Who is this strange being? He's neither just Chief Product Officer (CPO), nor just Chief Technical Officer (CTO). He is both. In February 2022, there were around 250 CPOs in France. And now, just as this role is becoming established in the French landscape, a hybrid position emerges.
As we've always taken a close interest in Product organizations, we've felt it was necessary to delve into this new role and give you as comprehensive an overview as possible.
From the outset, let's deal with a subject that's less anecdotal than it might seem: its name. CPTO? CTPO? For some, this distinction means little. Tomayto, tomahto. But, for others, the order of the letters is far more revealing than it might seem."It symbolically represents what the company wants to emphasize when naming a CTPO or CPTO", says former Thiga CPO Fabrice des Mazery. Sometimes the product improvements will be very tech-oriented, and we'll then have a CTPO with a tech background. Sometimes, the need will be for a more business-oriented, user-focused and ROI-driven profile, and we'll find a CPTO coming from the Product.
"Even if there's no set standard in this area, I get the impression that people put their main prism as 1st letter", confirms Claire Idelot, former Head of Product and Tech at Deezer now CPTO of LiveMentor, the entrepreneurial coaching platform.
That said, for the sake of readability, we'll only use the term CPTO in the rest of the article to refer to the position generically. It's hard to stray from our Product roots 😉.
Why have a CPTO?
What justifies the emergence of this hybrid profession in recent years? The answer is simple: overcoming the traditional and historic division between Product and Tech, between teams in charge of knowing what to design, and others who have to figure out how to build it.
"A lot of people in these two professions were opposed to each other. This did a lot of harm, because it gave the impression that there were always conflicts, whereas their common interest was to make the best platform for users", regrets Raphaël Bonstein, the CPTO of Studapart, a marketplace for connecting tenants and landlords.
However it wasn't enough, as supporters of the CPTO role... as well as its detractors deem the tensions between Product and tech to be a problem.
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In a Linkedin publication, Christopher Parola, CPO of electronic signature solution Yousign, thus views it as "a new fad but certainly not a new standard". He then goes on to discuss this "tension" between Product and tech: "Having two people allows you to express disagreements and to find a better solution. I'd say you have to be looking for a huge alignment. It's personal, but I appreciate the exchange you can have [with your CTO] in building OKRs and the way we operate." A testament to his strong relationship with his CTO, Christopher Parola actually followed him from Meilleurs Agents to Yousign!
Fabrice des Mazery is also skeptical. "We can see that in some companies, we have factions and not teams. Tech goes on one side and the Product on the other. But it would be too simplistic to think that we're going to solve all problems by putting one person at the top who runs both, without thinking more deeply about the origin of the problem".
With these nuances stated as a preamble, let's now look at the benefits cited by those in this role. The number 1 argument mentioned is alignment. Let's get into the details.
Technical and Product topics in the same roadmap
First of all, having a CPTO helps to bring the two parties' issues closer together. "Through this position, I'll be talking to all the teams about both customer and purely technical issues, explains Stéphane Cinguino, CPTO at recruitment specialist scale-up CleverConnect (nearly 200 employees, a third of whom are in Product & Tech). For example, technical debt was very poorly addressed in the past, underestimated by many Product Managers and not linked to business challenges. Now, it is given consideration by Product teams.".
An opinion shared by Benoît Bouffart, CTPO of e.Voyageurs SNCF (which includes OUI.sncf, that recently became SNCF Connect): "Today, we have tech projects that are part of the classic Product roadmap (serverless approach, S2S, investment in new application layers,...). In other words, this allows investment budgets to be allocated to tech."
Although he admits that having two separate entities could also allow for good synchronization, he assures that as it stands, almost two years after this organizational change, the gain in Agility and team empowerment is non-negligible. "It creates a hyper-important solidarity and allows us to value projects at the same level, whether they be tech, data, e-commerce or experiential", he insists.
Teams focused on shared business objectives
The thing developers are often criticised for? Thinking more about the technical stack than its business impact. As if code were a sacred thing. How many Product Managers have found themselves seething when techies spent a quarter fine-tuning a stack that represented negligible business value?
"I’ve had developers proudly tell me they had 99% test coverage for their code, while at the same time, no progress was being made on the roadmap. It's a shame to come to such misalignments between tech and business, when their very desire is to do well," recalls Raphaël Bonstein of one of his past experiences.
