The only way he can do is to trust his CTO and let him pitch changes and innovations and such. But how does a CTO do that? Again he has to rely on his generals to make the judgement.
This all sounds like a job impossible to do right. Any idea?
1) Gather requirements of what the business expect the systems to do provide which capabilities for the business to operate and grow for the future.
2) Present this to the generals and ask them "how can we get here with which changes or new systems?".
3) Analyze document the proposed changes outline pros and cons. Make recommendation to CEO.
Repeat the loop again with action plan and timeline, if the CEO agrees which i'm sure the CEO will have input on where action plan is focused on and timelines. Ask for input from all Cxx and SVPs - repeat loop after this point.
Repeat until actionable work items are created and assigned to people to execute on. Monitor execution and keep doing it again and again until all the changes are in.
Perhaps this was prescient. As tech begins to play an increasingly dominant role, the humans who directly manage that tech will play an increasingly dominant role as well.