Chief Technology Officer Programme
The CTO Programme is ideal for technology professionals in decision-making roles who want to step up to a company-wide leadership position.
Upcoming programme
Format:
Dates:
Duration:
Fees:
Blended
8 Dec 2026-22 Jul 2027
9 to 12 months
£23,000
Upcoming programme
Format:
Blended
Dates:
8 Dec 2026-22 Jul 2027
Duration:
9 to 12 months
Fees:
£23,000
Overview
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Programme from Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education is designed for experienced CTOs and senior technology executives who want to expand their strategic influence and drive enterprise-wide innovation and transformation. The programme develops your ability to align technology initiatives, including AI, with business priorities, guide responsible AI adoption and create long-term value through strategic technology leadership.
Led by Cambridge Judge Business School faculty, the programme combines strategic leadership, innovation and execution with a focus on emerging technologies and applying AI. Through core online learning, live online sessions and a three-and-a-half-day in-person immersion in Cambridge, United Kingdom, you will develop practical capabilities to evaluate emerging technology opportunities and AI applications, build future-ready technology strategies, navigate organisational, commercial and governance considerations, and make data-driven decisions while contributing strategically at the C-suite level.
Benefits and career impact
- Core curriculum – Kick-start your programme journey with 26 weeks of in-depth core sessions on strategy, culture and leadership and policy, process and execution.
- High touch – Live Online and Face-to-face sessions, online webinars, project coaching and leading industry guest speakers.
- World-renowned faculty – Learn from thought leaders and cutting-edge researchers. Learn from high-achieving peers from around the globe and build your network.
- Choice of electives – Select 1 topical electives to gain a relevant skillset specific to your career goals.
- Success coach – You will be assigned a success coach, who will help craft your learning journey through regular check-in sessions.
- Practitioner insights – Glean insights from global industry experts with guest lectures throughout the programme.
- Networking event – Interact with faculty, peers and global industry leaders during a 2.5-day in-person networking event.
- Action plan – Apply programme concepts to prepare an action plan that addresses a real-world technology issue in your organisation.
- Alumni benefits – Earn select Cambridge Judge Business School alumni benefits upon completion of the programme.
- Upon successful completion of the programme, participants will be awarded a digital Certificate of Completion by CJBS Executive Education.
This programme has exceeded my expectations and has been really great in making me think about things I may have forgotten as well as giving me some tools I have not used before. I am sure the insights gained from this programme will help me in the future. I would recommend this programme to any technology professional looking to elevate their leadership capabilities and stay at the forefront of technological innovation.
This programme is being delivered in collaboration with Emeritus.
Programme content
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Programme curriculum is structured across core modules that build capabilities in strategic technology leadership, innovation architecture and execution, and enacting innovation. The curriculum combines online learning, live online sessions and an immersive three-and-a-half-day experience in Cambridge, with a focus on emerging technologies, AI, strategic decision-making and enterprise transformation.
Core modules | Online
Strategic leadership for CTOs
- Corporate and business strategy: Differentiate corporate, business and technology strategies; assess an organisation’s strategic position and apply the Markides framework to align mission, vision and strategy.
- How strategy translates to innovation: Explore how innovation supports strategic objectives, evaluate organisational priorities and identify the types of innovation needed along with associated challenges.
- The role of the CTO: Examine how CTOs drive strategy execution by aligning initiative objectives with functional goals and designing performance measures across roles.
- The innovation portfolio: Learn to manage an innovation portfolio by translating strategic objectives and organisational capabilities into portfolio decisions and designing tailored selection processes.
Leadership, culture and innovation: understanding people to drive change
- What is culture? Examine the defining features of organisational culture, its origins and its alignment with strategic needs.
- Changing culture: Learn approaches for identifying where cultural change is necessary, implementing change and making culture fit for purpose.
- Leadership is emotional: Explore the role of social emotions in decision-making and relationships, understand strengths and weaknesses and develop communication strategies.
- Innovation leadership: Analyse innovation leadership practices, methods for understanding team motivation and approaches for implementing fair processes.
- Leadership is cultural: Investigate cultural influences, including imitation, and develop strategic plans for influencing organisational culture.
- Innovation and sustainability: Learn how sustainability and technology initiatives align with strategy, and examine the CTO’s role in enabling sustainable innovation.
Innovation architecture and execution
- Innovation types and processes: Explore experimentation challenges, approaches suited to diverse innovation types and methods for managing innovation.
- Structure of organisations: Examine how organisational structures influence strategy and behaviour, and identify opportunities for automation.
- Strategic role of projects: Evaluate and select innovation projects, align operational plans with strategic objectives and prepare for digital transformation.
- The distributed nature of innovation: Analyse how collaborations and interdependencies shape innovation and identify both realised and unrealised opportunities.
