CTO Lunch & Forum

While the CTO Lunch wrapped up, I had the chance to talk to several other attendees. We all agreed that both the lunch and networking session prior to it were extremely beneficial and eye-opening. Many of us are are either in school or just starting our careers and learned some interesting things about what CTOs do. Nan Mattai summarized this well by saying that her job consisted of "5 T's" - Technology, Tools, Training, Travel, and Talking.

One interesting thing I learned is that in the last two years, 50% of the engineers Xerox has recruited have been women! I think that is truly amazing and hopefully a trend that other companies will follow.

CTOs emphasized that their schedules require a lot of traveling. It seems like time management is a crucial skill they have in common as they have very tight schedules, often making round trips from the US to, for example, India, within the span of five days. There is a lot of networking involved in their roles as well, and they often meet with CTOs from other companies, which is something I hadn't considered.

Did you attend the CTO sessions? If so, what did you take from it? Who did you meet and what was your favorite part?