Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program

Orchestrate growth through technology

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Course Dates

STARTS ON

December 13, 2023

Course Duration

DURATION

9 to 12 Months
Online + On Campus

Course Fee

PROGRAM FEE

US$22,000 US$20,000 and get US$1,100 off with a referral US$200 application fee

Course Information Flexible payment available
Course Fee

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Tuition Fee Benefit

US$2,000

This is only available to participants who apply by .

Manage disruption and drive technological change

The rise of enterprise technology has accelerated, giving businesses a competitive edge as they embrace the latest developments in their quest to leverage organizational change. While focusing on scalable technology solutions, a chief technology officer (CTO) also must be cognizant of the company’s overriding business goals. As technology’s importance increases, so too does the CTO’s role. They must champion the benefits of emerging technologies to customers, vendors, and partners.

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program has been designed by Wharton Executive Education’s prominent faculty and specialists in topics, including innovation management, information technology, strategy, digital transformation, and entrepreneurship. The core modules are organized into three phases: technology strategy; trends in technology; and the tools, techniques, and execution. The electives are designed to provide you with the opportunity to specialize in areas that aid your career growth.

77%

of executives state that technology architecture is becoming critical to the overall success of their organization.

Source: Technology Vision — Accenture

86%

of executives agree their organization must train its people to think like technologists.

Source: Technology Vision — Accenture

Customized design for your success

The CTO Program is designed with the needs of busy executives in mind. You will learn through online and interactive sessions and guest lectures from global industry leaders. The flexible nature of the program allows you to customize your learning journey for maximum career and business impact.

Flexible

The self-paced modules provide the flexibility to accommodate learning around your busy work schedule. The program can be completed in 9 to 12 months as your schedule and program selections demand.

Interactive

A community learning experience with a limited cohort size facilitates interactive discussions with peers, program coaches, faculty, industry speakers, and career advisors — allowing you to implement program learnings in real-world scenarios.

Transformative

The multimodular learning journey experience, including the executive reflection, allows you to learn and grow as an executive while enabling you to develop business strategies to improve your personal and organizational goals.

“The robust curriculum from Wharton Executive Education, designed specifically for global technology leaders, will empower you to learn from one of the world’s leading institutions and equip you with the tools you need to drive organizational growth through technology.”

— Lori Rosenkopf
Academic Director for the CTO Program, Wharton Executive Education; Simon and Midge Palley Professor; Professor of Management; Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship, The Wharton School

Who is it for?

The CTO Program is ideal for:

  • CTOs, aspiring CTOs, and senior executives with experience in technology management who aim to lead the technology strategy of a company
  • VPs of engineering, software architects, or those responsible for evaluating and implementing new systems
  • Senior technology executives tasked with developing strategy or identifying and implementing new technologies

    Program eligibility criteria include:

  • A minimum of 10 years of work experience
  • International exposure (preferred)
  • Fluency in written and spoken English

Hear from our participants

Profile picture of Anqi Zou

The knowledge I’m gaining from the CTO Program allows me to influence how we run our business. As I look at the next two to five years of my career, I know I will be able to immediately apply some of the topics included in the curriculum.

— Anqi Zou, Senior Vice President, Artificial Intelligence Innovation Leader at Truist Bank

Profile picture of Surjya Misra

Wharton Executive Education’s CTO Program helped me learn the significance of VUCA frameworks and how they can be applied as a foundation to realize innovative technological changes effectively.

— Surjya Misra, Technology Transformation Leader

Profile picture of Prashant Pandey

Wharton nailed the opportunity to build the world’s best CTO Program. It equips you with the mindset to generate innovative ideas and strategies to validate business models. “Scale” is one word that I take from this program. After all, it’s not about sense and solve; it’s about scaling with technology.

— Prashant Pandey, Director of Technology – EUC, Asia Pacific and Japan, VMware

Curriculum

The CTO Program will enable forward-thinking executives like you to learn from a cutting-edge curriculum that reflects current industry trends. The program is organized into two components — 18 weeks of core modules followed by three online electives of six weeks each.
    • Scaling a Business: How to Build a Unicorn: This elective will help business leaders and entrepreneurs understand the characteristics of a unicorn as well as explore the challenges that come with building and scaling a unicorn.
    • Technology Acceleration Program: Understand emerging technologies, such as ML and AI, and explore their implications for various industries while you evaluate the growth potential of disruptive technologies.
    • Driving Strategic Innovation: Leading Complex Initiatives for Impact: Prepare yourself to create and execute a well-developed innovation strategy that ensures your organization can meet the challenges of today and the future.
    • Product Management and Strategy: Gain a comprehensive understanding of cutting-edge product management techniques, along with strategies for implementing them, which will give your organization a competitive edge.
    • Leading a Technology-Driven Organization: Explore an outside-in approach to leadership that is particular to tech-driven companies by thinking like a customer, and meet the demands of the marketplace.
    • Executive Presence and Influence: Persuasive Leadership Development: Gain the skill set needed to have an impactful executive presence through strategic persuasion and craft your unique leadership style.
    • Corporate Governance: Maximize Your Effectiveness in the Boardroom: Gain a deeper understanding of corporate governance and increase your impact on board-level decisions by understanding the role, structure, and responsibilities of corporate governance.

