Adam Horner Email & Phone Number

Gothenburg, Vastra Gotaland County, Se

I help CTOs evolve from overwhelmed problem-solvers to confident, strategic leaders by focusing on the part most struggle with: leadership transformation.✔ But leading isn’t just about strategy, is it? It’s about freeing yourself from daily firefighting, empowering your team, and bridging the gap between technical priorities and business objectives.That’s where my personalized coaching come in. I work with CTOs to uncover what’s holding them back and equip them with the tools to:👉 Regain time for long-term planning and innovation by shifting focus away from tactical firefighting.👉 Delegate effectively to build high-performing teams and free themselves to lead strategically.👉 Communicate with confidence, ensuring alignment with CEOs, senior leadership, and non-technical stakeholders.⏩ We focus on leadership development, team building, and executive alignment – but where the real breakthroughs happen is in empowering CTOs to lead with clarity and confidence.Here’s how I do it:🔹 Weekly one-on-one coaching sessions to tackle leadership challenges and build strategic clarity.🔹 My CTO Maturity Model, a structured self-assessment to identify growth areas and create actionable plans.🔹 Proven frameworks that translate technical expertise into executive-level influence.What makes my coaching different?⛔️ No generic advice or one-size-fits-all templates.⛔️ No overwhelming theory without practical applications.⛔️ No quick fixes – just proven strategies tailored to your leadership journey.The real wins? It’s not just about improving processes. It’s about unlocking your potential as a trusted C-suite partner who leads with impact, inspires teams, and aligns technical vision with business strategy.💬 Don’t just take my word for it – check out what my clients say in my recommendations!📩 Send me a message to learn more about my coaching or visit www.synova.tech/services/cto-coaching

Gothenburg, Vastra Gotaland County, Se

Scaling a startup is challenging – balancing innovation with operational efficiency often leaves technology leaders stretched thin. Hiring a full-time CTO isn’t always feasible, but achieving the leadership and guidance you need is essential for growth.That’s where I come in.As your fractional CTO, I work alongside your team to:👉 Refine your technology strategy to align with your business goals, ensuring clarity and direction.👉 Assemble and lead high-performing teams, empowering them to tackle critical challenges with confidence.👉 Streamline processes to remove roadblocks and drive productivity, from communication to the product development lifecycle.⏩ The real breakthroughs happen when strategy, people, and processes come together to accelerate growth and innovation.Here’s how I deliver impact:🔹 Hands-on leadershipWhether it’s aligning roadmaps with business goals or mentoring teams, I provide practical solutions that create immediate results.🔹 Tailored expertiseWith over 30 years of industry experience, I bring scalable leadership that adapts to your needs – without the overhead of a full-time hire.🔹 Strategic insightsI specialize in turning technical roadmaps into actionable strategies that strengthen investor confidence and accelerate timelines.What my clients say:Curious about what it’s like to work with me? My clients’ feedback speaks for itself – check out their recommendations on my profile for firsthand insights.📩 Ready to drive innovation and scale with confidence? Contact me to learn more or book a FREE discovery session: www.synova.tech/services/fractional-cto

Gothenburg, Vastra Gotaland County, Se

I’m Adam Horner, a CTO with over 30 years in the tech industry and the host of The CTO Playbook — the podcast dedicated to helping CTOs excel. Perfect for CTOs and tech leaders navigating the complexities of their roles, each episode offers clear insights, innovative strategies, and practical advice from top leaders in tech. With my extensive experience mentoring engineers and tech leaders, and over a decade as a CTO, you’ll gain the tools and knowledge to build and refine your own CTO playbook. Whether you're tackling complex projects, fostering innovation, leading teams, or shaping your company's tech strategy, this podcast is your essential resource. My journey from engineer to strategic CTO was challenging. I learned through the school of hard knocks, making avoidable mistakes and facing countless challenges. Often out of my comfort zone and wishing for more guidance, I created this podcast to provide the support and advice he once lacked. Tune in for engaging interviews, leadership tips, and the latest in technology strategy. Each episode is designed to help you lead with confidence and level up as a CTO. Listen now to start your journey with The CTO Playbook. Build your own playbook to excel in your role.

At Kindred, we’re on a mission to make life easier for parents. Our mobile app is designed to help parents quickly and easily find and plan family-friendly activities — whether it’s a weekday, weekend, or holiday.As a husband-and-wife team, we’re bootstrapping Kindred from the ground up. As CTO I bring 30 years of software development expertise. Combined with Jenine's background in product development and commercialisation, we make a well-rounded, complementary team.We’re passionate about building Kindred so parents can spend less time planning and more time making memories with their kids.Join us as we grow Kindred into a go-to app for families everywhere.Interested in what we’re building? Follow us as we build in public.Learn more about Kindred at www.mykindred.app. Join our Kindred waitlist for updates and early access — we’re excited to share this journey with you.

London, England, Gb

Having recruited a CTO into Tabeo and completed the succession plan, I continued my work as an advisor and coach for technology, product, and leadership.

London, England, Gb

I advised Tabeo on a project to upgrade their core financial service platform and assisting in the recruitment of a permanent full-time CTO.

Goteborg, Se

Continuing my CTO role on a fractional basis.

