Modern businesses operate in a highly disrupted world – where “disruption” has become the new normal. It is like sailing a ship in the vast ocean of uncertain political and economic waves – occasionally hit by new and advanced technologies. The time you figure out a new technology – it will already have become obsolete, and you will be looking at a new trend.
Undoubtedly, businesses need IT to move forward – and the technology leader is in control, or you can say he is the one leading IT.
A technology leader whether you call him the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or a Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Digital Officer (CDO) or Digital Transformation Officer or Head of Technology – is the captain of this ship i.e. your business – who has the responsibility of sailing through the ocean of disruptions and bringing your business towards a safe harbor. And how he does that – is what makes the ultimate impact.
CIO or CTO – What’s the difference?
Let us look at the definitions of the CIO and CTO as shared by Gartner.
According to Gartner, “The chief information officer (CIO) oversees the people, processes, and technologies within a company’s IT organization to ensure they deliver outcomes that support the goals of the business.”
According to Gartner, “The CTO has overall responsibility for managing the physical and personnel technology infrastructure including technology deployment, network and system management, integration testing, and developing technical operations personnel.”
As digital becomes a core competency in the today’s business world – the role of a CIO and CTO are blending. Whether an organization employs a CIO, or a CTO depends upon its specific business objective and its digital transformation stage. Both CIOs and CTOs can achieve success only through seamless collaboration.
Meet the top 50 CIOs, CTOs, and technology leaders from the IT/ITeS Industry
Considering the evolving role of a CIO and CTO and how they can be the change agent in an organization’s digital transformation journey, we thought of coming up with a list of 50 CIOs, CTOs, and technology leaders from leading Information technology (IT) and software solutions companies.
We have listed the brightest and the most transformative leaders. However, this is not a ranking – we have just listed them in an alphabetical order. Let us begin.
1. Aan Chauhan
Company: Mindtree
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Aan is a senior technology leader with more than two decades of experience in developing world-class products. He has led various high-performance teams across diverse industry sectors like healthcare, banking and financial services, eCommerce, technology, and retail. As a CTO, he is responsible for creating Mindtree’s technology strategy.
Social Media: LinkedIn
2. Ajit Kumar
Company: HCL Technologies
Position: Chief Information Officer
As the CIO of HCL Technologies, Ajit is responsible to reimagine the business processes and the underlying technology to transform the company into a truly digital organization. This is a major initiative for the company, expected to make the organization more agile and capable of responding effectively to its strategic objectives.
Social Media: NA
3. Ashok Advani
Company: RP Tech India
Position: Head IT
Ashok is a senior technology leader with over 20 years of experience in information technology (IT) industry for various sectors including retail, FMCG, Consumer Durable and Manufacturing. Prior to RP Tech India, he handled Eureka Forbes Pro Industrial and Direct Sales Division’s IT operations for more than 18 years.
Social Media: LinkedIn
4. Arthur Hu
Company: Lenovo
Position: Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Arthur is an experienced high tech and IT industry executive with a global experience. He has a proven track record of developing and mentoring people and building high-performing teams. Prior to joining the Lenovo team, he worked at McKinsey & Company.
Social Media: LinkedIn
5. Anand Bahl
Company: Micron Technology
Position: Chief Information Officer
Anand Bahl is the chief information officer, CVP at Micron Technology. As a finance and IT executive with over twenty years of international and domestic experience in IT and finance for high-tech, chemical, and textile industries, he is a trusted advisor to the large complex multinational firms demanding strong business and technology acumen.
Social Media: LinkedIn
6. Atish Banerjea
Company: Meta (Formerly Facebook, Inc.)
Position: Chief Information Officer
Atish Banerjea is the Chief Information Officer at Meta since October 2016. As part of his role, he looks after the global information technology function at the company. He and his team are responsible for building and running technology systems that are designed to help scale Facebook globally – allowing the company to make the world more open and connected.
Social media: LinkedIn
7. Ben Fried
Company: Google
Position: Chief Information Officer
Ben Fried is Google’s chief information officer since May 2008. As the CIO of the most innovative technology company in the world – he led the organization through transformative strategies for more than 13 years. He created a new vision for IT as a functionality diverse but engineering-centred organization that deeply differentiates by using Google’s product engineering disciplines to build breakthrough solutions to enterprise problems.
