Interim Chief Technology Officer — Value Agenda

Reducing dependency without stopping the trains

Every technology estate in a regulated utility business carries dependencies that nobody chose on purpose: a vendor platform that became the system of record, an integration layer only two people understand, a data feed that half the operation quietly relies on. Removing them is rarely the hard part. The hard part is removing them while billing, asset management, field scheduling and customer service keep running, and while the business continues to ask technology for new things. Freeze delivery and the business routes around you; ignore dependency and every new feature deepens it. The Interim Chief Technology Officer is appointed to hold that balance for 24 months, with the executive authority to make it hold.

You will set the rules for technology decisions, including how much regional IT and business managers may approve on their own, and choose the measures that steer technology spending, capacity and control. Whether each technology commitment continues, pauses or ends is your decision. Plans that saddle a team with cost or risk it has not accepted stop with you, and you will refuse investment whose case ignores the downside, upstream dependencies or take-up. You will sign off who leads which platform, decide how problems travel upward, and resolve clashes between the Regional President and the operating managers before any budget is released.

Much of the judgement is about reversibility. A good architecture decision in this setting is often one that can be undone cheaply if the assumptions turn out wrong, and the strongest technology leaders know which choices deserve that treatment and which must be made once and held. Risk judgement sits at the centre of the seat for that reason.

Two years, measured at three points

In the first ninety days, target architecture choices and a map of the dependencies that matter should be agreed with the Regional President, with someone accountable for delivery on each platform. By about month nine, any technology commitment that would deepen dependency should be on hold or closed, while billing, asset management and field scheduling have carried on without a break. At month 24, the architecture standards should hold across every platform, and the board should be seeing dependency exceptions at intervals it has agreed.

The technologist the seat needs, and the selection

You have led a geographic expansion whose technology consequences reached directors and field engineers alike, in organisations operating across two countries with at least 1,900 people and revenue of $835 million or above. At similar scale, the technology baselines you set held up under questioning from senior executives and from the engineers who know the asset portfolio best. You have said no to funding when nobody could name the users or the downside, and then rebuilt the technology capacity the work called for. The experiences examined most closely are geographic expansion, digital transformation and platform pivot. Risk judgement is sought at level 4; data and AI governance, product delivery and architecture at scale are each needed at level 3. You will not enjoy this seat if you would hold a technology commitment open until each national head agreed to close it, or if you would rather keep local discretion than test it. It also asks for full accountability across the 24 months, not influence alone.

Week one is an introductory call by video, in confidence, with the Regional President. The Board Chair takes week three, exploring how you would sequence dependency reduction against live delivery. In week five you face, in person, a panel of executives from the separate functions, and the process ends in week seven with the full board. A reply on each stage reaches you within two working days.