Goteborg, Se

• As a key member of the Exec team reporting to the CEO, define and implement company strategy, improve leadership and management capabilities, and present at board meetings• Led and architected a technology transformation from legacy “overgrown prototype” hardware and software stack to a modern AWS cloud-first microservices infrastructure that is scalable, secure, efficient, and much cheaper to monitor, maintain, and extend• Successfully restructured engineering into multiple full-stack development teams to increase velocity• Foster close collaboration between team leaders, DevOps, engineers, designers, operations, and product owners while simultaneously transitioning to a hybrid home-office working model• Redesigned the technical recruiting process to attract and retain top engineering talent • Created, trained, and embedded standards and processes running a pragmatic agile development approach to ensure software quality, code maintainability, and platform reliability• Expanded the Data and Analytics team to rebuild the data pipeline and customer facing analytics, improving both internal and customer facing reporting• Accountable for DevOps and group wide Information and IT Security. Started from a typical startup security level to now working towards an audited industry accreditation

Goteborg, Se

• In parallel with the CTO position, I was the acting CPO for 18 months (CPTO), leading engineering, devops, product, and design teams, in addition to a key operational team. Almost 50% of the company reported through to me• Validated the technical and product acquisition theses for 2 separate acquisitions, Quedro, a real estate CRM and CDP acquired 2021, and Brandkeeper, a media asset management platform acquired 2022• Oversaw the technical due diligence and product integrations of Quedro and Brandkeeper, with a focus on compatibility between technologies, teams, and methodologies. The combined group now offers a complete marketing platform for real estate.• In conjunction with the CEO, prioritised and refined the product roadmap, validating both the direction and the details through customer feedback and request validation• The headcount growth across the business needed a new leadership layer, which required new leadership skills. Best practices from my team leads were adopted across the business• This position culminated by hiring Adfenix' first dedicated CPO, to whom I handed off Product and Design.

Göteborg, Se

I advised DB24 on their software development, technology and engineering team strategy as they prepared to scale globally.

Bradley Stoke, Bristol, Gb

• Replaced the CTO and took on the mandate to lead software development, technology infrastructure, legacy outsourced applications, internal user support, data warehousing, and innovation• Restructured development team, expanded infrastructure support team, and reshaped two major technology outsourcing projects to balance the IT budget• Instigated a major refresh of the data warehouse, data collation, and quality management to improve group wide business intelligence• Promoted mentoring and staff development within the technology function at all levels

Bradley Stoke, Bristol, Gb

• In a new role for the company, assessed the people, processes and technologies in the group looking for optimisation• Modernised internal communication, leveraging tools like Microsoft Teams, Sharepoint, and Outlook to reduce reliance on email

London, England, Gb

• Satago is the free cashflow solution that gets businesses paid faster, identifies risk, and advances payment on invoices. Satago is now a principal component of TruFin Plc.• Served as company director and CTO with responsibility for all engineering and technology. The core technology platform built during my leadership is fundamentally the same platform in use today and licensed by companies such as Lloyds Bank Plc• Pitched the business to investors and got accepted to Seedcamp, the best-known early-stage startup accelerator in Europe, forming the kernel of the $1m USD seed round• Recruited and developed the team starting from 2 founders to 15 employees, through several funding rounds, product pivots, and different revenue models• Led the team to develop the product from functional prototype to sophisticated FinTech platform providing vital business finance to a growing active customer base. Built a unique risk scoring engine to offer an on-demand single invoice discounting service• Principle architect and DevOps. Introduced pragmatic agile techniques, CI/CD and code quality culture, unit testing, git flow, code reviews and knowledge sharing as well as mentoring the developers

London, Gb

• Mentored startups in the London FinTech space as they competed to be accepted in to the 2014 StartupBootCamp FinTech accelerator program.• Focused on technical aspects, mentored and acted as a sounding board for new founders• Leveraged my own experience of belonging to and benefiting from Seedcamp (another accelerator programme) with Satago.

Denver, Colorado, Us

• First Palantir engineer hired in the UK, helped grow the UK & EU team to over 80 staff in 40 months• Ran sales and sales support for major government customers through the entire sales cycle from first touch, technology demos, closing, and full implementation• Built lean project teams with employees and contractors to create novel solutions to customer challenges on tight timescales• Performed big data integration (ETL) from disparate data sets, near real-time synthesis, and custom technical development on multiple customer projects on-site to construct SME reports from information in the field• Built, satisfied accreditation, deployed, and trained users on complete server/client networks running Palantir to comply with the demanding UK military information security and cryptography standards• Organised analyst training and trade-craft education for users new to Palantir• Mentored and developed UK and EU engineers and ran entire project reviews, covering all commercial and technical aspects

Guildford, Surrey, Gb

• Team leader responsible for all database development and DB testing on Detica’s largest project to date, a multi-year, multi-company project run by a consortium, building new national security capability for the UK Government. Detica played a key role providing information intelligence software• Built and led a team of database developers, mostly recruited from outside the consultancy• Responsible for hiring, training, DB development methodology, processes, team structure, quality control & standards, deployment and test management• Detica was acquired by BAE Systems shortly after I left the business

Instructor of Kung Fu in London's Docklands, teaching Fujian White Crane kung fu. I was a part time assistant instructor for a few years before going full time. My martial arts skills were far superior to my business skills, but as a first taste of being an entrepreneur it was invaluable.

Guildford, Surrey, Gb

Senior Consultant working on technical delivery projects in the government and financial services business units. On the job training in advanced Oracle database skills like OLS, VPD, PKI & cryptography, data modelling, information security and accreditation.

London, Gb

Recruited and managed development team working on the company intranet. Introduced role-based security to ensure data confidentiality and integration with Microsoft Office for ease of use.

New York, Ny, Us

Worked on high-profile projects including a web-based financial reporting application on an oracle database, a real time web-based F/X trading application, and various internal applications in London and Frankfurt.

Beng, Computer Science

A-Levels & Gcses