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
31 Mar 2026 (start date)
9 to 12 months
£23,000
Upcoming programme
Format:
Blended
Dates:
31 Mar 2026 (start date)
Duration:
9 to 12 months
Fees:
£23,000
Overview
Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Programme is designed for technology professionals in senior management roles who want to step into leadership positions. The comprehensive curriculum will help you master the leadership skills needed to champion technology initiatives and boost business outcomes. It will also help you anticipate the scale at which products and technologies may evolve in the future, enabling you to build a competitive advantage and exceed business goals.
Practical sessions will guide you to formulate an innovation and technology action plan and cascade it into functional global strategies. The programme will equip you to take ownership of your organisation’s innovation portfolio, strengthening your ability to govern technology investment, manage risk, and ensure innovation delivers measurable value at scale. The in-depth curriculum is modelled to help you develop and lead new products and designs, business models, processes and technologies, executing effectively across agile, experimental and traditional delivery models. You will also gain insights into best practices for implementing new technology initiatives to reshape the business. In addition, this programme will enable you to collaborate with other C-suite members and functional teams to continuously improve the technology roadmap, maintain a culture of innovation, and deliver enhanced customer and user experiences. Lastly, the programme will expand your external capabilities to handle tech intelligence and relationships with regulators, policymakers and business ecosystems.
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 two 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 two and a half-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 will prepare you to step up to the C-suite and contribute to business strategy.
This programme is being delivered in collaboration with Emeritus.
Programme content
The core modules provide a broad foundation in the key parameters of technology leadership, from strategic planning to influencing company culture. You will develop essential technical and interpersonal skills to foster high-performance teams, delve into disruptive technologies and learn how to make data-driven decisions. You will also gain access to AI-focused live online sessions that equip you to harness AI tools and strategies responsibly at your organisation, enabling you to exceed business goals and build a competitive advantage.
Strategy
- A vision of change, shaping technology strategy and corporate versus business strategy.
- Strategic risk, innovation typology, process and outcome metrics.
- Technology strategy portfolio and measuring portfolio success
- The decision process for managing and driving the portfolio.
Culture and leadership
- The power of culture and its complexity and limitations.
- The basis and power of leadership, the motivation to lead and the drawbacks.
- Empowered innovation leadership, fair process and its challenges.
Processes and execution
- Moving from strategic concepts to concrete operational measures.
- Process types, their strengths and limitations: agile, waterfall, experimentation and experimental ventures.
- Managing the differences, classical organisational structures and the power and challenge of complexity.
- The birth and management of innovation and decentralised and hierarchical structures.
- The locus of innovation, application of success measures and how organisations learn.
Global organisation and partners
- The architecture and management of distributed innovation.
- Catalysing a cutting-edge ecosystem strategy.
- Inter-firm collaboration, partner contracting and contract design.
- Traditional and cloud-based IT infrastructure, global innovation and marketing.
Externalities and technology policy
- The impact of technology on society and developing a plan and vision for the future.
- Problem definition and its effect on solutions.
- Policy emergence and evolution.
- Competition and antitrust policy, ESG governance and regulatory impact.
Electives (choose 1)
The Business Analytics and AI: Decision-Making Using Data Programme has been added as a fixed elective for this programme. Participants have a choice for their second elective, from the list below:
- Digital Transformation: From Strategy to Execution
- Strategic Thinking for the CXO
- FinTech Innovation: Disrupting the Financial Landscape
- Innovation and Intrapreneurship: Winning Strategies for New Venture Creation
- Steering Complex Projects
- Mastering Change Management: Building Resilient and Adaptable Organisations
How you learn: Blended
A mix of Live Online, Online and Face-to-face
The rewarding 12 month learning journey comprises a mix of core and elective online modules crafted to deliver professional development, supported by your own personal success coach.
This 12-month learning journey comprises a blend of core and elective online modules designed to support your professional development, complemented by personalised success coaching.
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 2.5-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 programme is ideal for aspiring and current CTOs and technology professionals in decision-making roles who want to step up to an enterprise-level, company-wide leadership position and contribute to business strategy. If you are seeking a programme that hones your innovation and technological capabilities, advances your influencing and communication skills, and helps you grow your global network while delivering measurable business outcomes, then this programme is ideal for you.
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)
DBA (Boston University)
PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Management
PhD (Harvard University)
Director of the Cambridge Executive MBA Programme
Director of the Circular Economy Centre (CEC)
Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise
Vice-Dean for Faculty
Director of the Centre for India and Global Business (CIGB)
PhD (University of Southern California)
Kristin Behfar
Kristin Behfar
Professor of Strategic Leadership and Ethics, United States Army War College (Retired)Kristin works with Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education.
Matt holds an honorary title from Cambridge Judge Business School.
Why Cambridge Judge Business School?
Related programmes
The Chief Technology Policy Officer Programme belongs to our Leadership-topic executive education programmes. Here is a selection of related programmes:
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Refresh your thinking and fine-tune your leadership agenda. The Cambridge ALP 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
