CTO Chats with Dastan Shukanayev, Interdisciplinary Strategist within Technology and Innovation

Tell us about yourself and your role.

I come from a broad background, which may be a bit too much, and I’m an interdisciplinary strategist. I’ve worked across many industries in my career. I currently work in technology and digital transformation, as well as investments in those transformations. These are long-term strategies, not something done from quarter to quarter, but multi-year transformations. It involves not just pure technology in terms of IT but also conceptualising transformations and implementing specific tools. It’s not purely technical, like a CTO position, but more of an umbrella position. That’s how I would describe it. It’s challenging for me to describe because I’ve done many things, so the best way to put it is interdisciplinary strategist within technology and innovation.

Of course, I can understand. IT is such a broad term, and it evolves rapidly. What challenges are you currently facing, and how are you addressing them?

The challenge, I would say, is always cost. To replace and innovate in terms of transforming to the future always involves cost, so cost is always going to be a challenge for an organisation. For me, it’s also a challenge. But the biggest challenge is how to strategise in terms of avoiding, I would say, technology debt. This isn’t just development debt, which is a very technical term, but technology debt, meaning not investing in something that could become obsolete in the next five years. With the current AI hype, it’s particularly challenging to strategise. So, I would say that the cost of investing in the right technology is the biggest challenge right now.

Yeah, that’s right. Besides the challenges, as we said, the IT sector is evolving rapidly. So, what do you think, in the next three to five years, will be the major shifts on the horizon?

The biggest shift will be how not just companies, but entire sectors or industries, will lose their competitive advantage. That’s the biggest challenge. For example, the consulting industry is undergoing a very rapid transformation, losing its competitive advantage because AI is becoming so cheap, and you don’t need to pay a lot of money to consulting companies anymore. That’s one of the earlier signals. Yes, there will be many other things that will transform industries and the overall landscape. So, those are the opportunities and changes we’ll see in the next three years, not five years, because it’s happening quite quickly. That would be my take.

Since you started talking about the IT evolution and AI, what trends or technologies do you believe will have the biggest impact on the IT industry?

The biggest impact will come from humans—how leadership is going to adapt to the fast-changing reality. If we look at how things were over the last 30 to 40 years, we had significant changes followed by periods of stability, and now we’re seeing even larger changes. It’s testing a lot of geopolitical issues and other things. As everything becomes more connected, the changes will accelerate even further. To answer your question, I think cybersecurity is number one. That will be a huge issue and challenge for many people, and we’re still in the infancy of how we secure things. At the same time, we need to remain agile. Being agile and secure is quite conflicting because, sometimes, you can’t change quickly enough while keeping systems secure. Companies should keep this in mind, as we’re seeing more cybersecurity-related issues, especially in industries like blockchain and crypto. My stance is that cybersecurity is the number one issue.

Perfect, and let’s talk about rules and regulations. How is the regulatory environment changing, and how are IT leaders navigating these regulatory shifts?

Regulations will always lag behind progress. Things are moving faster than the politicians can keep up with, and unfortunately, they often don’t understand the technology. What’s happening in the US is having some kind of knock-on effect, with more tech-friendly people being hired, like Elon Musk and others, who understand technology and IT. I think regulation is crippling innovation and not understanding the broader picture of what’s happening. The regulatory mindset should shift from reactive to proactive. For that, we need significant changes within the regulation. That’s the biggest hurdle from the regulatory side—understanding that regulation should promote a safer environment for innovation rather than slowing it down.

Perfect, and talking about innovation, how do you balance the need for innovation with the demand for stability and security in your IT systems?

You mentioned cybersecurity. If you don’t have proper governance of security and information protection, it doesn’t matter what cyber security technologies you implement. It’s about the company’s mentality and culture. If there’s no security mentality within the company, then it’s going to be challenging to bring any kind of innovation forward. Innovating for the sake of innovation, without a culture of security in mind, will cripple your organisation one day. It only takes one incident, and everything can be lost. Creating a sound, agile, and stable system is vital, and that comes from good architectural leadership. However, there’s a big gap between executive leadership and middle managers who actually build things. That convergence of understanding is essential. I’ve seen cultural misunderstandings about what stability and security are. It’s about understanding how to balance the money spent on innovation while ensuring security and stability. This needs to be aligned with higher-ups so it can be communicated properly at the board level. When I work with boards, they often don’t fully understand this, so it’s crucial to have a strong, unified understanding of this issue to work effectively.

Reflecting on experiences with knowledge-sharing discussions, what’s been the most memorable insight or takeaway from your work?

Knowledge-sharing wise, I led strategic foresight sessions for development, for example, in agricultural technology. What we found was a lot of tacit knowledge sharing rather than explicit knowledge sharing. Tacit knowledge, which is more general and transferable across sectors, is often more valuable than explicit knowledge, which is specific to a given technology. I applied this agricultural tacit knowledge and how they approach problem-solving to our own work. That was the biggest takeaway for me. It made me more open-minded to learning from different sectors and applications.

Amazing. To someone attending an Ortus Club event for the first time, what advice would you give them to get the most value from their experience?

My advice would be to stay open-minded and go with an empty head. Don’t go there to outshine everyone. When I had my first experience, it was amazing because I got different perspectives from people with diverse experiences from all over the world. From someone working in the depths of Iraq to someone in Latin America—it gives you so many perspectives. People go with their own perceptions, but perception is subjective. Perspective is more objective. So, be very open-minded, listen, and try to broaden your horizons. It’s more important to foster self-provoking insights than just answering questions or engaging in discussions. Open-mindedness and the exchange of tacit knowledge are the key takeaways.

Yeah, I agree. What’s the biggest IT-related mistake you see companies make, and how can they avoid it?

The biggest mistake is when companies lose perspective of the macro environment. They get tunnel vision and focus only on their industry, which causes them to overlook broader trends. If you invest in technology that won’t be relevant in five years, you’re not keeping an eye on the bigger picture. That’s the biggest mistake I see companies making today.

You’re right. The next question is a one word-answer question: What do you consider to be the most critical skill for IT leaders today?

Perspective. Having perspective is key. Many people fail to see the broader picture—they only focus on what they do every day. I think it’s critical for IT leaders to have perspective.

If you weren’t in IT, what other career would you have pursued?

Well, I’ve had many careers in my life. I would probably consider something in hardware design or industrial design within the interior design sector. I’m very interested in that field, and I also do art as a hobby. I enjoy design and the creative process, so that would probably be my career path outside of IT.