Robert D. Austin of the Copenhagen Business School will lead one of the 3 “guru workshops” in CIO CITY 2011 called Adventures of an IT Leader – Leadership Under Stress: Risk, Crisis, and Communication.

In this session, the citizens of CIO CITY will examine an ordeal described in Chapter 10 of the book Adventures of an IT Leader, in which a company suspects (but is not sure) that it might have failed to protect sensitive customer information stored in an internal system. Their fears and uncertainties arise at a particularly bad time: A few hours before a scheduled public meeting with financial analysts to discuss the company’s recent IT improvements.

We follow the scenario as it unfolds, discussing the company’s response to the event. In the process, we explore issues of operational performance, crisis management, communication, managing relationships with peers and higher up executives, and leadership in far from ideal conditions.

The Adventures of an IT Leader is the (officially) fictitious account of the journey of a new CIO in his first year on the job, his smart moves and dumb mistakes, his successes and failures. “A strong story makes this management self-help book a good read. Is it a novel or a guide for a new Chief Information Officer or IT Director? Surprisingly it is both.” – Suite101.com

Robert D. Austin holds the Chair in Management of Creativity and Innovation in the Department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. He also serves as Faculty Chair of “Delivering Information Services,” the executive program for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) at Harvard Business School.

Professor Austin’s research focuses on innovation, IT management, and performance management, and he’s written on these subjects in more than 100 cases, articles, and books, including Corporate Information Strategy and Management, Creating Business Advantage in the Information Age, and, most recently, The Adventures of an IT Leader. He’s also had extensive experience as a practicing manager, primarily at Ford Motor Company, but also as chief operations executive for new business incubated by a major tech company.