The first thing to strike me is the double-edged sword which is the current massively profitable status of the business. Any sane executive will be very carefu

The first thing to strike me is the double-edged sword which is the current massively profitable status of the business. Any sane executive will be very careful about doing anything to harm a massively profitable business. If they are not careful that would mean that they were not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities to the owners. Having said that the current leaders are trying to be very forward thinking and say we have to get deeply competent in technology because the world is changing under our feet. And for that I commend them. And, the current profitability certainly gives them the firepower to get ready for the next stage of their business. If I were the owners I would do a multi-pronged approach. I would create a venture fund to do seed and series A venture investments and I would find the 10 most promising ideas and teams that could disrupt or replace my current business and invest from $250K to $2M in each of them, depending on the stage. I now have a chance of participating in a future big winner. And, for those ideas that don't work out I create another fund to do acquisitions of those start-ups that have forged really competent teams. It becomes a means of identifying really competent technical people and knowing that they have experience in the challenges of my media space. In parallel to that I would go ahead and build out an internal technical organization like you have described but take it kind of slow, especially with the lines that generate the current massive profits. Your position internally will, as you have already discerned, require the utmost of tact and team building even while you seek to make the decisive moves that the new technologically driven business requires. You will need vocal support from the very top of the organization, expressed through your title, your budget, your reporting line, and inclusion in strategic planning sessions at the highest level in the organization. Otherwise it won't work. Those executives leading really profitable business lines will resist your "crazy" efforts to remake their golden-egg laying division, and they may be right! And, those who are already becoming obsolete and seeing their business model undercut by technologically sophisticated competitors will be fighting you out of fear. If you can forge a vision that uses the units hard-won domain expertise and super-charge it with technology you will be the hero, otherwise you face opposition at every turn and you need authority from the very top to succeed.