explain why that matters, she uses an analogy: imagine building the world's best bathroom without knowing the layout of the house. You might open the door and find yourself standing in the fireplace.

For Bellini, technology leaders earn their seat at the table by understanding how the business fits together. But they also need to know when to slow things down. She recalls asking the leadership team for permission to prioritize transformation projects because pushing too much change at once could damage what was already working.

Her leadership philosophy is equally practical: "You don't know less. You just know different." It's why she makes room for people with different experiences and tries to avoid being the loudest voice in the room.

Jeff Sherman, W. R. Grace: Everyone wants AI. But for what?

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Jeff Sherman has a PhD in polymer science, not the usual starting point for a CIO. His career eventually took him into enterprise technology, where he now serves as SVP and CIO at W. R. Grace.

That background shapes how he approaches AI. Sherman sees employees across the business coming forward with ideas, but the enthusiasm reminds him of another tech craze: dashboards. Everyone wanted one, even when they couldn't explain what they needed it for. His response remains the same: "What question are you trying to answer and solve?"

Sherman wants teams to experiment with AI and test ideas quickly. Just as importantly, he wants them to abandon the ones that aren't working. He's also organized his IT team around closer relationships with business functions, helping technology leaders understand where they can make a meaningful difference.

And while everyone's racing to deploy AI, Sherman has a warning about taking shortcuts: "Don't skimp anywhere. Don't roll back testing." Moving quickly sounds great until something breaks.

Lloyd Adams, Microsoft: You can't lead AI from the sidelines

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Lloyd Adams initially resisted AI.

The COO of Global Enterprise Sales at Microsoft admits he wasn't immediately convinced. But that cynicism helped shape his view of what executives need to do now. He believes leaders should be experimenting with AI themselves, even when they don't fully understand it.

For Adams, AI’s opportunity is changing how companies operate, and that requires the whole C-suite to get involved. CIOs can provide the technology expertise, but they can't be expected to carry every AI initiative while everyone else watches.

Adams also shares a leadership lesson from earlier in his career. When he found himself in unfamiliar territory, his instinct was to keep other teams at a distance. Looking back, he realized that inviting more people into the conversation would have helped him succeed.

Now he encourages leaders to "make the tent as big as possible." It's particularly relevant for AI, where the best ideas often come from people who understand different parts of the business.

Rafael Domene, Cosentino: What happens when IT starts doing the work?

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Rafael Domene thinks the CIO role is about to change in a big way. And at Cosentino, he's already seeing what that looks like.

Traditionally, IT built and maintained applications while employees used them to run the business. But as Cosentino develops AI agents, technology is starting to perform tasks that people previously handled themselves.

That changes what IT is responsible for. Domene, Cosentino's Global CIO, believes CIOs will need to understand business processes much more deeply because they'll be managing technology that participates directly in operations.

His approach starts with process understanding. AI agents need to know how the company works, and Domene credits the Celonis Platform with providing the context needed to make those agents useful and easier to control. That context also helps Cosentino understand and audit what its agents are doing.

He's looking ahead to a world where employees can simply tell an AI agent what they need instead of navigating multiple applications. For Domene, that could change decades of established working habits. And he doesn't think companies need to wait for the next AI breakthrough to get started.

What should CIOs take away from all this?

Four executives with very different careers, yet they're dealing with many similar challenges. Bellini makes the case for prioritization, while Sherman wants companies to solve real problems before chasing the next AI idea. Adams believes the entire C-suite needs to take responsibility for AI. Domene, meanwhile, is preparing for a future where IT plays a direct role in running business processes.

Beyond knowing the latest or best technology, their conversations spend just as much time on how businesses operate as what they've learned from getting things wrong. As AI changes the CIO's responsibilities, understanding what happens outside IT may turn out to be just as important as understanding the technology itself.

→ Watch all of Leading Indicators to hear the full conversations.