We hope you enjoyed our recent blog introducing you to some of our CTO Craft Coaches. As we have so many fantastic and experienced coaches, we couldn’t feature them all in one blog (it’s a nice problem to have!), so here’s part 2.
About our CTO Craft coaches
As a reminder, our coaches can help you progress in your career and discuss many aspects of working in tech and the success and challenges it brings. They come from various countries worldwide, boast different backgrounds and industry experience and have dipped their toes into various challenges throughout their careers.
It’s our job to match you with the coach most suited to your needs and who can add value to your career and development.
So, here are the rest of our inspirational, experienced and hugely personable coaches:
Dan Smith – Executive Coach; Tech & Product Due Diligence and M&A Advisor
With extensive experience in coaching, technology, international business and how people work, Dan supports his clients to define and achieve their goals.
Dan works with executives in technology-led companies helping with issues such as motivation, leadership, prioritisation and creating strategic direction and translating this into action. In addition, he can offer support to help clarify professional goals and achieve strategic technology leadership at board level.
Dan acquired an MSc in Computing Science at Birkbeck, University of London, an Executive MBA at Bayes Business School, and a Diploma in Gestalt Psychotherapy as well as a certificate in Professional Coaching Skills.
Add to that international business experience (in 5 continents!), a background in technology (infrastructure, operations and software development), and a fascination with what makes people motivated, happy and satisfied, Dan holds significant experience, knowledge and passion to coach individuals and help their career to the next level.
Emma Hopkinson-Spark – Chief of Staff at 101 Ways
Emma leads the Coaching and Transformation Practice at 101 Ways. She is an award-winning agile professional and has trained as a coach with ICF.
During her career, Emma has spoken at and helped curate international conferences and has contributed to professional Scrum standards and examinations. Emma has broad industry experience across technology and leadership in the private and public sectors, and she was also formerly a professional musician.
Jeffrey Fredrick – CTO and Head of Product & Marketing at TIM Group
Jeffrey is a CTO, coach and published author. He possesses a deep understanding of software startup business strategy, and he can understand and communicate from both the sales and development perspectives. He has managerial, interpersonal and technical skills, as well as extensive knowledge of business and technical approaches.
Recently returned to California, Jeffrey works with executives and executive teams globally. Prior to returning to Silicon Valley, Jeffrey was in London as part of the FinTech startup TIM Group where he was CTO, Head of Product, and eventually Managing Director. Before joining TIM Group, he held technical and non-technical executive positions at various startups. Since 2006 Jeffrey has been co-chair of CITCON, an international conference covering DevOps, Agile Engineering, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Automated Testing.
In addition to these fantastic achievements, Jeffrey is the co-author of Agile Conversations: Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture, which focuses on using conversation to create and build high-performing and effective teams. He can be heard with his co-author on the weekly Troubleshooting Agile podcast.
Sidharth Chugh – Director of Engineering at Ratepay (Part of Nexi Group), Former VP Engineering at ING Bank Deutschland and CTO Coach
With expert knowledge and experience from hands-on CTO and VP roles, Sidharth offers unique insights that enable companies to leverage best-in-class solutions to create a modern, scalable and secure technical environment.
After graduating with a degree in Computer Applications and a Master’s in Computer Science, Sidharth gained experience in roles including Developer, Software Engineer and Technical Expert. He then transitioned into a CTO role where he managed the strategic direction, development and future growth to drive collaboration and innovation.
Sidharth’s business acumen allows him to communicate with key stakeholders to identify pain points and steer the development of effective technical solutions. As a CTO coach, he engages with existing and aspiring technology leaders and by leveraging his expertise, he offers advice and guidance on overcoming challenges and growing skillsets from both technology and business perspectives.
Dennis Pannuto – Executive Technology Coach & Advisor
Dennis is an Executive Technology Coach & Advisor who works with corporate technology leaders, start-ups and sales and product teams. He specialises in transformational leadership development, digital business innovation and technology modernisation to impact business outcomes.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Long Island University Post and studied music and opera theatre at the Juilliard School of Performing Arts. He has also conducted graduate studies in sociology at New York University.
Dennis has worked at Garter and was the Center for Creative Leadership’s first CTO and member of the Executive Team. Having served as Executive Vice President, Global Technology & Operations at A+E Television Networks before joining CCL, Dennis has a long track record of leveraging his technology and operations expertise to drive digital transformation and build innovative, profitable solutions.
Sebastian Galonska – Former CTO and Co-Founder at Kontist
Sebastian’s technology journey began at the tender age of nine, when he first learned to program. Since then, he’s worked and managed teams in the social space – where he built the framework for Germany’s largest social network, StudiVZ.
In 2012, he stumbled into the fin-tech space when joining the founding team of BERGFÜRST. In 2015, he created Kontist, Germany’s Freelance Bank.
Today, Sebastian works as a CTO coach and mentor, helping other CTOs to grow while fighting their daily battles.
Stephan Schmidt – CTO Coach; Former CTO eventsofa, former CTO brands4friends, ex-eBay, ex-ImmobilienScout24
As a CTO, Interim CTO, CTO Coach and developer, Stephan has seen many technology departments in fast-growing startups. When he was young, he taught himself coding because he wanted to write video games.
Stephan studied computer science with distributed systems and artificial intelligence at the University of Ulm. He also studied Philosophy.
When the internet came to Germany in the 90s, he worked as the first coder in several startups. He has founded a VC-funded startup, worked in VC-funded, fast-growing startups with architecture, processes and growth challenges, worked as a manager for ImmoScout and as a CTO of an eBay Inc. company. After his wife successfully sold her startup, they moved to the sea, and Stephan took up CTO coaching.
And that’s a whistle-stop overview of our final CTO Craft Coaches and a snapshot of the skills and expertise they possess. So, whether you need help moving to the next step of your career or want a coach to discuss your objectives or leadership goals, we’re confident we have the right coach for you.
Please visit our website to find out more about our coaching programme and how you can be involved.
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If you or your CTO / technology lead would benefit from any of the services offered by the CTO Craft community, use the Contact Us button at the top and we’ll be in touch!
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