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AI Feature Readiness Check: Knowing When to Integrate an AI Capability
In late 2021, Zillow shut down “Zillow Offers,” its algorithm-driven home-flipping arm, after the company admitted it could no longer trust its pricing model to predict near-term home values. The fallout was brutal: more than half a billion dollars in losses, plans to offload roughly 7,000 homes, and layoffs affecting about a quarter of the…
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Redesigning Your Org for Human-AI Collaboration: From Assistants to Autonomous Workflows
Most organizations stall on AI not because they lack tools, but because their org design gets in the way, rendering human-AI collaboration inefficient. They pilot copilots, open sandboxes, celebrate demos, but then, progress flattens. Why? Work is split into silos: product in one lane, data in another, ops and risk somewhere else. However, AI value…
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Data Democratization: A Tech Leaders’s Roadmap to Enterprise-Wide Data & AI
Data democratization enables data to be accessible and understandable to everyone within an organization. However, despite years of investment in data lakes, analytics tools, and isolated AI pilots, most enterprises still struggle to turn information into everyday advantage. High-quality data and advanced models remain firmly locked behind specialist teams, creating bottlenecks that slow decision-making and…
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Tech Leaders Guide to AI Integration: Reconciling Innovation, Infrastructure, and Security
AI integration is now a business imperative that puts technology leaders under immense pressure because we are not talking about a few AI-powered secondary systems. The request is to fully integrate Gen AI into the ecosystem. However, this push for AI adoption brings significant challenges: Existing IT infrastructures often lack the flexibility and scalability to…
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Implementing a Scalable MLOps Pipeline: A Step-by-Step Guide
Operationalizing machine learning is no longer optional because AI initiatives have moved beyond prototypes. Tech leaders must, therefore, ensure scalability, maintainability, and compliance. This article provides a clear MLOps pipeline for production-level machine learning. First, here’s a visual presentation of the process: 1. Identify Use Case and Success Metrics Clarify the business impact: fraud detection,…
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Designing Secure API Gateways: Best Practices for Tech Leaders
As systems become increasingly decoupled, APIs are both the connective tissue and a growing attack surface. Designing secure API gateways is critical for tech leaders seeking to maintain performance without sacrificing control. Here’s a handy flowchart so you can visualize the process first: 1. Audit Integration Needs Start by inventorying APIs by function, sensitivity, and…
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Shadow AI: How Tech Leaders Balance Innovation, Privacy, and Control in the Era of Decentralized AI Tooling
Integrating AI into software development and testing is now standard practice, offering significant gains in speed, efficiency, and quality. For technology leaders, the challenge is not whether to use AI, but how to control and manage its adoption to ensure responsible, effective, and secure outcomes. In this article, we address the key strategies and best…
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How Technology Leaders Leverage AI & ML for Predictive Threat Detection
This tutorial provides a comprehensive look at how AI and ML can be leveraged for predictive threat detection, balanced with realistic considerations such as budgets, talent constraints, regulatory compliance, and scalability. For startup and scaleup technology leaders, these are not merely considerations but also obstacles they face every time they set out to improve the…
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Essential CTO Tools in 2025 for Bridging Vision and Operations
This article provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date list of essential CTO tools, categorising them based on their functionality and use cases. It also provides insights into the key factors for choosing and measuring their return on investment (ROI) while answering frequently asked questions about the tools and frameworks. For Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) in start-up…
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Digital Twins: Definition, Uses and Implementation Challenges
Digital twins bridge the gap between physical and virtual worlds by providing real-time data insights, predictive analytics and simulation capabilities. This, in turn, enables organisations (and even cities) to optimise performance, reduce downtime and improve decision-making. Building upon a lecture from our Digital MBA for Technology Leaders, this article explores the functionality of digital twin…
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Will LLMs Render Low-Code/No-Code Initiatives Obsolete?