    *Electives are subject to change.

    • CTO Strategic Mindset: Responding to Change and Creating Change
    • Frameworks and Building Blocks
    • Generating and Evaluating Commercial Ideas
    • Entry Strategies
    • Strategic Adaptation and Renewal
    • Ecosystems
    • Machine Learning
    • The AI Stack and Competitive Implications
    • Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies
    • Technology Policy
    • Global Technology Trends
    • Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Essentials for a New Business Era
    • Scaling
    • Metrics
    • Leading Innovation
    • Process View of Innovation and Innovation Tournaments
    • The CTO Perspective: Balancing External and Internal Modes of Innovation
    • Accessing New Technologies and Platforms through Acquisition

    Note: Session topics are subject to change.

  • Meet your cohort peers and faculty in person on the Wharton campus in Philadelphia at a two-day networking and recognition ceremony. This event takes place once every four cohorts, enabling you to network with not just your peers but also professionals from other cohorts and create a lifelong community of global executives.

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Executive reflection

Over the course of the program, you will work on a reflection journal by leveraging program insights and apply them to analyze challenges in your current or previous organization. For the executive reflection, you will select an issue currently confronting your organization and develop a set of potential solutions to remedy the situation. You can take advantage of weekly live sessions and the Slack channel to ask questions and discuss ideas with your success coach and cohort peers. At the end of the program, you will make a final presentation, which will be a valuable asset when proposing initiatives to decision makers in your organization.

There are three reflection journal submissions in total — one at the end of each phase:

Week 1

Initiate your project by determining a technology challenge or initiative for your organization.

Week 6

Examine the experiences of implementing technology strategies to address the challenge at an organizational leadership level.

Week 12

Examine the experiences of implementing technology trends to refine the chosen initiative or challenge.

Week 18

Examine the tools, techniques, and methods for implementing the initiative and assess its deployment.

All reflection journal submissions and the final presentation of the executive reflection are required to complete this program.

What you will learn

The multimodular program will enable you to:

  • Explore strategy, adaptation, and renewal in organizations
  • Investigate ideation and entry strategies for organizations and ecosystems
  • Examine implications of technology trends: blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and talent clusters and migration
  • Survey organizational privacy policies and environmental, social, and governance practices
  • Relate risk and uncertainty in innovation
  • Consider effective frameworks and metrics of an organization’s readiness to scale
  • Investigate new product domains, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships

Program highlights

Customize your learning journey with a choice of electives in topics aligned with your career goals.

Learn at your own pace with a weekly commitment of three to five hours of sessions and activities.

Glean insights from renowned faculty and industry experts who are at the cutting edge of innovation.

Network with accomplished peers from around the globe and gain new approaches to leadership.

Image to accompany text - Engage with your success coach

Engage with your success coach to craft your learning journey through regular check-in sessions.

Benefit from experiential sessions combining theory with real-world case studies and apply learnings.

Meet multiple cohort peers, industry experts, and faculty during two days of on-campus networking.

Following successful completion of the program and subsequent open-enrollment programs, subject to further qualification criteria and additional tuition, you have a pathway to apply for Wharton alumni status.

Program faculty

Wharton’s world-renowned faculty, along with acclaimed industry thought leaders, will prepare you to face a wide array of challenges. You will leverage their insights and domain expertise to better understand your business and industry and immediately apply the learnings to your organization.

Profile picture of professor Lori Rosenkopf, PhD

Lori Rosenkopf, PhD

Academic Director for the CTO Program, Wharton Executive Education; Simon and Midge Palley Professor; Professor of Management; Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Gad Allon, PhD

Gad Allon, PhD

Jeffrey A. Keswin Professor; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Director, Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor David Hsu, PhD

David Hsu, PhD

Richard A. Sapp Professor; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Witold Henisz, PhD

Witold Henisz, PhD

Deloitte & Touche Professor of Management; Director, Wharton Political Risk Lab; Founder, Wharton ESG Analytics Lab, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Zeke Hernandez, PhD

Zeke Hernandez, PhD

Max and Bernice Garchik Family Presidential Associate Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Rahul Kapoor, PhD

Rahul Kapoor, PhD

Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Harbir Singh, PhD

Harbir Singh, PhD

Mack Professor; Professor of Management; Co-Director, Mack Institute for Innovation Management; Wharton School Faculty Director for the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Prasanna Tambe, PhD

Prasanna Tambe, PhD

Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Karl Ulrich, PhD

Karl Ulrich, PhD

CIBC Endowed Professor; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Kevin Werbach, JD

Kevin Werbach, JD

Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Lori Rosenkopf, PhD

Lori Rosenkopf, PhD

Academic Director for the CTO Program, Wharton Executive Education; Simon and Midge Palley Professor; Professor of Management; Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Gad Allon, PhD

Gad Allon, PhD

Jeffrey A. Keswin Professor; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Director, Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor David Hsu, PhD

