Why Being a Dual Role CIO | COO is Legendary Fun

As a boy, I had what I believed at the time to be the Jason Bourne of scout leaders. After just a few meetings, we had a regional camping trip on the calendar. The weather was brutal—cold, windy, and at least a foot of snow blanketed the ground. While the other scout leaders in our region abandoned their plans and stayed at base camp, not our guy. His instructions were simple: show up to base camp with your gear and a shovel.

From there, we hiked a few miles to our campsite and spent the next several hours digging out enough snow to pitch our tents. We managed.

The next morning, after a fire-cooked breakfast of beans, we discovered our scout leader had left us a map, a compass, and instructions to meet him back at base camp. That night, sure, I was a little annoyed. The other kids were clean, probably had smuggled their Game Boys into their bunks, and slept on mattresses instead of the frozen ground (shoutout to my dad for the temperature-rated sleeping bag). But our crew walked away with something no one else did: real-time judgment—not just the theoretical stuff from our scout manuals.

Turns out, our scout leader wasn’t a jerk. Turns out, I come alive when things get messy. That’s where the opportunity lives. Which bring me to why I love the concept of this role so much. I get to spot both the technical vulnerabilities and the operational choke points. Holding a dual role as CIO and COO lets me see the entire playing field.

I move faster, and make smarter, pressure-tested decisions because I’m not siloed. And that ability—to connect dots across the organization and scale what works—is, for me, like operating with a live dashboard while others rely on quarterly reports. Real-time clarity in a world of lagging indicators.

Curious how holding a dual role could sharpen your decision-making edge—or want to swap war stories? Let’s connect.