- Operation measures and incentives: Understand how process measures and incentives influence behaviour, and assess the alignment of operational metrics with innovation objectives.
Global ecosystems and strategic partnerships
- Gaining an ecosystem edge: Explore how to create value within ecosystems, develop strategies to launch and scale them, promote innovation and identify monetisation opportunities.
- From local to global innovation: Examine readiness for global innovation, leverage global knowledge and develop approaches to expand beyond geographic boundaries.
- Contracting with partners: Explore partnership models, contracting structures, risk allocation and stakeholder tensions when engaging with external partners.
- Global cross-boundary collaboration: Learn to navigate challenges across globally dispersed teams, leverage technology and plan for effective boundary-spanning communication.
- Frugal innovation: Explore principles for solving problems with limited resources and delivering value through simplicity without compromising quality.
Enacting innovation
- Challenge identification: Identify meaningful innovation challenges, investigate them systematically and define them clearly.
- Ideation and solution design: Guide the creation of challenge statements, generate and select innovative ideas and develop them into viable solutions.
- Proposition and user experience: Craft elevator pitches, visualise customer journeys, define functionality, build cost models and articulate commercial propositions.
- Agile experimentation and implementation: Explore rapid testing and agile experimentation techniques to refine and implement solutions effectively.
Live Online sessions (6 sessions)
Gain insights into best practices for implementing technology initiatives through faculty-led live sessions. Recordings will be available for flexible viewing.
- Strategy: the innovation portfolio
Learn to build and manage an innovation portfolio that aligns initiatives with strategic goals, balances risk, reduces bias and drives organisational alignment. - Process and execution: innovation types and processes
Explore structured and iterative innovation processes, balancing risk and flexibility while integrating incremental and radical initiatives. - Thinking globally: the distributed nature of innovation
Discover how to foster networked innovation through cultural alignment, stakeholder engagement and governance while leveraging emerging technologies. - Incorporating data and AI into Project prioritisation decisions
Learn to manage innovation portfolios and partnerships using data-driven decision-making, effective governance and dynamic data strategies. - From silos to synergy: cross-boundary collaboration for AI transformation
Develop strategies to overcome the challenges of cross-boundary collaboration, including cultural differences and remote working constraints. - Thinking globally: frugal innovation
Explore how to innovate effectively with limited resources through flexibility, collaboration and customer engagement.
AI -focused Live Online sessions
- Session 1: From orchestration to autonomy: leveraging agentic AI for innovation
Analyse the shift from AI orchestration to fully agentic systems capable of autonomous reasoning, planning and execution. Examine how organisations can harness agentic AI to drive innovation, redesign workflows and unlock new value while addressing the technical, operational and governance considerations that come with increased autonomy. - Session 2: Our AI future
This interactive session explores the transformative possibilities of AI in the coming years, examining how advances in intelligence, autonomy and reasoning could reshape business and society. - Session 3: Copyright and creativity with gen AI
Examine the evolving intersection of copyright law and creative practice in the age of gen AI. Through real-world examples and emerging legal guidance, explore questions of ownership, authorship and fair use while highlighting how creators and organisations can responsibly harness gen AI tools. - Session 4: Measuring AI portfolios as strategic assets
Explore the key principles to manage the AI value chain and deliver value to the organisation, customers, society and employees. - Session 5: Designing leadership in the age of AI
As AI capabilities double every 4 months, leaders face a defining question: what should we automate, where should we augment and what must remain distinctly human? Drawing on the latest research, this session introduces a practical framework for AI delegation, showing how thoughtful integration of generative AI can boost decision quality, reduce leadership fatigue by up to 50% and protect the uniquely human capabilities that drive trust, judgement and organisational performance. You will leave with a clear operating model for redesigning work so that AI expands leadership impact. - Session 6: Managing the AI-enabled workplace
In a world where employees and managers increasingly rely on data and AI to perform and coordinate work, leadership itself is being reshaped. As AI becomes embedded in everyday workflows, managers must evaluate AI-assisted work, maintain accountability when algorithms inform decisions and balance data-driven insights with human expertise and professional judgement. At the same time, the growing use of algorithmic management raises important questions about fairness, transparency, privacy and employee trust.
Note: Session topics are indicative and are subject to change.
Online electives – Choose any one
Deepen your expertise in an area of your choice with one selection-based online elective.
- Digital Transformation: From Strategy to Execution
- Strategic Thinking for the CXO: Platforms, Ecosystems and AI-Driven Strategies
- Mastering Change Management: Building Resilient and Adaptable Organisations
In-person immersion module
The in-person immersion is designed as the high-impact executive component of the program, bringing together senior technology leaders for an intensive experience focused on technology strategy, innovation, AI-Native leadership, and enterprise transformation. The immersion enables participants to apply concepts through faculty-led cases, simulations, executive discussions, and peer learning.
