What is a CTO?

Recently I was asked what good qualities in a CTO are...  Following is the somewhat over stated answer I came up with.  Interestingly enough when I was offered my CTO job I looked for job descriptions and didn't have much luck.  I went into the job knowing I would have to wing it until I figured out how the relationship would work.  Maybe this will make it just a tad easier for the next up and coming CTO.

Well it's a tougher question than you may think but i'll give it a go. I think most of this is developed between the CIO and CTO, they figure out their own boundaries and cover for each other with some specific differences. 

I like to think of the relationship in terms of a restaurant. The restaurant manager (CIO) is the public face of the department. (S)He makes sure the customer is happy, they've gotten what they expected in a timely manor and that the back is delivering. The head chef (CTO) is responsible for the back of the house. (S)He makes sure all the specific components are in the food, the food is fully cooked and safe and that there is consistency across meals. To step away from the analogy, the CIO is responsible for politics and departmental direction. The CTO is responsible for the technical direction and vision. Both roles cross over though. A CTO should be able to step into an IT political travesty and bring it back under control and a CIO should be able to determine if an architecture diagram is flawed. 

The big difference is vision versus direction. The CIO should be watching technology as it is today. The CTO should be watching (or creating) technology as it will become. 

All that said, what are the qualities of a good CTO? 

-STRONG ability to talk about technology at the executive level in a non-technical way 
-Solid political (be it internal, vendor, partner or client) understanding and empathy 
-Solid project management 
-Understanding of business goals and challenges 
-Ability to be flexible as things change 
-Established IT leadership both in the trenches and as a manager 
-Ability to make quick correct decisions and take control in an emergency/disaster 
-Passion for your employees and desire to see their careers grow (Mentor) 
-Obsessive compulsive need to stay on top of the latest technology trends and offerings 
-Willingness to work well over 40 hours a week 
-Last but not least... A solid understanding of technology across IT specializations. You will be the one keeping IT directors in check so you will need to know networking, server administration, development, project management, help desk operations, database management, etc... at a specialists level. Well enough to know when someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If you don't feel that you could step in and cover for any of your directors in an emergency you are probably not qualified to be a CTO (yet). 

I'd be interested to see what some of the other CTO's out there have to say about this. Like i said, every CTO/CIO relationship is different so i expect there would be some variance from my comments. 

Hope that helps!