Redefining the CIO role post-pandemic

As the CIO of Oxford Said Business School, Mark Bramwell’s role was complex enough when the global pandemic moved thousands of students and staff to distance learning. Almost overnight there was a heightened need to drive innovation and reinvent business-as-usual.

“It has felt that as a school, team, and personally, we have never worked harder in keeping the school operational in supporting its remote working, onsite, hybrid, and online learning and the new initiatives brought about by the pandemic,” Bramwell says.

When Tate and Lyle announced its intention to split the company in two last summer, with its commodity ingredients business to be owned and controlled by an equity firm, group CIO Sanjay Patel found himself not only at the cut and thrust of business separation activity but reimagining the value of IT.

“As we’ve separated the companies now, the company that’s left over, how important is technology going to be to drive that strategy?” says Patel, a chemical engineer who turned consultant before his first steps into the CIO role.