Social media: LinkedIn
8. Ben McCormack
Company: Google
Position: Technical Director Office of the CTO
Ben is a technology leader with a background in operations and delivering complex initiatives which require cross-functional knowledge and expertise. He is valued as someone who successfully bridges technical and business functions. He has an extensive experience managing customer relationships from pre-sales to execution.
Social Media: LinkedIn
9. Bill Briggs
Company: Deloitte
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Bill has been the CTO at Deloitte since July 1998 i.e., 23 years. As the CTO of Deloitte, he helps drive technology research and development initiatives of the company. He also oversees the company’s vision and messaging for technology and is responsible for the identification and communication of the key tech trends affecting the company’s clients’ businesses.
Social Media: LinkedIn
10. Chris Bedi
Company: ServiceNow
Position: Chief Information Officer
Chris is an senior leader with a proven track record of driving growth across different industry verticals and improving customer experience. He strongly believes in IT as an innovator and differentiator. He is driven by innovation and value generation.
Social Media: LinkedIn
11. Claire Rutkowski
Company: Bentley Systems
Position: Chief Information Officer
Claire R. is the Chief Information Officer at Bentley Systems since October 2016. As a CIO, she guides and provides thought leadership to a globally distributed team of 200+ IT professionals. She also assesses and drives IT maturity across many business processes including service delivery, identity and access management, problem resolution, project portfolio management, and infrastructure and operations.
Social Media: LinkedIn
12. Cynthia (Cindy) Stoddard
Company: Adobe
Position: Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Cynthia is a senior leader with 25+ years of business experience and IT expertise. She oversees Adobe’s Global Information Technology and Cloud Operations Teams. She leads the global business strategy for delivering quality services and operations, forming the mission-critical backbone for the company.
Social Media: LinkedIn
13. Aloknath De
Company: Samsung India
Position: Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Aloknath De is a senior technology leader who is known for crafting core technologies to lead towards a better-connected world with enriched human interaction. His expertise has led Samsung India to become an Innovation hub. He has been awarded with various industry accolades like – ‘Tech Leader of the year’, Alexander Graham Bell Prize (Canada), IDC Insights Award, NASSCOM AI GameChanger Award, to name a few.
Social Media: LinkedIn
On being approached by Wire19 team, Dr. Aloknath De commented on how CIOs, CTOs and CDOs can address challenges and ensure business growth today.
14. Ed Russell
Company: Blackboard
Position: Chief Information Officer
Ed Russell is the chief information officer at Blackboard since August 2016. He is an experienced IT professional with expertise in delivering large sized projects on time and within budget. His specialities include NOC Operations, Telecommunications, Technical Operations, Call Center, Vendor Management, Budget Analysis, ITIL, and VOIP Architecture. He is an alumnus of Liberty University.
Social Media: LinkedIn
15. Fidelma Russo
Company: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Fidelma has been recently appointed as the CTO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). She is a technology leader with expertise in networking, storage, servers, machine learning, analytics, and global IT business services and infrastructure. She is also a board member of SBA Communications and has been associated with brands like VMware, Iron Mountain, Dell etc.
Social Media: LinkedIn
16. Fletcher Previn
Company: Cisco
Position: Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer
Fletcher Previn is the SVP and chief digital officer at Cisco. Prior to joining Cisco, he was the Chief Information Officer at IBM for more than 3 years. He has also worked with brands like Walmart, Evans Analytical Group, etc.
Social media: LinkedIn
17. Gerry Egan
Company: Ingram Micro
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Gerry is the CTO of Ingram Micro since October 2018. As a CTO, he leads a global team of 300+ product management, web development, UI/UX experts, and operational professionals who takes care of Ingram Micro’s B2B eCommerce platform. Prior joining Ingram, he was associated with Symantec for more than 13 years and has played several roles during his tenure.
Social Media: LinkedIn
18. Glen Robson
Company: Dell Technologies
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Glen Robson is the chief technology officer at Dell Technologies since July 2018. He is a forward-thinking technologist who loves tracking emerging technologies and aligning them with the overall business objectives for a collective success. He has also worked with Verifone as the EVP and Global Head of Solutions.