David Hsu, PhD

Richard A. Sapp Professor; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Witold Henisz, PhD

Witold Henisz, PhD

Deloitte & Touche Professor of Management; Director, Wharton Political Risk Lab; Founder, Wharton ESG Analytics Lab, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Zeke Hernandez, PhD

Zeke Hernandez, PhD

Max and Bernice Garchik Family Presidential Associate Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Rahul Kapoor, PhD

Rahul Kapoor, PhD

Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Harbir Singh, PhD

Harbir Singh, PhD

Mack Professor; Professor of Management; Co-Director, Mack Institute for Innovation Management; Wharton School Faculty Director for the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Prasanna Tambe, PhD

Prasanna Tambe, PhD

Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Karl Ulrich, PhD

Karl Ulrich, PhD

CIBC Endowed Professor; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Profile picture of professor Kevin Werbach, JD

Kevin Werbach, JD

Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School

Pathway to Wharton alumni status

For more than 135 years, Wharton has been the place where visionaries, inventors, and trailblazers get their start. After completing the CTO Program and subsequent open-enrollment programs, subject to further qualification criteria and additional tuition, you have a pathway to apply for Wharton alumni status.

Executives who successfully complete the CTO Program have the option of applying to the General Management Program (GMP). The GMP provides further opportunity to enhance your leadership skills and business acumen with a flexible curriculum. The CTO Program provides one credit towards the six required to complete the GMP and earn alumni status. More details on the GMP are available at Wharton Executive Education.

Upon qualifying for Wharton alumni status, you will be eligible to receive:

  • Full access to become a member of 77+ Wharton alumni clubs
  • Invitation to attend future Wharton global alumni forums
  • A Wharton email address

Certificate

Certificate

Earn a Wharton Executive Education digital certificate upon successful completion of the program. As an alumnus of this transformative program, you get exclusive access to a wide range of professionals, events, and networking opportunities. Furthermore, you can also benefit from additional tuition assistance upon enrolling in further online electives from Wharton Executive Education.

Note: After successful completion of the program, your verified digital certificate will be emailed to you in the name you used when registering for the program. All certificate images are for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to change at the discretion of the Wharton School.

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Please also note that participation in the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program (a) will not result in a degree from, alumni status with, or earned credit at the University of Pennsylvania or the Wharton School (or, to Wharton’s knowledge, any other institution), (b) will not be recorded on a University of Pennsylvania or Wharton transcript, and (c) does not guarantee or suggest that a participant will be admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School, or to any other university or institution.

Application details

program fee

US$22,000 US$20,000

The fee amount is available till ,, and does not include the application fee of US$200
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The program fee covers teaching fees, all academic material, and access to online coursework. It does not include accommodations for the on-campus networking and graduation event, travel expenses (domestic, international, visa fee, and more), and other expenses not specifically mentioned in the fees.

FAQs

  • The CTO Program has been designed with your busy schedule in mind. You will be required to commit not more than three to five hours per week, enabling you to benefit from this transformative program while fulfilling your day to day work responsibilities. The impactful program offers a blend of self-paced modules and live interaction.

  • The 9- to 12-month learning journey includes live online and video online sessions with renowned faculty, industry experts, and global peers. You can take advantage of weekly live sessions and the Slack channel to ask questions and discuss ideas with your success coach and cohort participants. Real-world examples and a debrief of the program learnings are delivered through a combination of recorded video and live online lectures. The program concludes with a two-day on-campus graduation and networking event on the Wharton Executive Education campus in Philadelphia.

  • While the program does not grant alumni status or alumni benefits, it opens up a unique pathway to apply for the prestigious Wharton alumni status upon further qualification criteria and additional tuition. As an alum of this transformative program, you get exclusive access to a wide range of professionals, events, and networking opportunities. You can also benefit from additional tuition assistance upon enrolling in further online electives from Wharton Executive Education.

  • The program fee covers teaching fees, all academic material, and access to online coursework. The fee does not include accommodations for the two-day on-campus networking and graduation event, travel expenses (domestic, international, visa fee, and more), and other expenses not specifically mentioned in the fees.

  • You can pay the full program fee upfront or pay in easy installments. If you apply well in advance of the program start date, you can receive a tuition fee benefit. If you would like to approach your company with a sponsorship request for this program, here is a customizable template that you can use.

  • Unfortunately, it is not possible to take any more electives than the specified number. The electives are designed to help you gain specialized skills in areas that are aligned with your career so that you can dedicate focused time for learning and honing those skills.

  • Yes. We provide closed-captioning and transcripts for all pre-recorded videos as well as closed-captioning for recordings of live sessions.

Connect with a learning advisor for a 1:1 session

Our learning advisors have helped senior executives across the world choose the right program for their career goals. Schedule a 1:1 to get a deeper understanding on why the CTO Program is the right fit for you.

Email: wharton_cto@emeritus.org

Phone: +1 567 587 1541 (U.S.) / +44 1313 812895 (U.K.) / +971 80 00321209 (U.A.E.) / +52 55930 20507 (LATAM)

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