Hire a CTO: leadership search by Vinay Pasricha.
A CTO decides how technology serves the business: what to build, what to buy, how systems are architected and secured, and how the engineering team is built and led. In an AI-shaped economy the role increasingly touches every function.
Frame the mandate. Then discover the person.
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01
Frame the mandate precisely
Is the CTO being hired to build a product, to modernise existing systems, to lead a digital or AI programme across the business, or to scale an engineering team? These are different leaders.
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02
Understand the organisation’s frequency
How decisions are actually made, the pace the organisation runs at and what it rewards. A capable CTO in the wrong environment looks mediocre; that is a mismatch, not a verdict on character.
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03
Discover, do not advertise
The leaders who fit are rarely looking. The search goes to them, through discovery and relationships, instead of waiting for applications to a posting.
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04
Validate under pressure
Candidates are tested against the real mandate, with questions generated from the case and held under Socratic pressure. A resume records the past, and an interview tests performance, not fit.
Organisations comparing CTO executive search firms often start from a list of technologies. The better starting point is the business problem the CTO must own, framed before the search begins.
This describes an approach, not a guarantee. The doctrine behind it is set out in The SIV Method.
Setting the pay for this role? The India Leadership Pay Benchmark puts published CTO / CIO pay figures from named surveys side by side, with every source linked.
Begin with the mandate.
Vinay Pasricha is the founder of GoodSpace AI, a hiring company based in Noida that has served about 1,200 corporate customers over seven years. Send the enquiry through the leadership search page, or write or call directly.