The shadow of LLMs looms over every low-code/no-code initiative. We are witnessing ongoing debates about the future of software development paradigms, particularly the viability of low-code/no-code (LCNC) platforms. Major issues like: Lack of built-in security controls Serious security-related challenges due to the lack of cybersecurity expertise of non-technical users Scalability and customisation issues Platform dependency…
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Tech Leaders’ Role in Disinformation Security: Technologies That Discern Trust and Prevent Fraud
In early 2024, Arup Group Limited, a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London, lost $25 million due to a deepfake video call in which fraudsters presented synthetic impersonations of the company’s CFO and other employees. The attackers used deepfake technology to fabricate convincing likenesses and voices of the executives, effectively misleading a company’s…
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Top 7 Concerns of Technology Leaders That Implemented Agentic AI
Artificial Intelligence is evolving beyond narrow, task-specific applications into agentic AI—systems capable of making autonomous decisions, adapting to dynamic environments and taking independent actions to achieve goals. This paradigm shift presents unprecedented opportunities for automation, efficiency and innovation. However, as organisations move toward deploying AI agents in critical operations, technology leaders must address several fundamental…
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Maintaining Data Integrity in Challenging Environments
Start-ups and scale-ups often prioritise quick decisions to maintain their competitive edge, which can lead to shortcuts in data analysis or overreliance on intuition. The impact is often immediate because hasty decisions based on incomplete or improperly analysed data can result in missed opportunities or strategic missteps. This is particularly true when data is fragmented…
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Essential Cybersecurity Frameworks and Standards for Start-ups and Fast-Growing Tech Companies
In this guide, we explain the essential and most relevant cybersecurity frameworks and standards – separately for start-ups and fast-growing companies. We use practical scenarios and case studies to show you how to best use each framework to protect your company’s critical infrastructure. We assume that you are a CTO, a CISO or a cybersecurity…
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Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence Sources and Tools for Chief Technology Officers
In June this year, the BlackSuit group deployed a ransomware attack against CDK Global, a leading provider of software solutions to some 10,000 car dealerships. The initial attack encrypted critical data and disrupted CDK’s service, effectively crippling the entire network. While CDK was recovering, BS launched the second attack, further escalating the disruption. The compound…
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Year In a Worklife of a Scale-up Chief Technology Officer
Recently, we had Emily Castles, CTO at a scaling start-up, Boundless, joining us for her fourth CTO Shadowing session. She reflected on their journey over the past year and, by doing that, provided an exclusive look into the challenges of a scale-up Chief Technology Officer who has to recover from severe financial cuts and consequent…
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Your First 90 Days in a CTO Role
Many tech leaders will start a new senior position whether as a promotion or a new job at a new company. I know how daunting it is to take a new position. You can do as much research as you like, but there will always be surprises. On the bright side, you do have those…
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When Automation Backfires: Guide to Safe Practices
How certain are you that all those background processes in your technology stack are doing what they should do? When did you last run an operational check on your automation systems and, more specifically, on their features — separately on each? These questions resurfaced in our case after the recent incident where a software feature…
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How to Choose the Optimal Low-Code/No-Code Platform
Low-code/no-code platforms can significantly speed up your development cycles, allowing you to quickly prototype new ideas, respond to market changes, and deliver value to your customers faster. But for any of that to happen, you should encourage experimentation and, if possible, empower both IT and business teams to leverage these platforms for rapid application development….
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CTO Priorities in Start-ups and Fast-Growing Businesses: Exploring New Frontiers
This work not only discusses CTO priorities and focus areas but goes beyond, introducing emerging technological trends that could soon become your top interest as a Chief Technology Officer. It provides insights into established and emerging technology priorities, focusing on innovative solutions for enhanced productivity, operational excellence and growth. The reason for that is a…
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Quick Guide to Understanding External Driving Factors of Technology Strategy
This guide explains the main external factors that could influence technology strategy – from start-ups to large enterprises. As you will soon learn, your technology strategy will, ultimately, reflect the landscape in which your company operates. For example, if it’s on a growth trajectory or repositioning, then it’s going to address its weaknesses. Continue reading…
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Mastering Technology Management: Complete Guide for Technology Leaders
To be effective, technology management must converge three factors: technological, human and organisational. Only a perfect convergence enables technology leaders to turn challenges into advantages, disrupt industries and implement strategic organisational changes to create a competitive advantage. This guide caters to both professionals seeking to refine their skills and aspiring individuals exploring educational paths in this dynamic field. Split into four parts,…
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Aligning Tech Strategy with Business Goals – Discussion Panel Summary
An important part of each module in our Digital MBA for Technology Leaders is a discussion panel where a group of experienced tech leaders dive deep into critical problems of senior technology management. Here, we are bringing you a summary with key points on the subject of Tech Strategy and its alignment with the company’s…
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Responsibilities, Strategies and Necessary Skills of an Effective Technical Leader
A technical leader bridges the gap between technical teams and business objectives. Unlike general managers, they possess strong technical expertise and can therefore guide engineers and developers. In contrast to tech specialists, however, they have strong leadership and communication skills. The role comes with the long list of responsibilities that we are explaining in this article.