For him, this dual role thus helps to rationalize the technical effort by implementing a culture of impact. "It's hard to get people to understand that we need to work on common interests when tech teams are excluded from business conversations and don't attend the right meetings. This is all the more unfortunate, given that developers often come up with excellent business ideas, along with a clear sense of how to build them. However, a two-headed organization leaves them little room to express those ideas.", he claims.
Concretely, at Studapart, Product Managers and developers have, for example, financial incentives based on shared objectives. This type of initiative is more difficult to implement when interests differ between teams. The estimation and framing of roadmaps are thus done in hand in hand.
Before joining LiveMentor in December 2021, Claire Idelot was already in charge of a Product & Tech team at Deezer, in the innovation department. This had the advantage of positioning tech as a means to an end, in her view. "I made it clear that the priority for us as a team was value or more globally our impact on the LTV of Deezer users through other experimental concepts, not the technical power of what we were designing", as she illustrates.
The CPTO has a wider scope of responsibility
Benoit Bouffart from SNCF Connect sums up this point with the following statement: "The CTPO role prevents playing Good Cop Bad Cop!". Or to put it another way, it's impossible to blame the other because "the roadmap wasn't clear" or "the team not staffed enough". "Today, it's the responsibility of all management to deliver on time, with the right investment and the right quality", he sums up.
"The problem is that now you alone carry the weight of responsibility. I can no longer say: it's the tech team that isn't delivering!", Stéphane Cinguino jokes.
And that's not to mention the fact that, at the same time, it aligns KPIs and puts an end to potential presquares. An example? A company can have an excellent conversion rate... while having an unavailable platform half the time. "In my case, I can't fully optimize conversion at the expense of service quality. The entire management team shares these two objectives", continues Benoit Bouffart.
The role is clearer within the executive committee
Another advantage mentioned by the interviewed CPTOs is the clarity provided to the executive committee and management. "In most organizations, the CTO and CPO report to the CEO, who might struggle to make a decision in case of a conflict, often siding with Product because it's more relatable. Here, there's only one point of contact who can balance things out", says Stéphane Cinguino.
This improved clarity from an external perspective can also enable a more impactful voice in companies where digital is not at the heart of the business model. Such is the case at Accor with Chief Digital Factory Officer Alix Boulnois or Club Med, with CEO of Digital Marketing & Technology Quentin Briard. "In certain non-digital-native structures, this can bring more weight to the table when facing larger, more established teams, while also reducing the complexity of an executive committee", suggests Benoit Bouffart.
At LiveMentor, a company of around a hundred employees, Tech and Product only account for 20% of the workforce. The arrival of Claire Idelot as CPTO on the board (alongside the revenue and sales director) has given her a voice in decision-making. Previously, the Heads of Product, Tech, and Design were not part of the board. "Not only is it more practical for the board to have a single point of contact for lesser-known areas (EdTech market), but it also provides a more orchestrated view of our activities, all aligned towards the same impact. Each part is valued, and the collective even more so", says Claire Idelot.
The limits of CPTO's role
Now let's add a little nuance. Behind these apparent advantages lie other challenges as well.
A relative loneliness
"Miss one person and the world seems empty.", says French author Lamartine. Hearing the CPTOs interviewed, the loss of their natural pairing leads to the need to build other bonds. After all, nature abhors a vacuum.
"You can quickly find yourself isolated. Externally, I rely on my peers. And internally, I talk a lot with the Chief Revenue Officer. When there's no longer a pair, you have to find another!", confides Stéphane Cinguino from CleverConnect.
"That's why I have senior profiles on my team, relates Benoit Bouffart for his part. Most CPTOs always keep one person responsible for Product and one for Tech, because the discussion has to take place between these teams".
Could one of the two functions fade away then? "Operationally yes, replies the latter. But, for the teams, it would be difficult to accept that their role isn't represented by a title and a person". When three-quarters of the workforce are developers, it would be a hard pill to swallow for them...
The impostor syndrome
This is THE big question: how do you handle areas that were not originally yours (such as Tech, if you come from a Product background)? Christopher Parola highlights this issue in a comment on his LinkedIn post: "I'm speaking for myself, but if I were a CPTO, despite my years of experience in web and mobile development and management, I don’t think I would make as good decisions as my CTO when it comes to highly technical issues."
