Adelina E. Chalmers

They frame this as a structural problem: a CTO often cannot approve spending on their own development and must ask the CEO, CFO or COO.

• Chalmers traces this to an older view of the CTO as a brilliant but contained figure in the lab, from a time when technology was a cost centre rather than a strategic lever.
• Technology's role changed over the last ten to fifteen years, the argument goes, but many engineering leaders have not caught up — not because they cannot, but because nobody told or incentivised them to.
• The remedy is three skills: financial fluency, political navigation, and negotiation and stakeholder influence.
• This does not mean becoming less technical; it is how a technical vision lands.
• Chalmers also urges CEOs to offer their CTOs finance, sales and storytelling training as a minimum.

The line to remember is: "Your technical credibility got you the title.

• It will not get you the authority."
• The route forward is to get curious about other disciplines — sales, finance, marketing — by talking to those colleagues, taking courses and asking for one-to-one conversations with commercially minded people.
• Chalmers also observes that the most commercially aware CTOs are often those who have had to sell something at some point, in any form.

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The advice varies by role.

• CTOs should take an executive approach: keep the board calm rather than overwhelm it with technical detail; show a clear business benefit by explaining what is being done, what it costs and what is being watched; know the three numbers the CFO cares about — revenue impact, cost and risk exposure; and state a position rather than present options and wait.
• Engineers should develop collaboration, communication, influencing and managing-upwards skills, and become a constructive voice in a nervous team rather than a defensive one.
• The post argues that AI is eroding the comfort blanket of being a techie by exposing weak business and human skills, then asks what CTOs and engineers should do.

The post captures what a CTO quietly wants: "Every CTO is quietly desperate for an engineer who is not panicking, who is curious instead of defensive, and who is willing to help translate the fear in the room into something constructive."

• For board discussions, it names the numbers to bring: revenue impact, cost and risk exposure.
• The post ends with an open question, inviting disagreement.

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Chalmers contrasts companies whose technically excellent engineers are treated as "the team we bring in for the technical bit" with those whose clients call them when something is difficult, uncertain or important.

• The shift from supplier to indispensable partner, they argue, takes deliberate, early investment from leadership, before the gap shows up on the bottom line.
• The post also treats an invitation to discuss the subject as evidence of a leadership team's thinking, then asks readers what separates engineering firms that lead their industries from those that merely serve them well.

The argument draws on a keynote Chalmers delivered in April at Cambridge Design Partnership, organised by Vicki Seddon and attended by the leadership team — CFO Chris Jones, CEO Wade Tipton, Head of Capabilities Jez Clements and Chairman Nigel Hall — as well as staff from the US office.

• They attended the session but are not quoted contributors.
• The central question was: "How do our engineers continue to build the kind of client relationships where trust, not just technical quality, is the differentiator?"
• Chalmers calls the question forward-looking, and says firms asking it today are the ones competitors will study in five years.

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The post sets out the diagnosis and the fix in one place.

This is the clearest statement of the problem Adelina E.

• Chalmers works on.
• The post argues that most CTOs cannot approve spending on their own development and must ask the CEO, CFO, or COO above them.
• It traces this to the longstanding habit of treating the CTO as a brilliant but contained figure in the lab.
• The post names three skills that change the situation: financial fluency, political navigation, and negotiation and stakeholder influence.
• It offers concrete ways to build them, including meeting with sales, finance, and marketing colleagues, taking courses, and asking for one-to-one conversations with people who think commercially.
• It closes by addressing CEOs directly, suggesting finance, sales, and storytelling training for their CTOs.
• It also notes that the most commercially aware CTOs are often the ones who have had to sell something.

For brands planning a campaign

The three named skills map directly onto workshop or content-series modules, and the closing note to CEOs frames the material for a leadership-team audience rather than an individual learner.

The answer is not a technology forecast but an argument about human and business skills, the through-line of the work.

