A chief technical officer (abbreviated as CTO) is an executive position whose holder is focused on scientific and technical issues within an organization. Essentially, a CTO is responsible for the transformation of capital – be it monetary, intellectual, or political – into technology in furtherance of the company’s objectives.
What are the Primary Responsibilities of a CTO?
Duties include, but are not limited to of the CTO:
- Leadership of the organisation’s technical team to deliver the roadmap
- Manage the development team to develop high quality using standard design methodology
- Provide technical leadership to create products which meets customer needs, cost effectively
- Securing required technical resources, by recruiting staff and/or identifying sub-contractors
- Work with the management team and board to agree a technology roadmap
- Supporting roll-out and field issues
- Co-operation with the manufacturing function to ensure seamless delivery of products to support sales
- Work with commercial team on procurement activity e.g. product cost reduction, manufacturing, technical development, outsourcing
- Identify cost down opportunities
- Ensuring all technical compliance and regulatory requirements are complete
- Scanning the technology landscape and working with marketing to make ensure that customer requirements are being met.
- Managing external technical stakeholder relationships including research organisations / universities
- Confident and comfortable in demonstrating plans to existing and potential investors in clear language that addresses the key investor issues.
Requirements
A CTO will in nearly all cases have risen through the Engineering and R&D ranks and held such positions as Lead Engineer, Principle Engineer and Engineering Manager / Director on their career journey.
They will have a pertinent technical degree and in many cases have supplemented that with an MBA.
The CTO is often the key visionary and technology evangelist within an organisation capable of presenting compelling techno-commercial cases that will dictate the organisations future direction and investment priorities.
A CTO will possess strong commercial acumen and understand where they drive value and ROI within the scope of their remit.
What are the salary expectations of a CTO?
A few factors such as the maturity and size of the business will have a bearing but in broad terms a CTO will command a salary of between £100K - £250K with an attractive STIP and LTIP along with some form of equity participation in the business.
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