Social Media: LinkedIn
19. Graeme Thompson
Company: Informatica
Position: Chief Information Officer
Graeme is passionate about technology and end-user experience. He provides cross-functional applications and process capabilities to support the company’s most critical objectives. He has a proven track record of delivering real value by enabling the productivity of the knowledge workers.
Social Media: LinkedIn
20. Jacqueline Guichelaar
Company: Cisco
Position: Group Chief Information Officer
Jacqueline is the group chief information officer at Cisco. As part of her current role, she is responsible for leading technology infrastructure and application development. She is quite passionate about driving the digital strategy for the company and its customers. Before joining Cisco, she was a group chief information officer at Thomson Reuters where she built and led a technology transformation program in support of the company’s digital strategy.
Social Media: LinkedIn
21. Jason Conyard
Company: VMware
Position: Chief Information Officer
Jason is a senior technology executive with strong leadership qualities and extensive global experience. He is an expert in computer and communication technology and staff leadership. He is a solid track record of achieving, building, and aligning technology organizations with strategic business objectives.
Social Media: LinkedIn
22. Jae Sook Evans
Company: Oracle
Position: Chief Information Officer
Jae Sook Evans is the chief information officer at Oracle. She has over 20 years of experience in building and delivering global technology strategies. She is strong believer in the power of cloud computing. At Oracle, she is responsible for both internal and external facing customers and for launching and operating Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions.
Social Media: LinkedIn
23. James H. Thompson
Company: Qualcomm Technologies
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Dr. James leads the global research and development activities associated with the wireless chipsets in QCT. He also oversees the company’s technical and product roadmap for all business areas. Thompson also serves on the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Board of Trustees.
Social Media: NA
24. Juergen Mueller
Company: SAP
Position: Chief Technology Officer and Executive Board Member
Juergen Mueller is the chief technology officer and executive board member at SAP SE. As part of his current role, he is responsible for managing SAP’s overall platform and technology development. He is a curious executive leader who has a deep understanding of modern businesses.
Social Media: LinkedIn
25. K Ananth Krishnan
Company: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
Position: Chief Technology Officer
A senior business and technology leader with demonstrated history of leading organizations towards greater efficiency. As the CTO at TCS, he has contributed to the development of significant portfolio of patents, Intellectual Property, and papers. He has served on various governing councils of academia, government committees, and industry advisory boards. He has been awarded Distinguished Alumnus status of IIT Delhi in 2009 and is a regular invitee to the TCS Board since 1999.
Social media: LinkedIn
26. Kathryn Wilder Guarini
Company: IBM
Position: Chief Information Officer
Kathryn Wilder Guarini is the chief information officer at IBM. She is a passionate business executive skilled at overcoming technical and organizational challenges and delivering value by inspiring others. Her innovative technical research has been recognized with various industry awards. She holds a Ph.D. from Standford University and a B.S. degree from Yale University.
Social Media: LinkedIn
27. Kevin Scott
Company: Microsoft
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Kevin Scott is the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. He is also the author of the book ‘Reprogramming the American Dream’. As part of Microsoft’s senior leadership team, he directly reports to the CEO. Scott is also the co-founder of The Scott Foundation – a non-profit family foundation focused on hunger, early childhood education, and women in technology.
Social Media: LinkedIn
28. Kit Colbert
Company: VMware
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Kim has been appointed to this new role recently, although, he has worked with VMware on different management positions for 18+ years. He is a passionate technologist who has a knack for solving hard technical problems while bringing new product innovations to the market. He loves engaging with customers, press, and analysts in addition to speaking at the conferences.
Social Media: LinkedIn
29. Manish Gupta
Company: IBM
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Manish leads the research efforts at the IBM Research, India. He has worked relentlessly to develop several breakthrough technologies for IT services and solutions for growth markets. He has been associated with the company for more than 13 years. Has received Outstanding Technical Achievement Award and Gernster Team Award for Client Excellence at IBM.
Social Media: LinkedIn
30. Michael Kagan
Company: NVIDIA
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Michael Kagan is the chief technology officer at NVIDIA since May 2020. Prior to joining NVIDIA, he was a member of the board of governors at the Technion – Israel Institute of technology. He has spent almost two decades of his professional career as the CTO of Mellanox. He has also worked with Intel Corporation for more than 16 years.