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CTO Advice: Choosing the Right Corporate Website Solution
Members of our Global CTO Community use their experience to suggest solutions to a problem a fellow tech leader has. He is wondering what is the current opinion on the best choice(s)/practice(s) for handling the corporate website? Is it WordPress or modern low-code platforms like Webflow or Wix the right way to go? If so,…
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The AI Debate – How Is It For You?
No matter how hard you might try, you simply can’t avoid it; AI is everywhere and is here to stay. But what’s the view of today’s technology leaders about tomorrow’s reality?How will it impact their role as they face ever-increasing expectations around the how, where and when of implementing an AI strategy? Because it seems…
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CTO Job Description with Responsibilities, Qualifications and Salary Breakdown
In this post, we explain a CTO job description on four levels of engagement: start-up, fast-growth company, enterprise and, finally, a Group Chief Technology Officer. You will learn responsibilities on each level, understand desired qualifications and, ultimately, find out what kind of salary you can expect considering the size of your company and industry. TABLE…
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Building an Effective Chief Technology Office on Different Business Scales
It is now common for a team leader or project manager to find themselves placed in the CTO’s shoes at a moment’s notice. Often, this brand-new executive is forced to form a Chief Technology Office out of thin air and without any help. This is the challenge facing what we call the accidental CTO. At…
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CTO Responsibilities in Start-Ups and Fast-Growth Businesses
CTO responsibilities stem from their pivotal role in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape. Chief Technology Officers, as the top executives, hold the reins of the organisation’s technical vision, strategy and execution. What is the primary responsibility of the CTO? The Chief Technology Officer leads the development and execution of the company’s technical strategy. Hence, the…
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Improving the Cybersecurity of your Company: The Complete Guide
There is no doubt that cybersecurity in companies is more important than ever. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts cybercrime will cost the world in excess of $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015
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9 Tips on The Bottleneck of Code Reviews
I had experienced efficient code review practices before, so the question led me to articulate what had worked in the past.
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5 Ways An Organisation Can Fail Its Digital Transformation
We live in a dynamic era one in which a new trend today can become a way of life tomorrow. Those who don’t adapt to these changes are at risk of falling significantly behind. It can be worse for organisations because those who don’t adapt are at risk of perishing.
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Think Twice, Before Re-Inventing The Tech Wheel
Here is a scenario familiar to many us, from engineer to CTO. A shiny new and exciting concept has emerged. Might be a new idea for your startup, an internal application for your company or a new customer offer. What’s the first thought that whizzes across your mind … well, it used to whizz across…
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What is a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of a Company?
In a general sense, a chief technology officer is a technical leadership role involving many variables: business goals, corporate strategy, team management, technical vision, enterprise systems, and related tasks. But what is a CTO in a nutshell? What is the key responsibility? Without a doubt, a primary responsibility is delivering a technical strategy that is…
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Early Adopters – Wonderful but Dangerous
With constant pressure around innovation and product development, you’re grateful to the innovators and early adopters who will tolerate more the minimum feature set. But be cautious about what they’re telling you.
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5 Management Challenges For New Tech Leaders & Where Mentoring Helps
“as a new CTO I struggled with the jump from dev to management, especially at a time of growth and change at my company. It wasn’t always clear what that change needed to look like” These comments from one of our mentees is not untypical of the challenges faced, particularly by newly appointed CTOs and…
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The Simple Guide To Saying No
“When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself” – Paolo Coelho Why, despite a mountain of work and deadlines, despite knowing you have to leave at 6pm to watch the Avengers movie with your pals and despite dropping very large hints like “I’m under quite a bit of…
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What a CTO Needs to Consider When Choosing a Technology Stack
When I was a developer, I was always drawn to the latest languages and frameworks. Even if they came with quirks, the excitement of working with something new made the challenges worth it. I’d spend hours setting things up—installing components, writing a simple app, deploying it with the click of a button—only to end up…