Bridging the Gap: How Dual CIO-CEOs Drive Innovation and Resilience in Transportation

Discussion with Ghislain Colas des Franc

With extensive experience spanning both operational leadership and strategic digital transformation in the transportation industry, Ghislain Colas des Francs offers a unique perspective on harmonizing the roles of Chief Information Officer and Chief Executive Officer. In this article, he explores how the convergence of these two leadership functions can unlock agility, enable innovation, and align enterprise technology with organizational growth. He delves into how to maintain operational excellence while embracing next-generation technologies, drive alignment across diverse stakeholders, and build resilient infrastructures in an industry that demands both long-term stability and cutting-edge adaptability.

Aligning Vision: Harmonizing the CIO and CEO Roles

In the transportation sector—where legacy infrastructure meets digital opportunity—aligning CIO and CEO mindsets is essential. While CEOs focus on strategy and efficiency, CIOs drive long-term technological vision. When both roles are held by the same person, it creates a powerful synergy—if cultural and temporal tensions are carefully managed. “The CIO role is extremely motivating for me because it gives me total, cross-functional and detailed visibility of the company's processes and decisions”, explains Ghislain. “This transversal influence complements the CEO’s vision and provides capacity for global transformation”.

Balancing the dual role demands a shared language around risk, outcomes, and time horizons. The CIO leans into systemic thinking and experimentation, while the CEO must deliver results under tighter timelines. Success lies in open dialogue—clarifying risk appetite and aligning digital initiatives with broader strategic goals.

Ultimately, this dual lens allows innovation to be hardwired into core business processes. It ensures that every technological decision drives customer value, operational efficiency, or market differentiation—transforming digital ambition into enterprise-wide impact.

Driving Innovation with Operational Discipline

Innovation in transportation is not just a matter of staying ahead, it's about staying relevant. However, given the sector’s razor-thin margins and stringent safety regulations, deploying new technologies demands both selectivity and discipline. For a CIO-CEO, this means balancing enthusiasm for innovation with the rigor of operational scrutiny. "Transport is a low-margin, long-term investment, highly operational and secure sector", Ghislain notes. 

This selective approach manifests in prioritizing certain technologies. "The innovation we pursue must avoid anything irrelevant—yet remain a factor of permanent differentiation". For instance, digital advances in ticketing platforms, predictive maintenance, or autonomous navigation can deliver high-impact ROI and operational improvements. Conversely, areas like generative AI for train design may warrant a more measured approach due to safety, legal and reliability implications.

The challenge, then, lies in identifying what’s both innovative and implementable at scale. A strong CIO-CEO understands not only the technology but also the rhythm of the business changes. By integrating forward-looking digital initiatives that support core operational pillars—rather than distract from them—the dual role becomes an accelerator of strategic evolution.

Keeping Technology a Strategic Lever—Not a Silo

Technology is often viewed as a backend function rather than a front-line driver of value. A CIO stepping into the CEO role must challenge that mindset—internally and externally—by embedding technology into the company’s strategic core. “The ability to combine the CIO and CEO roles depends on multidisciplinary qualities: strategic vision, market anticipation, enterprise architecture, and process transformation”, Ghislain explains. “Technology is just an enabler”.

With both operational and strategic oversight, a CIO-CEO can show how digital platforms fuel growth, enhance customer journeys, and drive efficiency across functions. This holistic view prevents tech initiatives from becoming siloed or misaligned, ensuring that every digital investment has a clear business case and the potential to scale.

Leaders must move beyond managing systems to becoming transformation architects. This shift enables CIO-CEOs to identify the technologies that offer real competitive advantage. “For my part, I've had the good fortune to set up my own consulting company specializing in transformation through technology, and also to head up a technology asset management subsidiary of a major group”, Ghislain shares.

Building Stakeholder Consensus in Complex Environments

The transportation sector is shaped by diverse—and often competing—stakeholder expectations, from investors and regulators to riders, employees, and unions. Driving digital transformation in this environment requires strategic vision and political skill. “The key to building consensus for transformation is to first gain support for a shared diagnosis—whether positive or negative”, says Ghislain. “Then, you must create urgency and build a vision that answers the question: ‘What’s in it for me?’ for each stakeholder”.

Framing change around a common understanding helps reduce resistance and build trust. But vision alone doesn’t guarantee success. Effective transformation hinges on the human element: strong change management, adaptability, and trust. “The digital aspect of it is quite not significant, even if it provides huge gaps in productivity or user experience. It is, above all, a human transformation”, Ghislain emphasizes.