Social Media: LinkedIn
31. Mukesh Jain
Company: Capgemini
Position: Global Chief Technology & Innovation Officer
Mukesh is a celebrated senior leader who currently leads the AI and data-driven innovation at Capgemini India. He is a technology and business leader with 25 years of experience in working with various leading multinational organizations across product engineering, digital transformation, big data analytics, chatbots, blockchain, etc.
Social Media: LinkedIn
32. Neil Kole
Company: Boomi
Position: Chief Information Officer
Neil Kole is the Chief Information Officer at Boomi – leading provider of cloud-based Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS). Prior to joining Boomi earlier in 2021, he was the SVP and CIO at Cadence Design Systems for 7 years. He is responsible for the strategic planning of Boomi’s business objectives and overseeing the critical IT infrastructure and customer service platforms.
Social Media: LinkedIn
33. Oleg Melnikov
Company: Acronis
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Oleg Melnikov is the Chief Technology Officer at Acronis. He is one of the founders of Parallels aka Odin. In his role, he has led cross-cultural teams for over 20 years. He has established a reputation for successfully handling challenging customer escalations – listening to and taking actions on customer feedbacks, building trust among technical staff, product managers, and C-level executives and establishing and maintaining fruitful relationships with customers and partners.
Social Media: LinkedIn
34. Paul Daugherty
Company: Accenture
Position: Group Chief Executive – Technology and Chief Technology Officer
As the Group Chief Executive and CTO, Paul oversees the company’s technology business at a global scale. He leads the technology and innovation strategy at Accenture and is also responsible for managing company’s partnerships, alliances, senior-level relationships with leading technology companies. He is a renowned speaker at various tech industry events.
Social Media: LinkedIn
35. Paul Miller, Jr.
Company: Wind River
Position: Chief Technology Officer
As a CTO, Paul is responsible for developing company’s technology strategy. He has more than three decades of experience in telecommunications and advanced technology leadership. His current obsessions include working on Wind River’s edge virtualization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions.
Social Media: LinkedIn
36. Rafee Tarafdar
Company: Infosys
Position: Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Rafee leads the Strategic Technology Group within Infosys. During his vast industry experience, he has donned several hats – from setting up successful architecture and technology teams globally to providing advisory services to senior executives of Fortune 500 companies.
Social Media: LinkedIn
37. Raj Yavatkar
Company: Juniper Networks
Position: Chief Technology Officer
As the CTO at Juniper Networks, Raj takes care of the company’s technology strategy. He also leads the development and execution of company’s critical technology innovations across mobile edge cloud, security, self-driving network, packet-optical integration, network virtualization, and hybrid cloud.
Social Media: LinkedIn
38. Rajendran Dandapani
Company: Zoho Corporation
Position: Business Solutions Evangelist
Rajendran Dandapani is the Business Solutions Evangelist at Zoho Corporation. An IIT-Madras dropout, Rajendran was a part of the founding team at Zoho Corporation, then called Vembu Systems. He re-joined company in 2004 and since then has donned multiple hats at the company. He spearheads mobile development at Zoho. He is the president at Zoho Schools of Learning. He is also a TEDx speaker and a technology evangelist.
Social Media: LinkedIn
39. Anthony Quon
Company: Vultr
Position: Chief Information Officer
Anthony is a senior business leader with over 20 years of experience in the hosting and telecommunications industry. As the CIO of Vultr, he takes care of the daily infrastructure operations and the worldwide deployment strategy. He is also the CIO of Constant – an independent cloud computing platform.
Social Media: LinkedIn
40. Samir Kulkarni
Company: KPIT Technologies Ltd.
Position: AVP and Chief Information Officer
Samir has been associated with KPIT for more than 24 years. He joined as a developer and since then have played several roles – till he was appointed as the AVP and CIO in Jan 2020.
Social Media: LinkedIn
41. Serge Barbe
Company: Thales Digital Identity and Security (formerly Gemalto)
Position: Chief Product and Technology Officer
As the CTO, Serge drives transversal key offer roadmaps to leverage on scale and cloud ‘plateformization’. He has accelerated business innovation by re-shifting the approach from pure techno to value proposal based. He is driven by the motivation to create value for the customers and enabling operational efficiency in the company.
