Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program

• Leading Digital Change: Decision Making in Teams

Improve collaborative decision-making in technology-driven organizations.

• Leading Digital Change: Negotiating in Teams

Develop negotiation skills to align stakeholders around digital initiatives.

• Leading Enterprise-Wide Digital Change

Learn strategies drive organization-wide change.

• Leading Digital Strategy: Organizational Change (Simulation)

Practice leadership decisions in simulated digital transformation scenarios.

• Leading Digital Strategy: Simulation Debrief

Reflect on lessons learned from digital leadership simulations.

• Leading Digital Strategy: Social Networks

Use organizational networks to accelerate innovation adoption.

• Leaderless Group Exercise

Gain strategies to build influence and leadership capability without formal authority.

• Influence and Conflict: Persuasion Principles

Apply persuasion frameworks to manage conflict during transformation.

• Debrief Leaderless Group Exercise

Extract leadership insights from collaborative exercises.

• Integrating Concepts

Connect strategy, AI technology, and leadership practices into a cohesive approach.

• Digital Strategy: Embedding Cultural Change

Align organizational culture with digital transformation goals.

• Future of Work: People and Cultural Analytics

Use analytics to understand workforce dynamics in AI-enabled organizations.

• Enterprise Agile

Apply agile methods at enterprise scale to support rapid innovation.

• AI and Data Strategy

Design strategies to leverage data and AI for competitive advantage.

• Vodafone: Managing Advanced Tech and AI

Case study on scaling advanced technologies and AI in a large enterprise.

• Digital Transformation at GE: Shifting Minds for Agility

Lessons from GE’s transformation toward agile, digital operations.

• AI Architecture and Digital Operations

Design enterprise architectures that support scalable AI operations.

• Product Architecture (Make vs Buy)

Evaluate whether to build technology internally or source externally.

• Product Architecture (Startup Partners)

Leveraging startup ecosystems for faster innovation.

• CTO/CFO

Align technology investments with financial strategy and business value.

• Go to Market

Translate technology innovation into marketable products and services.

• Capturing Value from AI

Measuring ROI and business impact from AI initiatives.

• Measurement Experimentation (Rocketfuel)

Using experimentation and analytics to optimize digital performance.

• Marketing Analytics

Applying data analytics to improve customer engagement and growth.

• Humans and AI

Managing collaboration between human expertise and AI systems.

• Algorithmic Bias

Addressing fairness, ethics, and bias risks in AI deployments.

• Data Protection in the Age of AI

Ensuring privacy, governance, and regulatory compliance in data use.

• The Cybersecurity Threat of Generative AI

Understanding emerging AI-driven cybersecurity risks and defenses.

Business Analytics and AI: Gain a high-level understanding of the real-world applications of AI and ML. Focus on applying analytical techniques to drive business impact, resulting in more efficiency, better decision making, and strategic advantages for your organization.

This short course will position you to:

• Align strategy for artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics by capturing data-enabled business opportunities and apply an AI-centric operating model where it delivers real impact and value

• Solve real business problems using predictive, prescriptive, and experimental techniques to drive results

• Ensure responsible data and AI practices by addressing ethics, privacy, and governance to build trust

• Create data-based decision-making models across your organization

• Leverage data and experimentation to drive innovation

• Better evaluate business analytics approaches and strategies

• Develop a virtuous cycle built on user engagement, data collection, algorithm design, prediction, and improvement

Format: Asynchronous online sessions and live faculty interactions

Duration: 8 weeks

Data Strategy: Leveraging Data as a Competitive Advantage: Discover how successful organizations use data as an asset to generate new value. Gain the insights to generate untapped value from your organization's data to improve business processes and drive tangible results.

This short course will position you to:

• Enhance your expertise in data analytics, strategy, and management, including data architecture, governance, quality, and technologies

• Explore the future of data, especially new trends such as automation and artificial intelligence (AI)

• Stay up to date with the latest approaches for developing and implementing data strategies that are innovative and impactful

• Gain the tools and knowledge to address specific challenges in your organization, including designing a good data strategy or including digital transformation

• Access practical and actionable learnings that can be directly applied in your work with real-life case studies and examples

• Position yourself as a data strategy specialist and lead data-driven transformations, opening new career opportunities

• Acquire specific knowledge and skills to excel in new data-oriented roles and responsibilities

Format: Online sessions, case study discussions, and live faculty interactions

Duration: 8 weeks

Engage in an immersive, on-campus experience in Silicon Valley. Over three days, you will participate in a progression of learning that blends faculty insight, peer exchange, and experiential application. Through dialogue, discussion, and reflection, the experience enables you to engage with peers and industry leaders while exploring perspectives relevant to today’s evolving leadership and organizational context. 

The experience includes:

• Core faculty sessions led by members of the Faculty Advisory Board

• Masterclasses featuring distinguished Berkeley faculty

• Keynote conversations with industry leaders

• Peer circles designed for trust-based exchange

• Reflection and integration moments

• Graduation and community celebration

Technology leadership can be developed through various pathways, including formal education, mentorship, and hands-on experience. The Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program offers a structured approach through its 12-month curriculum covering technology strategy, emerging frameworks, and executive leadership. With weekly sessions led by UC Berkeley faculty and Silicon Valley experts, the program provides practical competencies for aspiring and current technology leaders through real-world case studies and peer collaboration.

CTOs come from diverse educational backgrounds, though specialized executive education can accelerate leadership development. The Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program is designed for professionals seeking to enhance their strategic technology expertise regardless of their initial educational path. The program focuses on practical application and emerging technology trends, helping participants develop the critical competencies required for effective technology leadership roles.

Several top institutions offer AI programs, but UC Berkeley stands out for its combination of academic excellence, proximity to Silicon Valley, and hands-on approach. The Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program is tailored for executives and professionals seeking to understand how AI and emerging technologies can be strategically leveraged within their organizations. Participants gain insights into AI's transformative potential while learning to develop data-driven strategies that move from insights to actionable results.

The Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program is a multimodular immersive learning journey that aims to provide participants with the tools and frameworks to lead innovation and drive transformation. You will learn about different leadership styles and craft one of your own to emerge as a dynamic CTO

The Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program is designed for CTOs as well as executives who will take on technology-focused leadership positions in the next phase of their careers. Your duties and responsibilities include leading regional or global teams, and you are ready to accelerate your career to the highest level of technology leadership.

The Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program has a total of three core modules and two asynchronous short courses with live online sessions with faculty. It concludes with a three-day networking event where you will meet peers from multiple cohorts on the UC Berkeley campus in California.

UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education, dba Berkeley Executive Education, is a California nonprofit organization formed for the purpose of operating executive education programs in support of Berkeley and the Haas School of Business.

Upon completing the Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program, you will receive a Certificate of Excellence in Technology Strategy and earn select Berkeley Haas alumni benefits.

Applications to the Berkeley Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Program are to be made online. Application fees vary by rounds. Applying earlier helps your chances of being accepted into the program.

Emeritus collects all program payments, provides learner enrollment and program support, and manages learning platform services.

For the program refund and deferral policy, please click the link here.

Program fees for Emeritus programs with Berkeley Executive Education may not be paid for with (a) funds from the GI Bill, the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance Act of 2008, or similar types of military education funding benefits or (b) Title IV financial aid funds.