Career story: How to excel as a chief information officer

What does a day in your shoes feel like? And what are the key skills that can make or break a career in your field?

Apolitical has asked a diverse group of public servants to give us their career story. In this article, Dr Noam Koriat explains why being able to influence the future of a country and the lives of fellow citizens is one of the greatest privileges of being a public servant

What is your role in government and how do you spend your time on a standard workday?

I am senior director of digital technologies & information (CIO) at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. My main responsibility is to create and harness the digital core consisting of information systems and digital technologies to enable and facilitate the ministry's goals.

Our activities span globally over three continents, Asia, Europe and America, and we deal with diversified environments and solutions — both internal and external, on-prem and cloud, such as websites, apps, online learning, e-commerce, XRM, software development, information security and cybersecurity, etc. In addition, we use open source software and apply Agile methodology for project management.

In your opinion, what are the most important skills someone needs to excel in your field?

Leadership — IS and digital are no longer just supporting infrastructures or service units. In most organisations, they become the business core and therefore executives in this domain should transform and take leadership.

Execution capability — in an exponential changing environment, rapid and agile execution capabilities are a must in order to stay relevant.

Interpersonal skills — an IS and digital executive is a full executive board technological partner, and since digital is now a part of any business process, partnership is necessary for success.

Fluent in digital native language — The language of Y & Z generations, the language of our new business story.

What is your favourite part of your job? What would you change if you could wave a magic wand?

The most exciting part of my job is finding the right solutions and designing new digitally transformed processes that fulfil my client needs. For example, in the current corona event, we applied collaboration and distance learning technologies in order to help our international offices and tourism experience administration to conduct webinars and publish digital content for the industry.

The governmental sector has strict regulation regarding procurement and of course, any degree of freedom we can have may help us to accelerate processes.

What advice would you give to young public servants who are interested in a career in your field?

Working in the government sector consists of many challenges and opportunities that are inherent in the working fields of the ministries, such as education, economics, health, tourism and so on. Being able to influence the future of our country in those fields and the lives of citizens is a great privilege.

Stay open-minded and use open innovation as a great tool to create innovation and as a power multiplier. — Noam Koriat

If readers would like to contact me please view my profile on LinkedIn here.

(Main Picture Credit: Unsplash)