Written when AI had become a live career concern for engineers, this post makes an unusual argument: the panic is as much a leadership gap as a technology problem, because many CTOs cannot manage fear in their own teams.

• It offers separate advice for CTOs and engineers.
• CTOs should build an executive manner, keep the board calm rather than overwhelm it with technical detail, explain the business case behind AI decisions by saying what they are doing, what it costs, and what they are watching, know the three numbers their CFO cares about, and give the board a position rather than a menu of options.
• Engineers should work on collaboration, communication, influencing, and managing upwards.
• The post suggests that an engineer who stays curious instead of defensive and speaks up for colleagues becomes someone the CTO listens to.
• It ends by asking readers what they think, a discussion-led format typical of these posts.

For brands planning a campaign

This is the most time-sensitive piece and the easiest to build a series around. It addresses two audiences at once: technical leaders under pressure from their boards and engineers worried about their own roles.

Here the argument moves from the individual leader to the firm.

• The post says companies that stay ahead of their industries have engineers their clients treat as trusted advisers—people called when something is difficult or uncertain, rather than a team brought in for the technical part.
• It says this reputation comes from leadership investing in it deliberately and early.
• The post then reports a keynote Adelina E.
• Chalmers gave in April at Cambridge Design Partnership, naming the organiser, Vicki Seddon, and attendees from the leadership team, including CFO Chris Jones, CEO Wade Tipton, Head of Capabilities Jez Clements, and Chairman Nigel Hall, along with staff from the US office.
• It quotes the question at the centre of the session: how engineers keep building client relationships where trust rather than technical quality is the differentiator.
• The post ends by asking what separates engineering firms that lead their industries from those that merely serve them.

For brands planning a campaign

A keynote-led engagement is documented, giving buyers a basis to position a workshop or content series as an extension of a format that has run with a leadership audience and drawn senior attendance.

Chalmers frames the gap concretely: the person accountable for a company's technical direction often cannot fund their own development without sign-off from the CEO, CFO, or COO.

• The remedy is not deeper technical skill, but learning to speak the language of budget holders through financial fluency, political navigation, and negotiation or stakeholder influence.
• The practical advice: get curious about sales, finance, and marketing, take courses, and ask for one-to-one conversations with people who think commercially.

Short, argumentative LinkedIn posts built around a provocative claim, followed by a bulleted diagnosis, a line quoted directly to the reader, and concrete next steps.

For brands planning a campaign

Strong fit for a workshop or content series for technical leaders seeking executive presence and commercial fluency. Chalmers supplies the core framing, audience (CTOs and engineering leaders), and promised outcome (authority and boardroom credibility), giving a campaign an argument to extend rather than rebuild.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

Chalmers argues that engineers fear being replaced and that many CTOs lack the leadership skills to calm or channel that fear.

• The recommendations split by role: CTOs should adopt an executive mindset—reducing board anxiety rather than relaying technical detail, connecting AI decisions to cost, benefit, and risk, knowing the CFO's top three numbers, and stating a position rather than reviewing options.
• Engineers should invest in collaboration, communication, influencing, and managing upwards, becoming a calm, constructive voice in an anxious room.

Problem framing, followed by separate role-specific advice lists and an open question that invites replies and disagreement.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for a content series on leading technical teams through change. The dual audience—CTOs and engineers—supports a layered campaign, while specific asks such as board-ready AI decisions and upward influence translate readily into workshop exercises or a sponsored discussion prompt.

Examples: Source 1

Chalmers contrasts firms whose engineers are technically excellent but seen as “the team we bring in for the technical bit” with firms whose clients call them when something is difficult, uncertain, or important.

• In this account, the shift is deliberate, led from the top, and made before the gap shows up on the bottom line.
• The post anchors the argument in a keynote they delivered at Cambridge Design Partnership, crediting the invitation itself as evidence of how that leadership team thinks.

Narrative, case-based framing: an observed pattern, a named delivery engagement, and a closing question that turns the argument back to the reader's own firm.

