CTO <F9>

<F9> is the Toggle Breakpoint, the deliberate mark you place before the run. The moment you look at a system and decide: this is where the truth will surface, toggle it.

CTO <F9> is a framework built from two decades of operating as a CTO, how I research a role before accepting it, how I enter an organisation, how I design a team, how I prepare for a conversation when things haven't gone well. It is grounded in process and repeatability, but written in the first person — what has worked for me, where I have adapted, and what I would offer as a starting point for others.

This is not a playbook. It is not prescriptive. It is the accumulated operating knowledge of a practitioner, made legible for the leaders who want to adopt it, adapt it, and make it their own.