Chicago Tech Leaders

Chicago Tech Leaders, founded by Rob Volk and Kiran Panenar, was created for tech leaders to have a private, dedicated community to support each other through the challenges we face, and continuously improve. You could say it's almost like group therapy session for tech leaders. Started in May 2015, it has grown to 100+ members of tech leaders from startups, small, and medium-sized businesses. The group was created after Rob and Kiran both recognized the need for tech leaders of growing businesses to share their experiences with like-minded individuals. The community now meets virtually at a monthly roundtable, and used to meet for a monthly breakfast. In addition there is a dedicated and active Slack group, and even an annual ski trip. The roundtables are structured to discuss a single predetermined topic and often lead to related topics that are beneficial to the group. Topics of confidential discussion include: —> People management such as resolving conflict, recruiting and onboarding, feedback —> Technology topics such as Engineering, Cloud, DevOps, Security and Data & Analytics —> Career advice The members are mainly from growing technology startups and small businesses. Since the founding of the organization, members have all been referral-only to keep the group high-quality, and to maintain a level of trust and confidentiality.