Stanford Executive Education: The indispensable CTO program

This exclusive executive education program is a collaboration of the CTO Forum and Stanford Graduate School of Business. It establishes the CTO Institute, a program aimed at identifying, examining, and overcoming the challenges that Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) face in fostering a culture of smart innovation. Using leading-edge research and teaching materials that have been field-tested with leading corporations, Stanford's world-class faculty members and distinguished members of the CTO Forum have collaborated to create a dynamic and highly relevant learning experience for participants from Fortune 500 companies.

Program tuition includes private accommodations, all meals, and course materials.

Cancellation Policy

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Program Overview

This executive education program focuses on the strategic leadership role of CTOs and their contributions to the long-term success of their companies. The major goal of the program is to bring together a diverse group of CTOs for three and a half days, creating an extraordinary opportunity to discuss common strategic issues, problems, and solutions within a structured context led by Stanford faculty. The program includes formal in-class discussions as well as informal discussions in the social setting of the Schwab Residential Center. The objective is for participants to return to their organizations re-energized, revitalized, inspired, and empowered with tools to contribute to corporate growth through innovation.

The first day of the program introduces foundational ideas about the key challenges to innovation and the strategic leadership disciplines required to overcome these challenges. The following three days explore each foundational idea in depth, focusing on the indispensable role of the CTO. That role includes reinventing corporate new business development, creating an organizational culture that supports continued innovation, and leading the scaling of idea generation and change. Faculty will explore innovation challenges and opportunities in the automotive, energy, health care, retail, and semiconductor industries, among others. Participants will receive a free, one-year membership to the CTO Forum. This membership provides access to all of the CTO Forum community, events, and content.

SAMPLE SCHEDULE

Faculty Directors

Other Faculty

Robert A. Burgelman

Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management; Executive Director of the Stanford Executive Program

Robert Burgelman carries out longitudinal field-based research on the role of strategy in firm evolution. He has examined how companies enter into new businesses (through corporate entrepreneurship and internal corporate venturing as well as through acquisition) and leave others (through strategic business exit), and how success may lead to co-evolutionary lock-in with the environment. His research has focused on organizations where strategic action is distributed among multiple levels of management. He has written approximately 100 case studies of companies in many different technology-based industries. He currently focuses on the challenges posed by nonlinear strategic dynamics.

Farhat Ali

Honorary Dean, CTO Institute

Farhat Ali is the former President and CEO of Fujitsu America. Farhat Ali served as President and CEO of the integrated company formed by Fujitsu Consulting, Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, and Fujitsu Computer Systems. He became CEO of Fujitsu in 2006, and prior to that acted as COO and CFO. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard.

Basheer Janjua

Program Executive Director

Basheer Janjua is the Founding Chair and President of The CTO Forum and its focused workgroups, The CIO Council, The Energy Council, and The CTO Institute. The CTO Forum is a non-profi t organization dedicated to fostering a trusted, creative, and non-commercial network of the brightest minds of our generation. Janjua is known among his peers for his passion to advance our modern world. For the last decade, Janjua has also served as the Chairman and CEO of Integnology, a consulting practice. He is also a board member of the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley.

Jennifer L. Aaker

General Atlantic Professor of Marketing; Winnick Family Faculty Fellow 2011-2012

William P. Barnett

Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Strategy, and Organizations; Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford; Codirector of the Executive Program in Strategy and Organization; Director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy; BP Faculty Fellow in Global Management for 2011-2012

Francis J. Flynn

Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior; The Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Inc. Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research; Codirector of the Executive Leadership Development Program

Haim Mendelson

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Professor of Electronic Business and Commerce, and Management; Dhirubhai Ambani Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship for 2011-2012

Paul C. Pfleiderer

COG. Miller Distinguished Professor of Finance; Professor of Law (by courtesy), School of Law

Hayagreeva Rao

Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources; Director of the Managing Talent for Strategic Advantage Executive Program; Codirector of the Customer- Focused Innovation Executive Program