Social Media: LinkedIn
42. Sharon Mandell
Company: Juniper Networks
Position: Chief Information Officer
Sharon has a rich industry experience of more than 20 years in managing technology and software development initiatives across industries like communications, media, and software solutions. She has worked across various small, medium, and large-scale enterprises. She has also co-founded a software company adding to her startup experience.
Social Media: LinkedIn
43. Stephen Brobst
Company: Teradata
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Stephen is the CTO at Teradata since October 1999 i.e., more than 22 years. He is also the founder and managing partner of the Sampo Technologies & Systems. His expertise lies in the developing and designing analytical solutions for leading Fortune 500 companies in the United States and internationally. He has authored various books related to advanced data management techniques.
Social Media: LinkedIn
44. Stephen Green
Company: NTT Ltd.
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Stephen Green is a strategic senior technology leader who has a deeply integrated passion and understanding of technology solutions. Prior joining NTT, Stephen has worked as the SVP of Innovation and Cloud at the Dimension Data.
Social Media: LinkedIn
45. Stephen Schmidt
Company: Amazon
Position: Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer
As the CISO, he leads the product design, management, and engineering development efforts at Amazon. Before joining Amazon, he was associated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation where he served as the senior executive, acting Chief Technology Officer, Section Chief etc.
Social Media: LinkedIn
46. Steven Tamm
Company: Salesforce
Position: Chief Technology Officer
Steven Tamm is the Chief Technology Officer at Salesforce since Nov 2004. As part of his role, he is responsible for the development and oversight of the technical strategy across the company. He is a software architect for cloud computing, virtualization, eCommerce, developer tools, and software-as-a-service. He also advises ground-level start-ups.
Social Media: LinkedIn
47. Sunny Azadeh
Company: GlobalLogic
Position: Chief Information Officer
Sunny empowers companies to enable new growth strategies in a highly disrupted world. During her rich experience of 30 years, she has engaged with senior leaders through several international growth acquisitions and IPOs. She has a successful track record as the IT leader at brands like Align Technology, Guidewire, ZiLOG, and Agile Software. She is also a part of various CIO Networks.
Social Media: LinkedIn
48. Thomas Kanflo
Company: Ingram Micro
Position: Chief Information Officer
Thomas is a highly experienced leader who has had held progressive leadership positions in various multi-dollar organizations. He has led large and diverse teams globally and has strong technical skills spanning across a wide range of industries, solutions, and methodologies. He has been associated with Ingram for more than 8 years and has been given the role of CIO recently only.
Social Media: LinkedIn
49. Ved Prakash Nirbhya
Company: Tech Mahindra
Position: Chief Information Officer
Ved Prakash Nirbhya has been associated with Tech Mahindra since more than two decades. He is an experienced senior technology leader with over 30 years of experience in the Information Technology industry. He has played a significant role in the transformation of Tech Mahindra over the past years.
Social Media: LinkedIn
50. Werner Vogels
Company: Amazon
Position: Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Werner Vogels has been the VP & CTO of Amazon since 2005 i.e., more than 17 years. He joined the company in 2004 September as the Director of Systems Research. He was appointed as the CTO in 2005 January. As a VP and CTO, he is responsible for driving the company’s customer-centric technology vision. He also has a technology-oriented web blog – ‘All Things Distributed’.
Social Media: LinkedIn
We hope you enjoyed this extensive list of top 50 CIOs, CTOs, and technology leaders! If you are a technology enthusiast, you must follow these senior IT leaders. You will be able to know more about them and the strategies they use to drive their organizations forward through their social media profiles.
If you know any such technology leader who has inspired you, you can share their names with us via the comments section and we will try to include them in the list.
Read Next: Ways to protect your online privacy, payments, and data
Disclaimer: The list of top 50 CIOs, CTOs, and technology leaders is not a ranking. We have just added the names in alphabetical order and is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. All details – including the personal profiles, experience, and current positions, have been taken from their respective LinkedIn handles. We do not guarantee the completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of the above information.
Wow.. I am proud to work under the guidance of Dr.Aloknath De in SAMSUNG. A great leader and entrepreneur.
Hearty congratulations Dr.Alok for your stand in the global listing.