Gartner South Africa's latest addition, Pete Janse van Vuuren, is a man who has made it his life's calling to predict what the future holds for CIOs - or what they should be in time to come.

"During the industrial age, it was the engineer who became the CEO of an enterprise. "Then, in the knowledge age, it was the accountant or the financial director who headed the company. Now that we're moving into the wisdom age, we're seeing that CIOs will become the CEOs of the future," he says. But those who are already CIOs - or are about to become one - shouldn't celebrate too quickly and start dreaming about what they'll do when they head up the company, Van Vuuren warns. Not all CIOs are equal! "Many CIOs are, in essence, the IT directors of the past. Their job is to ensure their enterprises implement certain technology solutions that meet the business needs. They're really technologists who've been promoted to director level," he says.