This requires a transparent, inclusive approach—balancing leadership direction with grassroots engagement. Investors seek controlled innovation, customers want better service, and employees need clarity and support. The CIO-CEO who listens, adapts, and involves stakeholders from the start is best equipped to lead meaningful, lasting change.

Creating Resilient, Modular Technology Ecosystems

In an industry where systems must be stable enough for decades-long use, yet agile enough for continuous improvement, infrastructure resilience is non-negotiable. The CIO-CEO is uniquely placed to reconcile this paradox. "In transportation, we prefer robust and maintainable solutions in the long term", the executive notes. "But recent cloud-based architectures and modular designs have made it easier to reconcile resilience with flexibility".

Modern IT ecosystems built around cloud, open-source platforms, and decoupled software-hardware stacks enable real-time responsiveness while preserving structural integrity. This shift allows for gradual modernization—updating subsystems without dismantling the entire core.

Resilience, however, doesn’t just mean uptime. It’s about security, scalability, interoperability, and cost-efficiency over time. The CIO-CEO must define clear principles for architecture governance, vendor relationships, and risk management to ensure that digital foundations can support innovation without compromise.

Leading Organizational Alignment Through Transformation

Transformations often fail not because of technical flaws, but because of misalignment. When leading large-scale change, the CIO-CEO must become the face of transformation—mobilizing teams, guiding leadership, and nurturing grassroots enthusiasm.

"The CEO embodies the transformation and is heavily involved in communication and engagement", says Ghislain. "When the transformation is digital, the CEO-CIO duo gives credibility and consistency to the effort". Alignment starts at the top. A unified executive committee is essential to transmit clarity and consistency throughout the organization. Simultaneously, fostering a ground-level network of internal champions can build informal momentum and boost morale.

True change happens when employees feel inspired, informed, and empowered—not just instructed. The CIO-CEO must invest in training, storytelling, and incentive alignment, ensuring that technological shifts translate into behavioral shifts across departments. “You need to rely on a network of enthusiasts on the ground because everyone is more convinced by the joy of their neighbor than by the injunctions of their boss”.

Scaling Innovation Without Disruption

Introducing cutting-edge solutions in transportation without operational disruption is a tightrope act. Systems are interconnected, safety-critical, and deeply embedded in public life. To succeed, CIO-CEOs must blend boldness with prudence.

"Many proof-of-concept initiatives fail to scale", Ghislain observes. "You have to think small and simple—while having a system-wide vision from the beginning". This means integrating digital twins, pilot testing, and failure-mode analysis early in the development lifecycle. It also involves designing with scale in mind—preparing for data integration, regulatory approvals, and support models from day one – even if their implementations are done in a later stage.

“Minimizing operational impacts is key during deployment”. By de-risking innovation through modularity, simulation, and phased rollouts, CIO-CEOs can ensure that new technologies enhance customer experience rather than compromise it with poorly applicable ideas. Precision, as important as speed, becomes the hallmark of scalable transformation.

Measuring Success: The Right KPIs for Dual Leaders

Success metrics must reflect both technological advancement and business outcomes. A dual-role CIO-CEO should track how digital initiatives impact traditional KPIs, as well as measure tech-specific progress. "Technology must serve the company's traditional KPIs: customer satisfaction, employee engagement, cost efficiency, market share, and margin", Ghislain asserts. "Its impact is visible through before-and-after comparisons or benchmarking across regions".

Additionally, IT-specific indicators—such as uptime, service deployment rather than adoption, and infrastructure ROI—provide insights into internal performance and maturity. But these should never be goals in themselves. True success lies in how these tools support strategic differentiation.

By translating digital investments into business value, CIO-CEOs reinforce the central premise that technology is not a department—it’s an engine of competitive advantage.

Key Takeaways for the Executive Committee:

Ghislain concludes in this final section the most actionable and strategic lessons from the dual CIO-CEO experience. For C-level leaders navigating digital transformation, these insights offer tactical guidance on aligning vision, driving change, and making innovation truly relevant.

1. Shared Vision: The CIO’s role is to see the world as the CEO does—and vice versa—to ensure alignment between technology strategy and business goals.
   
   
2. Human-Centered Transformation: Change management in digital transformation is fundamentally about people. Communication, engagement, and adoption matter more than the technology itself.
   
   
3. Selective Innovation: Avoid the trap of hype. Strategic value comes from selecting technologies relevant to your industry context, guided by those who understand both tech and your specific business.

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