Daniel Walters is a full-time dad and a part-time CTO coach and consultant based in Auckland, New Zealand.
His career kicked off in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, working for pioneering Australian technology companies such as Beam Software, Sausage Software, Virtual Communities and Hitwise.
He coaches based on his experiences in Chief Technology Officer(CTO), Chief Information Officer(CIO) and Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO) roles amongst a long career of senior technology leadership roles.
Daniel has led in various organisations ranging from startups to enterprise. Highlights include leading during fast growth and eventual sale of Hitwise (USD240m) and moving to Malaysia to establish a development centre where he established a team of 70 people for Experian's consumer insights division.
One of the most formative experiences was Daniel's first CxO role as CTO and CIO for Seek Asia, which he held for five years. The newly formed organisation, a subsidiary of Seek, was the result of merging two acquisitions; former fierce competitors, South East Asia's leading job marketplaces Jobsdb Hong Kong and Jobstreet Malaysia, with a presence in 7 South East Asian markets.
The breadth of the role, new global competitors entering the markets and the volatile nature of Southeast Asia, where civil unrest, political change, and a range of natural disasters provided an ever-changing range of challenges for a CTO/CIO.
This environment necessitated cultivating a resilient, proactively improving culture that was adaptive to evolving situations—a perfect training ground for the modern day.
Success came after a lot of early struggles and mistakes. He almost didn't make it - the support of mentorship from a range of colleagues and a diarised ritual of introspection helped him navigate from reacting to chaos to proactively building organisational capabilities that continuously improved and adapted.
That meant learning to manage time and work relationships, supporting a culture of learning, being an expert in prioritisation, providing helpful and proactive communication and establishing inspiring goals and tight feedback loops:
A practical toolkit that is useful for all CTOs.
Throughout his career, Daniel has learned valuable lessons about leading change in a people-first approach and cultivating successful and resilient teams by supporting an environment where they can thrive.
Daniel writes about his experiences leading organisations and working with clients in his publication "Great CTOs Focus on outcomes".
