Should the CIO/CTO report to the CFO?
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That's the catch...... You need a CFO that really gets that technology drives revenue and profit, it's not a cost center. Otherwise you are in trouble.
I think that is my point.... if an organization views and operates IT as a cost center (or more general traditional models), and not part of revenue or profit, being under the CFO could be fine, and a number of CIOs are comfortable being there and delivering in that way.<br><br>That isn't to say every CIO should be comfortable there, but the great thing about today - if a CIO does land and that isn't where they want, they can take their skills and experience to the market and find a better fit.
No, never
The CIO/CTO should report to the CEO, COO or in our case the City Manager. The CIO should have a great relationship with CFO, which we do in our case, but we are touching all of the departments and we need the buy-in from the top executive
For few years I (as a CIO) have reported and my boss was CFO . CFO is only money driven and sometimes it was hard to convince CFO that we should invest and change is necessary. We also need to (to much) optimize resources and number of people in IT. It was very hard to work. What was good was that if money for investment was confirmed by CFO it has high priority and was always approved also on management board. (high price investments).
I don't think any successful organization is driven by a CFO. Organizations where the CFO gets too much power die very slow and painful deaths. Same is true where a CFO takes on a CEO role in an organization. Unfortunately at public companies, looking quarter over quarter at revenue numbers gives lots of power to a CFO (and not enough to business growth or investment for future needs).
It depends on what the organization wants from its CIO or its CTO, and the leadership of those people.
There are many that should report directly to the CEO because of goals the organization is looking to get done, particularly in changing business models, but wow, many folks would do great under a good CFO.