What flavour CTO does your business need?
The Google Sheet mentioned in this article is available to anyone here.
If you don’t work in tech (and perhaps even if you do), you may not know that the ‘ultimate’ tech role in a company is deeply varied. The same role can even change over time in the same business, and this means that CTOs either need to adapt or be changed to suit the needs of the business.
I spend much of my time helping companies understand what type of CTO they need. I’m also fortunate that I am able to ask the same question of CTOs (and aspiring CTOs), asking what type of tech leader they want to be. Sometimes this leads to a discussion of whether the CTO role is really right for them. In many cases the broad responsibility and lack of hands-on focus asks them to leave too many of the things they love at the door of the office.
The Swiss Army CTO
I entered the tech world back in 1997 with no formal training in technology. I left university with a social science degree which had the significant benefit of allowing me to spend a great deal of time in the university computer centre waiting for one of my four lectures a week. That spare time meant that I sat and hacked together websites, at a time before Javascript even existed. Hacking websites got me my first tech role, which has provided me a wonderful career in…
