Leadership pipelines are one of those things organisations can discover they need too late.

And the research suggests technology leadership has a particular problem.

Korn Ferry's Technology Officer Pulse Survey found that 71% of CTOs didn't feel they had a ready-now internal successor for their role. And 41% said they didn't have a comprehensive succession plan.

More recent research suggests the underlying challenge hasn't disappeared. Heidrick & Struggles surveyed more than 400 US digital and technology leaders and found that only 24% had a succession plan with multiple candidates identified. Nearly one in five had no succession plan at all — and no candidates in development.

We see this at CTO Academy too. We're sometimes brought in to help rapidly develop a technology leadership team following an unexpected departure.

There are signs of the problem in the recruitment market as well. Leathwaite's analysis of senior CIO/CTO appointments across the FTSE 100 found that 71% of appointments in 2024 were external hires, up from 45% in 2023 and 40% in 2022.

Recruiting externally isn't necessarily a bad thing.

But there's a more interesting question:

Did you have a choice?

Difference Between a Succession Plan and Leadership Pipeline

A succession plan can identify names on an organisational chart.

A leadership pipeline has to make those people ready.

And readiness takes time, particularly for high-potential future technology leaders.

At CTO Academy, we've spent years working with technologists around the world as they progress towards senior technology leadership roles.

We discovered a familiar pattern.

Common pattern

Capabilities that make someone an outstanding technologist today aren't necessarily those they'll need to become an outstanding technology leader tomorrow.

As people progress, the emphasis shifts towards what are sometimes called the soft skills — although, to many making the transition, they prove to be the hardest skills of all:

Strategy. Finance. Commercial judgement. Customers. Communication. Influence. People. Organisational change.

So perhaps the question isn't: “Do we have a CTO succession plan?”

It's: “Are we developing people today who could credibly become CTOs tomorrow?”

Five Questions You Must Ask

1. Are we identifying potential early enough?

Don't wait until someone becomes the obvious number two.

Look further down the technology organisation.

Who is curious about the wider business? Who influences beyond their own function? Who wants to understand customers, finance and commercial decisions? Who demonstrates judgement alongside technical expertise?

This isn't about selecting your next CTO years in advance.

It's about creating a pool of people with the potential to become one.

2. Do we understand what they're missing?

Two outstanding technology leaders can have completely different development needs.

One may understand engineering and architecture brilliantly but have barely seen a P&L. Another may have strong commercial instincts but limited experience leading large teams. Someone else may struggle to explain a major technology investment in language that makes sense to a board.

Don't assume everyone at the same level needs the same development.

Understand the gap between what makes someone successful today and what they'll need at CTO level.

3. Are we getting them outside the technology bubble?

A future CTO needs to understand much more than technology:

  • Expose emerging leaders to other disciplines and challenges such as finance, product, operations, strategy and customers.
  • Give them business problems, not just technology problems.
  • Help them understand how the organisation makes money, where value is created and how technology contributes to both.
Technical credibility may get someone into the conversation. Business credibility allows them to influence it.

4. Are they learning by doing as well as studying?

Formal development matters. But future CTOs also need opportunities to apply what they're learning.

That might mean mentoring, peer learning, cross-functional projects, exposure to executive decision-making or responsibility beyond their existing remit.

Korn Ferry found that 46% of technology officers identified working in an organisation going through transformation as their most valuable career experience.

Give future leaders opportunities to operate outside their technical comfort zone.

The objective isn't simply greater knowledge.

It's greater readiness.

5. Are we building a pipeline or choosing a successor?

There's an important difference.

Don't identify one individual, label them “future CTO”, and consider succession solved.

Develop several people instead.

Some may eventually become CTO. Others may become VPs, divisional CTOs, Heads of Engineering or senior Product and Data leaders.

Either way, you're strengthening leadership capability across the technology organisation.

And when the CTO position eventually becomes available, you have something extremely valuable:

Choice.

You may still conclude that the best appointment is external.

But that's very different from going to market because nobody internally is ready.

How strong is your CTO pipeline?

At CTO Academy, we've spent years helping technologists develop the broader business and leadership capabilities required to progress towards CTO and other senior technology leadership roles.

Increasingly, we're doing this with cohorts from within the same organisation — often across countries and functions — developing stronger individual leaders while creating a common language around a simple reality:

Technology and business can no longer be treated separately when technology is the business.

The worst time to discover you need a CTO leadership pipeline is when you suddenly need a CTO. If you're responsible for developing your organisation's next generation of technology leaders, we'd be very happy to start that conversation.

Visit the CTO Academy Corporate page for more information.