For brands planning a campaign

A credible hook for campaigns targeting professional services, engineering consultancies, or B2B firms selling expertise rather than hours. The before-and-after framing—supplier versus indispensable partner—gives a campaign a natural measurement story and a clear audience of commercial and technical leaders.

Examples: Source 1

Each takes a single counterintuitive claim, often a statistic or blunt assertion in the opening line, and unpacks it through short paragraphs, bulleted lists, and a memorable quoted line. The writing is direct, uses the second person, addresses a specific role (CTO, engineer, CEO) rather than a general audience, and ends with either a set of actions or a question for the reader.

For brands planning a campaign

The format is easy to brief because it is repeatable: one argument, one role, one set of next steps, and a closing question. A partner can supply the underlying data or framework for Chalmers to build an argument around, without asking for a change in style.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

The post says the company invited them and lists leadership attendees: CEO Wade Tipton, CFO Chris Jones, Head of Capabilities Jez Clements, and Chairman Nigel Hall, along with staff from the US office.

• Chalmers credits Vicki Seddon with organising the event.
• Ask whether the engagement was paid or part of an ongoing contract.

Original disclosure

In April, I delivered a keynote on this topic at Cambridge Design Partnership, organised by Vicki Seddon and attended by people from the leadership team (CFO Chris Jones, CEO Wade Tipton, Head of Capabilities Jez Clements, Chairman Nigel Hall) and other teams within CDP, including staff from the USA office.

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His posts describe security leaders who are at the top of the room in a security meeting, then fifth on the agenda at an executive staff meeting.

• The answer, he argues, is to translate their reality into the language of business outcomes, not produce better slides or more data.
• Chalmers makes the parallel argument for CTOs, sharing the diagnosis that the problem is framing, not evidence.

Hunt's audience is chief information security officers and security leaders.

• He delivers his advice through a named leadership product: a snapshot and a collision map of operating styles.
• Chalmers addresses CTOs and engineers, framing the remedy as learning finance, sales and storytelling, without an equivalent tool attached to the writing.

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He argues the chief of staff role no longer needs defending but is often set up badly: defined by calendars and logistics instead of strategy and complexity.

• It works, he says, when the principal treats it as a partnership with a clear mandate and scope.
• That echoes Chalmers's argument that engineering leaders are constrained by old expectations and need a different kind of authority to be useful at the top.

Smyth focuses on the chief of staff function and its professional community.

• An association appointment and an executive conference feature in his material, rather than engineering or technology leadership.
• His posts also serve as announcements and event invitations, while Chalmers's are single-argument pieces that end with advice or a question.

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Examples include reading a licensing board's renewal-date column to time an approach and building a target-company list by skill rather than competitor. Both write to give a defined professional audience something they can act on the same week.

Steckerl writes about recruiting and talent sourcing for recruiters and hiring teams.

• The underlying ideas — public licensing records, renewal dates and target-company lists — differ entirely from Chalmers's subject.
• Readers who follow Chalmers for leadership thinking will find a similarly practical format in Steckerl's work, but a different argument.

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The posts make the same core argument as the Chalmers material — technical excellence wins the title but not the seat, and the fix is learning to frame the ask in the language of those who hold the budget — but aim it squarely at CISOs and security leaders.

• Two things make it a better choice for that audience.
• First, the framing makes the failure unusually concrete: the same person who commands a room of fifty security professionals becomes fifth on the agenda for three minutes in the exec meeting, and the problem is not slides, data or effort.
• Second, and worth weighing for a workshop buyer, the material is attached to a named instrument.
• Orbit produces an operating-style read, a map of where the leader and decision-makers will collide, and a new strategy to test on one stalled initiative.
• The stated entry point is taking a Leadership Snapshot and mapping two or three of the people who can say yes.
• That’s a ready-made exercise plus a 15-minute on-ramp.
• If the need is executive presence for a security function, or the sponsor wants participants to leave with a diagnostic output, Hunt is the closer match.

