Paid guest contributions
The Executive Forum
The CIOPages Executive Forum is where senior business and technology leaders write under their own byline, alongside our coverage of the subjects they work in. Every Forum article is labeled a paid guest contribution. Membership does not influence our editorial decisions.
We also commission invited bylines. Those cost nothing and carry no label. here is what we look for. Our own editorial writing is in Insights.
A labeled placement on the Buyer Guides where CIOs are shortlisting your category. That is advertising, sold separately from the Forum, and neither one changes what our guides say about a vendor.
Section 1
What membership costs, and what it buys
What membership gets you
- Twelve months in the Forum, and up to 6 published articles
- A real edit on every piece: structure, clarity, house style, and a check on every claim
- Your byline, your current title, a 40-word bio and one link you choose
- A second link to your own site, in the article itself
- A permanent URL on ciopages.com. No paywall, no expiry
- Your title and excerpt in the main Insights index, next to our own writing
- A spot in The Throughline newsletter and on our LinkedIn and X channels
- A print-quality PDF of each published piece
- The reason when we say no, including which check decided it
- The option to have us write a piece for you, for $499
- Free pitching, as often as you like. The article fee applies once we accept a pitch
What it does not buy
- A dofollow link. Outbound links in Forum articles carry rel="sponsored"
- A place in a Buyer Guide, or any change in how we evaluate a vendor there
- An upgrade to a Directory record, or a Spotlight slot
- Editorial coverage of your product, now or later
- Publication of any particular draft
- Moving, softening or dropping the label
- Any say in what our editors write about your company or your market
On traffic and leads
We do not promise leads or traffic, and we do not estimate them. You are paying for a published byline, edited and labeled, on a site your buyers read.
- 144 live Buyer Guides across enterprise technology categories
- 1,700+ vendors in the Directory
- 345 in-depth articles and 539 glossary definitions
- An editorial policy, published in full
Section 2
Who we accept
We review membership before we invoice it, so most declines happen there rather than later.
Who qualifies
- Sitting or recent CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, chief architects and equivalent senior operators
- VPs and SVPs of engineering, infrastructure, data, security or enterprise architecture
- Partners and principals at advisory firms, writing about an engagement they led
- Founders and senior executives at technology companies, writing about a practitioner problem rather than their product
- Authors who wrote the piece themselves, or directed it closely enough to stand behind every claim in it
Businesses we don’t accept
- Gambling, adult services, payday lending and debt relief
- Crypto token promotion, trading signals and yield schemes
- SEO link networks, review farms, essay mills and reputation management
- Anything whose real purpose is to rank a third party's client
- Regulated medical, legal or financial advice we're not in a position to verify
- Companies whose main business is placing content on other people's websites
What we check before invoicing
- The company is real, currently operating, and has more than a landing page
- Your title and tenure match the public record
- No unresolved regulatory action, fraud finding or consumer-protection judgment we can find
- You're reachable at a corporate address
- The business isn't in a category we decline
Section 3
What we publish
These are the areas our readers come here for. We will consider a subject outside them, but it has a higher bar.
Enterprise Applications
ERP and CRM programs, platform consolidation, migrations, post-go-live stabilization
Cybersecurity & Identity
Identity programs, zero-trust rollouts, incident retrospectives, security operating models, board reporting
Data & Analytics
Data platform decisions, governance, quality debt, warehouse versus lakehouse
AI & Automation
Adoption programs, AI governance and policy, build versus buy, evaluation and guardrails
DevOps & Platform Engineering
Platform team formation, developer experience, pipeline consolidation, reliability practice
Foundational IT & Infrastructure
Cloud migration and repatriation, network and endpoint modernization, technical debt, data center exits
IT Management & Governance
Operating models, portfolio governance, service management, reorganizations
Architecture & Governance
Enterprise and business architecture, capability modeling, standards, architecture review boards
Technology Cost & FinOps
Cloud cost programs, license renegotiation, showback and chargeback, measured savings
Sourcing & Vendor Management
Selection processes, contract negotiation, managed-service transitions, vendor exits
The Organizational Side
Team design, technical talent, succession, working with the board
Industry Solutions
Sector programs in financial services, healthcare, insurance and manufacturing
Section 4
Editorial guidelines
This is what we edit every draft against, paid or not.
