Using High5 for Transformation Leadership
Using High5 to Hire a Chief Transformation Officer (CTO)
What’s Driving Demand?
Enterprise transformation is the new constant. Organisations recognise that transformation must be governed strategically, not just delivered tactically. And that shift requires leadership that can operate at the intersection of strategy, execution, and value realisation.
A Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) plays apivotal role in aligning transformation efforts with enterprise goals, ensuring disciplined governance, prioritised investment, measurable benefits tracking, and sustained organisational change.
The CTO also drives the more agile Transformation Management Office, and is the executive sponsor aligning the transformationactivities with the value the business needs to build.
What’s Involved in the Role?
The CTO must:
Define and align strategy
- Translate corporate strategy into a prioritised transformation portfolio
- Create frameworks linking initiatives to strategic outcomes
Establish governance and operating model
- Stand up steering structures, decision rights, and cadences
- Integrate transformation governance with financial planning and enterprise risk
Drive disciplined execution
- Introduce portfolio controls, benefit realisation tracking, and KPI frameworks
- Ensure initiatives deliver measurable outcomes, not just deliverables
Enable cross-functional collaboration
- Break down silos between technology, operations, finance, HR, and commercial functions
- Create clarity of accountability across business units
Champion change and capability building
- Embed transformation literacy and adoption mechanisms across leadership
- Build internal capability transfer and long-term sustainability
What Skills Are Needed?
An effective transformation leader straddles strategy, execution, and organisational dynamics. Typically they will be able to demonstrate
- Strategic portfolio and value mapping expertise
- Operating model and governance design experience
- Deep understanding of benefit realisation frameworks
- Cross-functional leadership and influence skills
- Change management and organisational design capability
- Ability to negotiate and manage complex stakeholder environments
- Establish and run the TMO
Why Independent Consultants Excel in This Role
Independent transformation leaders bring a blend of C-suite fluency and practical execution experience, often having led transformation offices, major programmes, or enterprise change initiatives across industries.
Independent transformation leaders are particularly effective when you need:
- Outcome-focus over billable hours
- They operate with clear deliverables tied to business outcomes
- Neutrality and credibility
- Independent leaders are not advocates for a particular vendor, methodology, or internal agenda.
- Flexibility in engagement
- Faster time to value
- Experienced independents can build frameworks, stand up governance, and embed practices in 30/60/90-day cycles.
How High5 Helps You Find the Right CTO and supporting teams
Using the High5 marketplace makes the process faster and more cost-effective compared with using a traditional consulting firm:
- Post your requirement with clear deliverables and context.
- Include scope, timelines, outcomes, and how success will be measured
- High5 matches you with senior independent transformation experts and the extended implementation team to complete the project under the CTO’s leadership.
- These professionals have backgrounds in enterprise transformation, operating model redesign, governance frameworks, and value realisation.
Typical Engagement Outcomes
An independent CTO engagement via High5 can deliver:
- An enterprise transformation strategy and prioritised transformation portfolio
- A transformation operating model (governance, metrics, reporting)
- Executive-aligned priorities and decision rights
- Benefits tracking and KPI dashboards
- Roles, responsibilities, and transformation playbooks
- Assembly of project teams to scope and deliver initial outcomes
- Embedded capability transfer to internal teams
High5 is uniquely positioned to deliver this expertise, and establish project frameworks and outcomes in businesses worldwide, using its available and vetted network of over 75,000 experienced consultants.