Two costs come with it, and the second matters most for a leadership-development commission.

• The audience is narrower: CISOs and security leaders, not CTOs, engineering directors or engineers being groomed for the top job.
• A leadership firm selling into technical organisations would be buying a curriculum aimed at a different buyer function.
• More importantly, the writing is product-led.
• Each post closes by pointing readers to Orbit and a snapshot, making the content a funnel into a specific assessment tool.
• A leadership-development firm commissioning a series would publish material that advertises someone else’s product; it would need to agree in advance how that fits within a programme sold under its own name.
• The posts also never reach the finance-facing half of the craft: reading a P&L, translating a roadmap item into a cost or profit line, or knowing the three numbers a CFO tracks.
• Those are exactly the modules the Chalmers material already covers.
• Choose Hunt when the room is security leadership and a working diagnostic is worth the funnel; stay with Chalmers when the room is CTOs and engineering leaders and the content must remain tool-neutral.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts treat the chief-of-staff role as a settled question and replace it with a harder one: whether organisations are actually set up to get value from it, or only the appearance of value.

• The stated failure mode is defining the role around visible tasks such as calendars and logistics instead of strategy, complexity and a clear mandate.
• The stated fix is a principal who treats the role as a genuine partnership.
• That’s the right voice when the buyer’s programme is about how a technical leader earns a seat at the table through an operating partnership rather than personal presence alone, or when the sponsor is the executive rather than the technical leader.
• There’s also a live setting for the content: a two-day conference at the Atlantic Council in Washington on 22 and 23 October, framed as a working conversation about building the role properly, plus a senior appointment announcement showing the organisation is expanding its US practice.
• For a firm seeking conference-backed thought leadership with an institutional edge, that packaging is stronger than a solo written series.

This is a different buyer task, not a substitute voice for the same one.

• The posts contain no executive-presence training for engineers, boardroom framing of technology spend, CFO-facing numbers or exercise a technical leader could run.
• The audience is chiefs of staff and the CEOs who hire them; a series aimed at CTOs and engineering directors would need to make its case from scratch, drawing borrowed authority from the conference and the role, not the subject matter.
• A quarter of the posts is an internal appointment announcement: useful evidence of activity, but not reusable teaching content.
• Choose Smyth when the offer is being repositioned toward executive operations or the buyer wants an event and an institutional name attached; choose Chalmers when the audience stays technical and the content focuses on presence and commercial fluency.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts are unusually operational: they teach a repeatable method, step by step, and give readers something they can use that same afternoon.

• One shows how to use a state professional licensing board’s public roster — filtering to active licences, sorting by renewal date and working the sixty days before renewal, when people are already quietly asking what the next few years look like.
• The other reframes target-company lists away from competitors and toward any employer of the skill, with three specific search moves: watch who posts the roles you are filling, sort by employer rather than candidate, and search by process rather than product.
• If the leadership firm wanted to source a cohort, fill seats in a programme or add a talent-acquisition module on locating technical leaders, these posts are closer to the need than anything in the Chalmers set, and the numbered procedures require almost no rewriting.

The subject matter sits outside a workshop on commercial fluency for CTOs.

• Both posts are written for recruiters and sourcers; neither addresses executive presence, boardroom credibility or business acumen, or speaks to technical leaders and the executives who fund their development.
• Commissioning Steckerl for a workshop on commercial fluency for CTOs would be a different commission, not a variation on this one.
• The methods also carry obligations the leadership programme would not otherwise have to manage: the material warns readers to check a board’s terms of use because some restrict bulk downloads even when records are public, and to use timing as an opening for conversation, not as pressure.
• A workshop built on licence-renewal outreach to technical professionals would need those constraints written into the curriculum and any participant exercise.
• Choose Steckerl when the task is finding people; choose Chalmers when the task is developing them.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2