Say what you think, early
Your point of view belongs in the first 150 words, and it isn't the same thing as your topic. "Most platform teams fail because they're funded as projects" is a point of view. "Platform engineering is an important trend" is a topic, and we don't publish topics.
750 to 1,200 words
Long enough to make a real case, short enough that a CIO finishes it. Under 600 words there's rarely room for evidence. Over 1,500 it's usually two articles.
Be specific
Give us a number, a date, a decision, a constraint, something that didn't work. The most common reason we send a draft back is that anyone could have written it without doing the work.
No selling, no claims you can't back up
Mention your company where the story needs it. Don't keep coming back to it. Same with big claims: if you use a number, tell us where it came from.
First person, where you were accountable
Write about what you owned. "We moved 40 services and stalled on the last six" works. "Organizations should consider a phased approach" doesn't.
Evidence we can check
Standards bodies, vendor documentation, regulations, published research. If a number comes from your own environment, say so and give us the denominator.
Name vendors fairly, or not at all
Name products, including competitors, where the story needs them. Just don't end up recommending your own.
Original and unpublished
Not on your blog, not on LinkedIn, not syndicated anywhere else. We check. You can republish it 30 days after we run it, with a link back to us.
Written by a person
Using AI to help you draft is fine. Sending us something it wrote start to finish isn't, and it's obvious. You need to be able to stand behind every claim in a conversation.
Do
- Pitch first: a three-sentence thesis and four or five bullets, not a finished draft
- Lead with the decision you got wrong before the one you got right
- Give real numbers with the denominator, or say plainly that you can't
- Name the constraint that made the obvious answer impossible
- Link to primary sources: standards, documentation, filings, research
- Keep the bio to 40 words and pick the one link that matters
- Put your second link where it helps the reader, not wherever it fits
- Tell us if any part of the piece touches a commercial relationship you have
Don’t
- Don't send a draft your agency wrote and your executive hasn't seen
- Don't build to a conclusion that's your own product
- Don't pad it with market-size paragraphs and predictions
- Don't ask us to move, soften or drop the label
- Don't ask for more than two links to your own site: one in the bio, one in the body
- Don't send us anything already published, in whole or in part
- Don't send a second draft while the first one is still in review
Section 5
How we label a Forum article
How it looks on the page
Paid Guest Contribution · CIOPages Executive Forum (Learn more)
Making AI Transformations Yield ROI
By A. N. Executive · Chief Technology Officer, Example Industries
Where the label appears
- The Paid Guest Contribution label sits at the top of the article, above the byline
- The same label appears on the article's card anywhere it's listed
- Forum pieces are grouped in their own section, away from our editorial coverage
- It's in the page's structured data, so search engines and aggregators see it too
- The wording is ours, and it's the same on every Forum piece
- It stays there for the life of the article
Section 6
How it works, and the terms
Apply
Authorized, not chargedTell us your role, your organization, what you'd write about, and anything you've published before. No draft needed. We put the membership fee on your card at this point, but we don't collect it.
We check
3 business daysCompany, title, tenure, and the category screen. Most declines happen here, and we tell you which check you didn't pass.
You're in, or you're not
$499 on acceptanceIf we accept you, we collect the membership fee and send you a welcome email with the editorial bar and how to pitch. If we decline, the hold comes off your card and nothing is taken.
Pitch an article
$249 on acceptanceSend us a three-sentence thesis and four or five bullets. We come back with a yes, a redirect, or a no. Pitching is free and there's no limit on it. We charge the article fee when we accept a pitch, because that's when we commit an editing slot to it.
Write it, or have us write it
$249 yours, $499 oursYou draft it, or you fill out the intake and we write it from what you give us. Either way it's your byline, and you sign off on the final text.
Edit
1–2 weeksWe edit for structure, clarity and house style, and we check every claim. Anything substantive comes back to you. Nothing publishes that you haven't seen in final form.
