February 4, 2025
As 2025 dawns, cybersecurity and risk management remain high priorities for CIOs, which speaks volumes about the increasingly dangerous threat landscape. Bad actors and malicious attacks are proliferating like tribbles—or the orcs of Mordor, if you prefer a more Tolkien-esque reference.
The Importance of Threat Assessment and Disaster Recovery Plans
“Drafting and implementing a clear threat assessment and disaster recovery plan will be critical,” Jeremy Rafuse, vice president and head of IT at business communication firm GoTo, told CIO.com. He added, “By taking the necessary precautions and implementing effective frameworks, such as Zero Trust, CIOs can stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and reduce business interruption and any financial or reputational fallout from a breach or attack.”
Key IT Priorities for CIOs in 2025: Beyond Cybersecurity
The other nine slots, based on recent studies, include:
—Artificial intelligence /machine learning / robotic process automation
—Digital services
—Data management and analytics
—Legacy modernization
—Budget / cost control / fiscal management
—Identity and access management
—Cloud services
—Workforce preparation and reimagining
—Accessibility (of services, policies, websites, communications, publications, tools)
“So will cybersecurity and risk management ever move off the top spot of a CIO’s priority list?” Govtech.com asked in a recent article titled Unwrapping the NASCIO Top 10 CIO Priorities for 2025. “For that to happen, innovation must either completely stop, or it must present a game-changing defense capability to CIOs. Until that happens, we believe a zero-trust strategy should be enacted in states [that is] similar to the federal government approach.”
Vision and Execution: A CIO’s Role in 2025
Priorities, of course, are nothing without vision and the ability to implement that vision. Seeing, or at least trying to see, around corners and planning for the future is key, as numerous CIOs made clear in this CIO.com story on 2025 IT resolutions.
“We’re embracing innovation,” one declared. “As CIO for a top 25 fastest growing city in the USA, my focus is guiding my organization through rapid maturity, leveraging tech innovation, and seizing funding opportunities as best as possible.”
Said another, “I am excited about the potential of generative AI, particularly in the security space… The opportunity to further leverage AI to enhance our security infrastructure, address threats, and enable fraud detection is immense.”
A third CIO resolved to “mature in our execution of responsible AI. So often organizations can be caught up in the appeal of a shiny new thing, which can create unintended consequences. AI is the new gold, and in order to truly maximize its potential, we must first have the proper guardrails in place. Taking a human-first approach to AI will help ensure our state can maintain ethics while taking advantage of the new AI innovations.”
Other resolutions include creating holistic learning cultures that keep everyone digitally and strategically aligned to delivering even better digital experiences and positioning technology “as a catalyst for business growth, employee satisfaction, and competitive differentiation.”
Gartner’s Insights on Leading Digital Success in 2025
Last October, Gartner published an interview with one of its research VPs, Raf Gelders, about how CIOs could overcome various tech challenges “and lead their organizations to digital success.” Armed with insights from Gartner’s 2025 CIO and Technology Executive Survey, Gelders shared some thoughts on the current success rate of digital business initiatives, what sets apart leaders who are at the digital vanguard (and how those leaders can nurture their less advanced colleagues), the crucial role of skill development, and the benefits of being a digital vanguard CIO.
The “ultimate goal” for CIOs in 2025, Gelders concluded, “is to grow the digital vanguard by making it easier for others to lead and build digital solutions together with IT. This also involves defining the right ratio of IT to business technologists and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation across the enterprise. By following the four key imperatives — providing compelling platforms, instilling architectural awareness, co-creating innovation with business areas, and developing technology talent enterprisewide — CIOs can elevate their roles from technology operators to enterprise orchestrators, ultimately achieving the best possible business outcomes from their enterprises’ digital investments.”
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