The only competent CTOs I have seen in the telecom and network engineering business are ones who came up through the ranks either from field technician, or juni

The only competent CTOs I have seen in the telecom and network engineering business are ones who came up through the ranks either from field technician, or junior NOC desk person, to network engineer and onwards through 10, 15, 20 years of career progression. Everyone who did not take this path was missing critical information that should be used in network architecture decision making.