5 Patterns fo the CTO - Roger Smith in Research Technology Management

Research into the position has led to the identification of five unique types of CTO. See the published paper for in-depth descriptions. In summary these are:

• Genius: Personally involved in the creation of new technology and its application to company products and services. Uses personal technical talent to direct and motivate the technical staff.
• Administrator: Guardian or watchdog over the organization's selection and use of vendor technologies. Expertise with technologies is used to accurately evaluate vendor proposals and claims for their products.
• Advocate: Focused on the applications of technology to improve the experience of the customer. Leverage technology to create a competitive advantage for the company through its relationship with customers.
• Director: Manager of corporate research projects and investments. Handles the business aspects of a portfolio of different technologies that the company is pursuing.
• Executive: Strategic leader working with company executives to identify important technical trends in the future and how these will impact the company and the industry.
• Void: Companies that could benefit from a technology leader, but who do not understand how such a position could be applied and do not have this leadership.

Carnegie Mellon University - Software Engineering Institute

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will be responsible to the Director's Office for formulating a technical vision and strategy for advancing the state of practice in the engineering of software-intensive systems. This vision and strategy will leverage trends in technology and industry best practice and be responsive to the needs of the SEI's sponsors. The CTO will have both an internal and external focus, serving as the point person for identifying research and technology trends that lead to improvements in the state of practice; and then integrating those trends into the research agenda of the SEI. The CTO will:

• Support the Director in defining a strategic vision for the engineering of software- intensive systems.
• Translate the strategic vision into an aggressive, but achievable strategic research and engineering plan for the SEI.
• Lead the technical review of the SEI's research agenda.
• Manage the Independent Research and Development (IR&D) program.
• Serve as ombudsman to members of the technical staff.
• Represent the SEI at conferences sponsored by professional societies and the SEI's sponsors.
• Articulate new technical areas for SEI focus and help build the core competencies required to lead the world in these areas (e.g., high embedded real-time applications).
• Represent the SEI at meetings with key SEI funders to advocate for the SEI's technical vision, strategy, and plans.
  
  

Richard Schroth, CTO - Perot Systems

This position ... is most commonly associated with the efforts to advance the technology of a company and to communicate the difficult task of strategic business and technology positioning. The CTO is generally seen as the key individual who helps establish or influence the next generation of technological products and services of the organization.

Lewis & Lawrence - Sloan Management Review

The CTO's key tasks are not those of lab director writ large but, rather, of a technical businessperson deeply involved in shaping and implementing overall corporate strategy.

David Whelan - CTO, Boeing Space and Communications

The CTO nurtures and cultivates new ideas and innovation in both the technologies and the processes by which we build and design large complex aerospace systems. The CTO must focus the enterprise or company so it can be responsive to new technology and capitalize on it.

Industry Grouping for CTOs

As academics and practitioners have noted, the position of CTO varies greatly depending upon the nature of the organization that he or she serves. The table below lists categories of businesses that embody a unique role for the CTO. These categories were derived from indsutry categories tracked by Business Week. This list is certainly evolving and maturing.