Key Takeaways

The most effective CTOs take an active role in authoring their organization's future through business transformation, resisting the temptation to hold too much affection for the past. We expect that each participant in the program will take away a unique set of insights, tools, and strategies for energizing and revolutionizing the organization, including how to:

Master the design rules for radical, nonlinear, and systemic innovation in today's fast-paced business environment
Prevail against a built-in bias towards perpetuation to launch an agenda for game-changing innovation
Transform innovation from an occasional act into a systemic capability
Differentiate smart innovation from R&D and new product development
Recognize decaying strategies, and replace them with tools that help sustain organic growth through new business development
Apply the principles of collective intelligence to scale innovative ideas and organizational change
Promote organizational ambidexterity by training employees to be switch hitters
Inspire disengaged employees to apply their imagination, creativity, passion, and courage in the workplace

Highlighted Sessions

Why this program is needed
Traditional strategies for increasing profits and share value—perpetual cost cutting, megamergers, spinoffs, share buybacks, de-mergers, outsourcing, and other financial tools—occasionally provide value for shareholders, but fail to create new industries, markets, and wealth. It is not financial engineering, but rather smart innovation that acts as the wellspring of competitive differentiation, industry leadership, and positioning for long-term success in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Incremental advances are no longer enough, and only brilliant innovation can propel a company to the forefront of an industry.

CTOs are tasked with spearheading strategies and employing tactics to foster a culture of innovation. And yet, many CTOs confide that innovation appears to have hit a barrier. Fewer than 10 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500 are generating double-digit growth. Many of the largest technology companies have seen revenues and profits drop. Even Silicon Valley's engine of innovation, which is fueled by venture capital, seems to be stalling, and the typical venture fund barely beats the rate of return of the money markets.

What is preventing profitable, long-term growth, and what can be done about it? These questions are critical for CTOs, who are first in line to experience the consequences of under-investment in R&D, increasing emphasis of the short-term over the long-term, and the difficulties of helping business leaders withstand the tremendous pressures for quarterly results.

This executive education program serves a vital need by bringing together CTOs from many organizations, industries, and countries to share experiences and learn new ideas and frameworks for navigating an increasingly complex business environment.

Facilities

Stanford University

The Stanford campus is world renowned for its natural beauty, Spanish mission-style architecture, and temperate climate. With more than 8,180 acres (3,310 hectares), Stanford's campus ranks as one of the largest in the United States. Participants in Stanford's Executive Programs become part of a quintessential university setting, residing together, walking or biking to classes, and enjoying access to Stanford University facilities.

The Knight Management Center

Opened in spring 2011, the Knight Management Center has transformed the Stanford Graduate School of Business into a vibrant and unified indoor-outdoor, living and learning community. Participants will take classes at this new state-of-the-art campus, which features tiered classrooms with extensive floor-to-ceiling glass, the latest in audiovisual technology, numerous breakout and study rooms, outdoor seating areas to encourage informal discussion, and an open collaboration lab that employs hands-on and design thinking techniques.

Schwab Residential Center

Designed by renowned Mexican architect, Ricardo Legorreta, the Schwab Residential Center gives residents ample privacy while promoting collegial interaction through shared lounges, outdoor meeting areas, a library, and an exercise room.

Who Should Attend?

CTOs play an indispensable role in the continued development and renewal of innovation. They are among the few leaders with the expertise and vision to balance the allocation of corporate resources between current and future opportunities. What's more, they are uniquely positioned to influence the chief executive and board of directors to share the vision.

This program is designed for senior-level technology executives with at least 10 to 15 years of management experience who are responsible for building and deploying cutting-edge technology. Appropriate titles include Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, Vice President of Technology and Product Development, Vice President of Information Technology, and Vice President of Research and Development.

CONTACT

Julie Learmond-Criqui

Director, Programs

Phone: 650.723.5637
Email: julielc@gsb.stanford.edu