Leadership and Strategy

Overview

Leadership and Strategy covers the senior roles responsible for defining how organisations use technology — setting technical direction, designing architecture at scale, advising on major technology investments, and aligning IT capability with business goals. These are not entry-level positions. Every role in this category is a progression destination reached after years of technical and professional development in other disciplines.

The category spans three broad orientations. Architecture roles — Enterprise Architect, Solution Architect — define how systems should be structured and integrated. Advisory and consulting roles — IT Consultant, IT Director — help organisations make sound technology decisions and lead change. Executive roles — CTO, CIO, IT Director — own technology strategy at the organisational level. What is consistent across all roles is the expectation of both technical credibility and strategic communication ability — the capacity to work confidently with engineering teams and C-suite executives simultaneously.

Roles in this Category

15 roles

Skills

Tools & Software

Core Themes

• Defining and communicating technology strategy aligned to business objectives
• Designing enterprise and solution architectures that govern how systems are built
• Advising on major technology investments, vendor selections, and build vs buy decisions
• Leading digital transformation programmes across large organisations
• Managing technology risk, technical debt, and long-term platform health
• Governing architecture standards and principles across engineering teams
• Operating at the boundary between technology and executive leadership

Typical Entry Points

There are no direct entry points into this category. All roles require significant prior experience — typically 8–15 years across technical disciplines including software engineering, cloud architecture, or IT management. TOGAF certification is widely expected for architecture roles. MBA or senior leadership programmes support progression into executive and director-level positions. Most practitioners arrive via Solution Architect, Engineering Manager, or Senior IT Project Manager routes.

Who This Category Is For

• Experienced technical practitioners who want to move from building systems to shaping how organisations use technology
• Those who have developed both engineering depth and the communication skills to engage at executive level
• People who are motivated by long-term impact at the organisational level rather than feature-level delivery
• Those comfortable operating with significant ambiguity and competing organisational priorities
• People who want to work at the intersection of technology and business strategy
• Those who understand that influence in this category is earned through credibility, not authority
• People considering consulting, architecture, or executive routes as their longer-term progression
• Those who are prepared for the extended timeline — most practitioners reach these roles after a decade or more

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