This raises a fundamental question: do you need your team's hard skills to manage them well, or does success rely on other qualities? Claire Idelot asserts: "What counts is being clear about the direction you want to go in, and making sure you follow through". But she does add an important nuance: "This is true because I'm in a company that doesn't yet have a great deal of technological experience and structure. I have half an engineering team and half a more Product-Design-BI team. I have things to contribute as a manager (from experience), even if I'm not a techie. But I would never have taken this job if it had been the lifeblood of the company, like at Cdiscount where I worked for example. I wouldn't have felt at all legitimate given the magnitude of the reliability stakes."
On this topic, how can you avoid experiencing impostor syndrome, especially when dealing with engineering teams, as a CPTO, while trying to build your skills? "I provide my VP Engineering with a different level of perspective", says Stéphane Cinguino. Raphaël Bonstein, on the other hand, is direct: "I tell the tech teams openly that if they expect a technical mentor, they won’t find that in me. A good manager isn't necessarily an expert in the field of their teams." Benoît Bouffart echoes this sentiment: "Personally, I rely on the expertise of my teams, particularly in Tech, where beyond Delivery, key people include application leads, security experts, and enterprise architecture specialists."
Is the role of CPTO a sign of a receding Product culture?
This is what Fabrice des Mazery fears, especially when Tech is placed ahead of Product with the appointment of a CPTO. "In a simplified view, a CTO is often asked to act like a CFO. To provide a cost estimate, working within a client/vendor logic. At least, that’s often how the business perceives Tech."
What about the CPO? "It's an investor's logic, with its share of unpredictability, because we're talking here about responding to human behaviors, those of users, which are difficult to predict, he continues. And that's the beauty of the Product! A CPTO will therefore talk about opportunities and risks, user benefits and ROI for both them and the company. Faced with this uncertainty, which can be uncomfortable for many, a board could opt for a CTPO, who would provide more reassuring elements: dates, budgets, features. The risk would then be to see the Product department transformed into a delivery department, stripping the Product of all its complexity: strategy and discovery.".
This argument could also be flipped the other way. "It's very hard for a CPTO not to fall back into his area of expertise. It takes a lot of rigor to protect both teams equally!" confides Raphaël Bonstein. "For some, we've become less Product-driven, for others, less Tech-driven!", says Benoît Bouffart with a smile. The traditional boundary is never far off—old habits die hard.
A matter of person and company context
So, is the rise of the CPTO a new normal or just an epiphenomenon? The answer may be a bit disappointing, but as is often the case, the reality is that it depends.
In this article published on Sifted, Mr (who is a CPO) and Mrs (who was a CTO) Leue outline four scenarios where the presence of a CPTO might make sense::
1) Having someone with a solid Product AND Tech background (aka the rare gem)
2) Assigning the role to a member of the founding team or one of the first employees of an early-stage startup (though this usually doesn’t last long)
3) Working in a sector driven more by marketing/sales than by Tech (like e-commerce, for example)
4) Conversely, designing a very Tech-driven Product (and therefore having a CPTO more Tech-driven than Product-driven)
Here's an example: Stéphane Cinguino from CleverConnect would fit more into the first category. Originally an engineer (his first job was as a C++ developer), he shifted toward systems and networks, then business during an entrepreneurial stint in China. Later, he unexpectedly found himself building a Product team at his next company, moved to the USA for VP Product roles, and has been a CPTO ever since… from 2015 across four different companies!
"There are no CPTO job postings on the market. So, I look at CTO or CPO openings and see if I can twist the role during the process, given my dual expertise,” he explains. “I’m convinced that this model is closely tied to the individual. It doesn’t happen overnight—it reflects a career path and dual affinity."
At CleverConnect, for example, he originally joined in a CTO role. "TThe CEO noticed I had a different approach than other CTOs. I showed him that we could manage tech effectively while also talking business,” he reveals.
Raphaël Bonstein, also a computer engineer by training, was previously a CPO. “The CEO wanted someone who could represent the company’s interests equally on both the tech and product sides. Essentially, having a single point of contact for the platform allows us to streamline the roadmaps to maximize value creation”, he explains.
Claire Idelot, for her part, joined Livementor as a CPO. But during discussions, she and the CEO realized she could also take charge of structuring the Tech team, especially since she had already managed a Tech & Product team at Deezer.
However, she doesn’t believe this type of role will become widespread in the ecosystem. “At least, I don’t think it will in companies where tech is the core engine”, she suggests.
This organizational model can certainly be relevant in specific contexts, but it doesn’t appear to be a harbinger of the end of the CPO or CTO roles.
For more information: download our book Product-Oriented Organizations
