About the Chief Technology Officer of the Year (CTO) category
Who this award is for
This award is for the executive who sets technical direction. A recent nominee is the CTO of an interactive malware analysis platform, who joined as one of its first engineers.
The jury looks at the nominee's architecture decisions, the engineering team they lead and the product that came out of them. A technical founder can also enter Cybersecurity Entrepreneur of the Year, and a CTO with an invention of their own can add Cybersecurity Innovator of the Year. To recognize the product itself, enter the product category that matches it.
Related categories to enter
Each category is judged separately, so you can enter a nominee in every category that fits their work, with a separate nomination for each. Tailor each nomination to that category's focus. Entering several related categories gives the work more than one chance to be recognized.
How entries are judged
An independent jury of security practitioners, analysts and CISOs scores each nomination on leadership, innovation and impact. Each nomination competes in its category against peers in a similar setting and region. Your entry package, any sponsorship and public votes do not affect the jury's scores.
Strong entries in this category show:
- Leadership — the engineering organization the nominee leads and the technical bets they made, such as rebuilding a platform, choosing an architecture or scaling a team.
- Innovation — technology that is new to the market or solves an engineering problem competitors have not, with patents, publications or open-source work as supporting evidence.
- Impact — what the technology delivered: performance and scale reached, customers or users served, release cycles shortened, security outcomes improved. Benchmarks and adoption figures help the jury compare entries.
The jury awards Gold, Silver or Bronze, or a Finalist badge, and results are published on this site and announced to the 600,000+ member Cybersecurity Insiders community. Every approved nomination also enters the separate Community Choice award, decided by public votes.
How to enter
Anyone can submit a nomination: the nominee, a colleague or manager, the organization, or an agency entering a client. The nomination form has a confidential field for detail that is shared with the judges and not published, such as internal figures, customer names or incident details. Deadlines, pricing and entry steps are on the How it Works page.
