We can help

Sequoia Strategy Group has been helping companies get more out of Business Strategies, Operations, and Information Technology for over 20 years, through recessions, bubbles (and their bursting), and through periods of real growth.  We are a team of highly successful general management and IT executives. We provide  SOLUTIONS THAT ENDURE.

Contact us:

info.request@sequoiastrategy.com

650-690-2197

In a public statement earlier this month, Jim stated:

"Today, the role of the CIO remains ill-defined. In many organizations, the CIO is simply the manager of an "always too costly," largely reactive (but still necessary) service. In a relatively few companies, the CIO is the respected manager of a proactive competitive asset. In a growing number of companies, the CIO is simply the administrator of a suite of outsourcing contracts and there is only a very small "in house" IT organization. Some see the very reason for having CIOs as being in doubt - since so much of what the large IT staffs of the past used to do is now pretty well commoditized and increasingly easily available as a purchasable service. Some companies have simply eliminated the CIO title altogether and repositioned the "CIO" as a Manager reporting to the Chief Procurement Officer who, in turn, reports to the CFO.

It is my view that the role of the CIO is one of great potential, that the cross-functional view that CIOs must have to really succeed is a unique challenge requiring management skills that are rarely found and almost never successfully taught, at least until now; that our nation's future prosperity will be based not just on the creation of innovative ideas for new products and services but also on the related business processes and systems that move those innovative ideas forward to become successful in the marketplace; that the role of IT as a source of innovation-enabling processes is only just beginning to surface at a time when our country's need for innovative new products and services to compete in the global economy is growing rapidly.

In view of these facts, it will be the tasks of the Fisher Center for the Management of Information Technology to offer educational programs to upgrade the skills of current CIOs and to engage in practical research to identify those Best Practices that will enable - as contrasted to stifle - the invention, development, and successful marketing of the innovative new products and services our economy must have to succeed in the 21st century."

Jim will continue to serve as our firm's Chairman and to assist our clients when invited to do so - time permitting.  Jim considers this appointment both an honor and an opportunity.  He looks forward to building the center into the preeminent one of its kind in our nation. Several members of our firm have already volunteered to help him on a Pro Bono basis.

To read more about the Fisher Center, click here. 

Back to Home Page

Sequoia Strategy Group Co-founder and Chairman, James M. Spitze, has been appointed the Executive Director of The Fisher Center for the Management of Information Technology within the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley. 

A long established center for research in IT practices and methods, the Fisher Center will be focusing on identifying and establishing  a consistent set of Best Practices that enable innovation and which expand the role of the CIO to the strategic leadership role needed in today’s complex environment. 

Jim’s first task, according to the Haas School's Asst. Dean for Instruction, Prof. Jay Stowsky, will be to re-launch and re-position The Fisher Center to achieve these objectives.