Publish
3–4 weeks, pitch to livePermanent URL, label in place, listed in the Insights index, and included in our newsletter and social channels.
If you'd rather we wrote it — $499 an article
Fill out the intake, give us 30 to 45 minutes on a call, and we'll research and write the piece from what you tell us. You review it, ask for changes, and sign off before it publishes. The views in it have to be yours, and the byline says so. What we won't do is invent the substance. If the intake comes back with no decision, no constraint and no numbers in it, we'll say so and refund you rather than make something up.
What the intake asks
- Your main point in one sentence: what should someone take away that they didn't know before?
- The work behind it: what you were accountable for, over what period, at what scale.
- The constraint that made the obvious answer impossible — budget, regulation, legacy estate, politics, timing.
- Numbers we can use, with the denominator for each, and whether any need anonymizing.
- What went wrong, or what you'd do differently.
- Systems, vendors and standards involved, plus any we must not name.
- Who the piece is for: which role, what kind of organization, facing what decision.
- Anything legally sensitive: customer names, unannounced products, matters in progress.
- Your bio in 40 words, and the one link you want it to carry.
Paying, refunds and rights
- If we decline your application, you're never charged. The hold comes off your card.
- We collect the membership fee when we accept you. It covers the review and your standing for twelve months.
- We charge the article fee when we accept your pitch. Pitching is free, so a pitch we turn down costs you nothing.
- If we accept a pitch and then can't publish it for a reason on our side, you choose: a refund, or we put the fee toward another pitch.
- If you drop an accepted pitch, we don't refund the article fee. We held the editing slot for it.
- Once a piece publishes, it stays published. We'll correct a factual error and note the change, but we don't take articles down on request.
- We may add a note to an article, or remove it, if a claim in it turns out to be false and can't be corrected. We'll tell you first.
- The cap is 6 published articles per membership year.
- Membership isn't refundable once your first article publishes. Before that, tell us and we'll refund it.
- You keep the copyright, including on pieces we write for you, and you give us a permanent, non-exclusive license to publish. You can republish after 30 days with a link back to us.
Already a member? Pitch an article. It’s free, there’s no limit on it, and we only charge when we accept one.
Section 7
Questions members ask
Is this the same as your invited guest bylines?
No, and we keep them in separate sections. Invited contributions are unpaid and carry no label, because there's nothing to disclose. Forum articles sit in the Forum and carry the Paid Guest Contribution label wherever they appear.
When am I charged?
We authorize the membership fee when you apply and collect it only if we accept you. We charge the article fee when we accept your pitch. Pitching is free, so a pitch we turn down costs you nothing.
Can my agency or PR firm write it?
They can help you draft it and manage the process. The named author has to be the person whose views these are, and has to be able to stand behind them in a conversation with our editor.
Why are the links nofollow if I'm paying?
Marking paid links is what search engines ask for, and it protects your domain as much as ours. Your bio link is real and visible, and people click links they trust whatever the rel attribute says.
Can I have a piece taken down later?
No. A published article keeps its URL. We'll correct a factual error and note the correction, and we'll talk about an update if your circumstances change, but we don't remove pieces on request.
What if you turn down everything I pitch?
Then we've both spent time for nothing. That's why the application is free and detailed: a mismatch is cheaper to find before an invoice than after one. You're not charged for a pitch we decline.
Do I have to commit to 6 articles?
No. The membership fee covers the review and your standing for the year. After that you pay per accepted article, and plenty of members run one or two.
What's the difference between the two article prices?
$249 is for a piece you write and we edit. $499 is for one we research and write from your intake and a short call, which you then review and sign off. Same editorial bar either way, and it's your byline in both.
Do you edit heavily?
We edit for structure, clarity and house style, and we push hard on claims you can't back up. We don't rewrite your position into ours. If a draft needs more than two substantial passes, we'll tell you it isn't working.
The CIOPages Executive Forum (PDF)
Everything on this page in one document, for a colleague or whoever signs off on it. If the PDF and this page disagree, this page is right.
Apply for membership
No draft needed. We authorize your card when you apply, and collect only if an editor accepts you.
Terms current as of September 2026. See our Editorial Policy and what the label means.