How to market to CIOs around the world

Explore the key research findings from North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific from our 2025 State of the CIO study to better understand the regional differences between CIO roles for insight on how to sell and engage with CIOs in different parts of the world.

How does the CIO role change by region?

We know that the role of the CIO is to oversee the technology strategy and operations of an organization, so of course this will differ by region if they’re in different stages of advancing their technology strategy. Despite where they are in their journey, one aspect that is very similar by region is their role within digital transformation. Eighty-five percent of CIOs in North America and APAC say that they are more involved in leading digital transformation initiatives compared to their business counterparts while 76% of EMEA CIOs say they are more involved. Additionally, 83% of North American and APAC CIOs say that their role is becoming more digital and innovation focused, compared to 79% of EMEA CIOs. From the budget expectations, we know that IT decision-makers in EMEA and APAC are prioritizing increased investments in AI/machine learning, which may explain why they currently feel more involved in digital transformation.

No matter the part of the world, the CIO is becoming a changemaker, increasingly leading business and technology initiatives. Eighty-five percent of CIOs in North America, 77% of CIOs in EMEA and 80% of CIOs in APAC feel this way. This ties into the elevation of the CIO role, 77% of CIOs in North America say that the CIO role has been elevated due to the current state of the economy and believe that this visibility is expected to continue.

When this was asked of APAC CIOs, 75% of them agreed and so did 69% of EMEA CIOs. Regardless of where the CIO resides and where their organization is located, the CIO role is becoming more and more prominent within the business and their leadership is valued and relied upon to advance the business. Hear from CIOs as they share their take on CIO’s yearly research and how their role is evolving.

Who does the CIO collaborate with in each region?

In North America, EMEA and APAC, the CIO primarily reports to the CEO, which shows that they have high stature within the organization as they have a direct line of communication with the business. Twenty-five percent of CIOs in EMEA are more likely to report to a corporate CIO, compared to only 14% in APAC and 15% in North America.

CIOs are anticipating shifts in technology budget ownership across several business departments this year, with very little difference by region. North American CIOs expect to work more closely with operations (26%), engineering (21%), finance/accounting (20%), executive-level administration (19%), and human resources (18%). These are also the departments that EMEA and APAC CIOs plan to work more closely with except for the addition of manufacturing/OT and operations is not as high on the list in either region.

Being aware of these departments that the CIO is actively collaborating with throughout the day helps marketers better understand the projects that the IT team is working on and some job titles that they are working with throughout the decision-making process.

Are there regional differences for the CIO’s focus and priorities?

When asked the question, which of the following activities best characterizes your focus and how you spend your time in your current role, security management, improving IT operations/systems performance, modernizing infrastructure and applications, aligning IT initiatives with business goals and cost control/expense management are the top five activities for global CIOs. We see that these activities do not vary much by region.

In the next three years, the majority of CIOs hope to focus more on driving business innovation. APAC and North American CIOs plan to be more focused on modernizing IT infrastructure and applications while EMEA CIOs expect to spend more time improving IT operations/systems performance and aligning IT initiatives with business goals.

While these are the initiatives that CIOs are currently focusing on and hope to focus more on in the future, there are also priorities that the CEO has for IT. Overall, these are to research and implement AI products/projects, improve the customer experience, and strengthen IT and business collaboration. These priorities, however, shift depending on geography. In North America, the focus is on improving the customer experience. In EMEA, CEOs are pushing for leadership in digital business/digital transformation. In APAC, the main priority is researching and implementing AI products/projects. These findings also align with the fact that all three regions are more focused on improving IT operations and application modernization; it highlights the need for closer collaboration between IT and business leaders to successfully advance these initiatives.

How are regional CIOs increasing their involvement in certain areas?

Security remains a constant theme as 65% of global CIOs anticipate their involvement in cybersecurity will increase over the next year. These results vary slightly by region: 67% for North American CIOs, followed by 65% for EMEA and 62% for APAC.

Along the same lines as security, CIOs expect to be more involved in data privacy/compliance over the next year. About half (55%) of CIOs in North America and APAC feel this way, compared to only 46% of those in EMEA.

There’s a lot of talk around the globe about environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulations. Only 36% of North American CIOs expect their involvement to increase in this area in the next year, however, this jumps to 50% for APAC CIOs and 49% for EMEA CIOs.

AI and machine learning are also widely talked about technology projects. Almost three-quarters (74%) of North American and EMEA (73%) CIOs expect their involvement in AI/ML to increase over the next year, and this is even larger for those in APAC (79%).

As CIOs become more involved in revenue generating activities, it makes sense that they expect to be more involved in customer experience over the next year, 55% for North American CIOs, 47% for APAC and 48% for EMEA.

There are a few takeaways marketers should be aware of with these increases in involvement. First, just because the CIO says their involvement isn’t increasing as much as another region doesn’t mean that they aren’t involved in these initiatives. It may mean that they’ve already established involvement in these areas and expect that involvement to remain the same for the time being. Second, these differences by region indicate that marketers need to tailor their messaging and content to the areas that their audience is focused on if they have regional marketing responsibilities. These are all important factors to consider when learning how to market to CIOs around the world.

Do technology initiatives differ by region?

When trying to grasp how to market to CIOs around the world, it’s important to understand their technology initiatives. In North America, the initiatives that are driving the most IT investment this year are AI/machine learning, security/risk management, data/business analytics, and customer experience technologies. We continue to see security as a top priority for CIOs in North America, especially as to why their technology budgets are increasing, so it’s not a surprise that it’s ranked second for initiatives driving IT investments.

These technology initiatives are also driving the most IT investment in APAC, however the order is slightly different.  Machine learning/artificial intelligence is the first investment driver, followed by data/business analytics, security/risk management, and business process automation/IT automation.

Leading the list of investment drivers in EMEA is also machine learning/artificial intelligence, followed by business process automation/IT automation, security/risk management, and cloud infrastructure.

Although these differences are not drastic, they still show that there are regional differences between CIO roles across the world, and that they’re focused on slightly different technologies and therefore will be more focused on specific vendors and educational content throughout the year. No matter which region you are marketing your technology to, there are certain tactics to use when selling to the CIO and it’s important to continuously provide this customer base with valuable resources.

How do business initiatives differ by region?

There are also a handful of business initiatives that CIOs say are driving the most IT investment at their organization. For CIOs in North America and EMEA, these include monetizing company data, meeting compliance requirements, developing new digital revenue streams, improving talent acquisition/retention, and improving the customer experience—all closely tied to their current technology initiatives and areas of focus.

The business initiatives driving IT investments in APAC are similar to those in North America and EMEA, with the addition of increasing operational efficiency.

It’s essential to be aware of these initiatives that CIOs are focused on in the region that you’re responsible for marketing towards, as they will determine the technologies they invest in and who they collaborate with throughout the process.

When learning how to market to CIOs around the world, there are likely some key differences in IT leadership and the priorities and goals of their organization by region. Be sure your marketing content aligns with where your customers are. Check out our 2025 State of the CIO regional infographics (for APAC, EMEA, and North America) for additional information.