- Technology strategy: Explore technology strategy, investment priorities, competitive advantage, the evolving role of the CTO.
- AI enablement: Examine emerging technologies, generative AI, agentic AI and AI-native platforms, and their implications for enterprise innovation, transformation, governance, cybersecurity and responsible adoption.
- Innovation execution: Apply innovation strategy through challenge identification, solution design, innovation challenges, experimentation and implementation.
- Technology leadership: Develop capabilities in boardroom influence, leading transformation, building high-performing teams and managing strategic technology ecosystems.
- Strategic alignment: Align technology and innovation initiatives with corporate, business and organisational priorities, including talent and technology operating models.
- Cambridge ecosystem: Engage with Cambridge faculty, practitioners and the broader technology and innovation ecosystem through discussions and peer networking.
- Experiential learning: Apply concepts through faculty-led cases, practical labs, simulations, executive discussions, guided group activities and peer learning.
How you learn: Blended
A mix of Live Online, Online and Face-to-face
The rewarding 7 to 8 month learning journey comprises a mix of core and elective online modules crafted to deliver professional development, supported by your own personal success coach.
You will learn from thought leaders and cutting-edge researchers and benefit from high-touch live online sessions, project coaching and insights from leading industry guest speakers.
The programme culminates in a 3.5-day in-person immersion module in Cambridge, which serves as the capstone experience of the programme. This residential module brings together faculty, peers and global industry leaders, enabling you to deepen relationships, exchange perspectives and gain first-hand insights into current industry developments and emerging opportunities. Designed to strengthen your strategic thinking and broaden your understanding of the CTO role, the immersion module also provides a valuable opportunity to build a lasting network of like-minded technology leaders.
Who attends
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Programme is designed for experienced CTOs and senior technology leaders who want to move beyond infrastructure management and take a more strategic role in technology-led innovation and enterprise transformation. It is suited to leaders responsible for technology, innovation and emerging capabilities who want to align technology initiatives with business priorities and contribute at the C-suite level.
- Current CTOs
Looking to lead AI-enabled transformation and shape the technology agenda across their organisations - Senior engineering and platform leaders
Seeking to connect technology delivery with business strategy and drive adoption at scale - AI, cybersecurity, risk and compliance leaders
Focused on shaping responsible technology strategies and navigating the governance challenges of emerging technologies - Technology and transformation leaders
Seeking to turn innovation into measurable business impact and take a broader leadership role across the organisation
Participants should have more than 10 years of management experience with a successful track record in one or more functional areas of business and an agenda for change.
Faculty and speakers
Learn from our world-class faculty who bring fresh insights from their leading-edge research into all of our Executive Education programmes.
PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Stylianos (Stelios) Kavadias
Margaret Thatcher Professor of Enterprise Studies in Innovation and GrowthCo-Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre
PhD (INSEAD)
PhD (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Head of the Accounting Subject Group
Co-Director, Centre for Financial Reporting and Accountability (CFRA)
PhD (Northwestern University)
Director of the MPhil in Technology Policy Programme
PhD (London Business School)
Assistant Director of the Centre for Business Research (CBR)
Why Cambridge Judge Business School?
Related programmes
The Chief Technology Officer Programme belongs to our Leadership-topic executive education programmes. Here is a selection of related programmes:
Cambridge Advanced Leadership Programme
Refresh your thinking and fine-tune your leadership agenda. The Cambridge Advanced Leadership Programme is a challenging, immersive programme designed for senior leaders and executives looking to revitalise their leadership strategies. Weaving together vibrant debate, deep experience and leading-edge thinking, you’ll gain new skills, confidence and networks.
Step back. Take stock. Then return, ready to move forward and create immediate impact.
Cambridge Senior Management Programme
Engage with world-renowned Cambridge faculty and interact with an exceptional peer group. The Cambridge Senior Management Programme is a uniquely transformative learning journey covering 4 key themes: Strategy, Digital Innovation, Organisational Transformation and Business Analytics. Building confidence and expertise, you’ll enhance your strategic leadership perspective in preparation for the next step in your career.
Cambridge General Management Programme
Broaden your perspective, create new connections and gain a deeper understanding of key management disciplines, including Finance, Marketing, Operations and Innovation. The Cambridge General Management Programme is an intensive 2-week programme that will stretch your thinking and increase your confidence. Designed to support your transition to a broader management role, you’ll improve your decision-making abilities and get ready to accelerate your career.
Contact us
If you have any questions or would like to have a chat about this programme and how it could benefit you or your organisation, please get in touch with the Open Programmes team:
Phone: United Kingdom +44 (0)203 4794043 | United States +1 315 819 0707 | Singapore +65 31638580
