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Hello, Visionary CTOs! 🌟

Welcome back to your go-to update on what’s reshaping tech leadership right now. This week, we’re diving into the fast-moving world of DevOps automation, the most bankable IT skills of 2025, and why your business continuity plan might be your most important asset yet.

Whether you're leading a team of five or five hundred, this is the kind of intel that keeps you sharp and future-ready.

Let’s get into it.

📰 Upcoming in this issue

• CTOs Go Full-Throttle on DevOps Automation ⚙️

• 9 IT Skills CTOs Should Prioritize for Top Talent (and Better ROI) 💡

• CTOs, Is Your Business Ready for a Crisis? Why You Need a Continuity Plan Now 🛡️

📈 Trending news

• Great Job’ Isn’t Fluff—It’s Your Secret Leadership Superpower

• CTO Alert: Up to 30% of Microsoft’s Code Is Now AI-Written

• ING CTO Lifts the Lid on a Four-Tier Tech Revolution

CTOs Go Full-Throttle on DevOps Automation ⚙️ read the full 2,500-word article here

Article Published: April 25, 2025

Manual DevOps is officially obsolete. In the breakneck pace of 2025 software development, CTOs who still rely on hands-on setup and infrastructure tweaks are falling behind — fast. As Rajashree Goswami writes in CTO Magazine, the new mandate is clear: automate, or stagnate.

Top-performing CTOs are deploying process automation to squash bugs earlier, collapse feedback loops, reduce idle infrastructure costs, and scale engineering orgs without bloated ops teams. Companies using automated DevOps pipelines are releasing features 60% faster than their competitors — and saving serious money in the process.

At the heart of this transformation? Ephemeral, full-stack test environments built for every feature branch — spun up instantly, torn down automatically. Netflix, GitHub, Amazon, and Facebook are already using them to power real-time collaboration and razor-sharp QA.

Key Takeaways:

• 🚀 60% Faster Release Cycles: Companies with DevOps automation ship features drastically faster than manual teams.

• 💥 Friction-Free QA: Full-stack test environments are now generated for every pull request, killing the “works on my machine” problem.

• 💰 Big Cloud Savings: Ephemeral environments spin down automatically — meaning zero idle infrastructure.

• 👩‍💻 CTOs Leading Change: From onboarding to QA to CI/CD, process automation is now a core leadership strategy, not just an IT upgrade.

9 IT Skills CTOs Should Prioritize for Top Talent (and Better ROI) 💡 read the full 6-min article here

Article Published: April 25, 2025

As a CTO navigating tight budgets and fierce talent competition, here’s what you need to know: Expertise pays—and it pays off. According to Dice’s 2025 Tech Salary Report, IT professionals with expert-level skills in key technologies are commanding $10K to $23K higher salaries annually, but they’re also delivering faster, more scalable outcomes.

This report is more than a salary guide—it’s a roadmap for strategic hiring and upskilling. Artificial Intelligence remains the top investment, with expert AI talent earning 15%+ more and accelerating everything from automation to predictive insights. Skills in Docker, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure follow closely, critical for modern architecture and delivery speed.

These aren’t just recruitment signals—they’re also upskilling targets for in-house teams. Whether you're scaling microservices, building AI agents, or hardening cloud security, the payoff is in the expertise.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧠 AI Expertise Drives the Most Value: AI pros earn $130K+ on average, with a $23K expertise premium. Prioritize hires and training in ML, NLP, GenAI, and ethics.

• ☁️ Cloud & Containerization Skills Fuel Scalability: Skills in AWS, Kubernetes, and Docker yield $12K–$15K salary premiums and faster deployment cycles.

• 🔁 DevOps Is Still Critical Infrastructure: With an average salary of $132K, DevOps pros streamline CI/CD, reduce failure rates, and improve release velocity.

• 🧩 Cross-functional Skills Are Undervalued Assets: Foundational skills like Bash scripting and C# remain vital—especially in legacy modernization and secure DevOps.

• 🔒 Cybersecurity Isn’t Optional: Security skills earn an 8% pay bump, a figure that’s rising as compliance and breach risks grow.

CTOs, Is Your Business Ready for a Crisis? Why You Need a Continuity Plan Now 🛡️ read the full 7-min article here

Article Published: April 25, 2025

No system is bulletproof. Cyberattacks, infrastructure failures, natural disasters—modern tech leaders know that resilience isn’t a luxury, it’s a responsibility. This article makes the case for why every CTO should treat Business Continuity Planning (BCP) not as insurance, but as core digital architecture.

CTOs are increasingly expected to lead beyond tech—into operations, culture, and crisis response. A well-crafted BCP goes far beyond IT recovery: it’s a cross-functional action framework that protects operations, brand trust, and long-term survival.

From assembling a crisis response team to mapping recovery strategies for IT systems and stakeholder communications, this guide walks through 7 concrete steps to build—or modernize—your BCP.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧭 Your BCP is not just an IT asset—it’s a business enabler: Align recovery strategies with broader operational and reputational risks. Integrate IT response into company-wide crisis playbooks.

• 🧠 Automate and test IT recovery now: Establish clear failover protocols, backup integrity testing, and simulated disaster drills. Downtime is costly—your recovery shouldn’t be reactive.

• 👥 Form a cross-functional crisis team today: Involve legal, HR, ops, and PR. Your engineers can’t shoulder crisis response alone. Assign decision-making authority and comms protocols ahead of time.

• 📣 Design communication flows before chaos hits: Draft internal and external messaging templates and determine notification chains. Good communication protects stakeholder trust—even during outages.

Why It Matters

The role of the CTO isn’t just about code anymore—it’s about clarity, continuity, and competitive edge. The best leaders aren’t just adopting tools; they’re architecting systems that scale, people who grow, and plans that bend without breaking.

Automation, upskilling, resilience—these aren’t buzzwords. They’re survival tools. And those who lean in today are the ones who lead tomorrow.

Until next time—build smart, stay ready, and never stop learning.

Rachel Miller
Editor-in-Chief
CTO Executive Insights