What Qualities Should You Look For In a CTO?

The CTO is the person responsible for all of the technical aspects of your business. They would be the person in charge of organizing your technical team, finding the right person for the roles defined, setting up the development and operation processes, and to ensure that these are done cost effectively. Having the right CTO is essential for businesses that use software as the key competitive edge.

Strong technical expertise

A good CTO must have a deep, practical understanding of technology and the associated processes. They should have a broad understanding of the architectural concepts and trade-offs that allows him to assess and compare technologies and processes. They are passionate about technology, keeps abreast with new developments, and is able to assess them objectively.

Business Alignment

A good CTO understands that in a business technology is implemented to achieve the business objectives. Besides technology concerns, they take into consideration scheduling requirements, cost and budgetary concerns, and ensure that the technology solutions and processes implemented work seamlessly with the rest of the business.

Strategic Thinking

Good CTOs balance they decisions between tactical and strategic considerations and trade-offs. They understand the importance of short term concerns such as implementations speed and critical constraints, but also ensure that long term considerations such as scalability and maintainability are not unduly compromised.

Communications Skills

Communications skills are a critical for good CTOs. They must communicate effectively with their technical organizations and their collaborators. As a key management executive, they must communicate effectively with the management team, the board or governing body, and with other parts of the organization.

Experiences Working with Similar Companies

The responsibilities of a CTO can vary depending on the size and organization of the company. A CTO in a smaller company would be a lot more hands-on and technical while a CTO in a large organization would spend more time on longer term strategies and communications. The differences in skills sets and focus affects the compatibility of a CTO with your organization.

Leadership Qualities

A CTO is the leader of the technical team and a key member of the management executive. They must be able to inspire and lead the technical team and the company as a whole to work together effectively to achieve the business goals.