Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine March 2017 - 52

Industry Insights:

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2017.160111

The Role of Chief Technology Office (CTO) in a Modern
Defense Company
A. Farina, A. Sarti, (consultants), E. Barbi, Z. Burlo, R. Fulcoli, G. Perfetto, I. Picciocchi,
L. Timmoneri, Leonardo s.p.a., Rome, Italy

INTRODUCTION

It is commonly felt that the Chief Technology Office (CTO) is responsible for linking technology with (i) strategy, (ii) market issues, and (iii) top management guidelines [1]; it is also responsible
for promoting innovation and facilitating the intersection among
research, development, technology innovation, and leadership vision [2]. Having these definitions in mind, it becomes easier to
understand the differences among the CTO and Engineering Manager roles, the latter being responsible for developing company
products on time, within cost, and with the required quality standards. The aim of this article is to present the results of a multiyear
experience gained in "playing" the CTO role while executing the
high-level tasks discussed above.

CTO MISSIONS
A CTO is responsible for guaranteeing the company's technological capability according to the strategic plan while maintaining and
improving the competitive positioning.
To carry out this task, the CTO shall monitor internal capabilities and perform new technologies scouting and preassessment to
propose solutions able to fill the possible gaps.
The results of these activities are described in the technology
plan issued by the CTO function.
The CTO:
C

defines and controls the research and development (R&D)
funds to optimize spending, avoid duplications, and maximize technology sharing;
is responsible for monitoring the R&D progress and, therefore, owns the private venture planning process, defining the
relevant budget and objectives;
is responsible for promoting new products and for supporting the adoption of new technologies into existing ones;

Authors' current address: Leonardo s.p.a., CTO, via Tiburtina
km 12,400, Rome, 00131, Italy 00390641503369, E-mail: (riccardo.fulcoli@leonardocompany.com).
Manuscript received May 9, 2016, revised June 23, 2016, September 6, 2016, and ready for publication September 9, 2016.
Review handled by M. Greco.
0885/8985/17/$26.00 © 2017 IEEE
52

supports business unit (BU) managers to make decisions that
ensure technical solutions are in line with customer needs,
while remaining competitive, and affordable.1

A consequence of the mission defined here is that the CTO representatives have to be distributed among all levels of the company
organization to be really effective.
It is possible to distinguish three different CTO roles: (i) central
CTO (C-CTO), responding directly to the top management of the
company; (ii) business unit CTOs (BU-CTOs), working in strict
cooperation with responsible BU managers; (iii) an intermediate
CTO between the C-CTO and the BU-CTOs whose responsibility
it is to transfer the directives of the C-CTO to each business. We
will call this intermediate CTO the D-CTO.
From Figure 1 it is possible to derive that the following primary responsibilities are assigned to the CTO, as the "sum" of the
different CTO structures:
a. monitor internal technical and technological capabilities and
prepare a plan to fill potential technological gaps;
b. address and harmonize research activities to evaluate new
technologies and to increase the attractiveness of the company
products;
c. ensure that the development of company products is coherent
with strategic and market plans;
d. plan, define, and monitor the company R&D investments [3]
having the aim of maintaining and developing the attractiveness of the company products portfolio;
e. protect legacy know-how by securing Intellectual property
(IP), managing the industrial property rights (IPR) portfolio,
proposing IP/IPR development, assessing IP transfer value
(pricing), and analyzing and supporting intangible assets transactions for the company.
f. stimulate, in agreement with the other company structures,
the processes of conceiving new ideas, disseminate company
knowledge, promote innovation within the company, and contribute to generating new IPRs;

In this context, the BU is the unit responsible for profit and loss
of one of the company business areas.

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

MARCH 2017

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