A Chief Technical Officer (CTO), or technical director (if you are from the UK), is often a misunderstood role with a wide range of responsibilities within a company. They usually are part of a companies senior management and report directly to the CEO (Managing Director if you are from the UK).

The CTO role should ensure the company has the best technology and sets the technical and strategic direction.

They should be a big thinking, innovator and technology evangelist to staff, suppliers and customers.

The CTO is also a public face of technology for the company. For a high-tech company, part of the brand is its technical prowess and insight.

In a small company or start up, until the team is large enough, they often have a more hands on, operational role, managing developer and being the senior coder.

Like any management role, having a good knowledge of finance, marketing and project management is essential.

In a typical week here is how I spend my time:

The key roles of a CTO are:

• Aligning IT to business strategy - the most important aspect of the CTO/ CIO role
• Technology selection and platform design – selecting the languages, databases, platforms
• Seeing the big picture – knowing how all the pieces fit together in an organisation
• Providing options and solutions – nothing is impossible, there is always options and solutions
• Innovating and big thinking – pushing technology, being at the forefront of thinking
• Growing technical leaders – nurturing, educating and growing leaders to delegate to

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 10:53 am and is filed under General.
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