Conversations Roadshow by CTO Craft
No slides. No panels. Just real conversations with fellow tech leaders.
- 15th October, 2026
- Blique by Nobis, Stockholm
What is the Conversations Roadshow?
The Conversations Roadshow is a half-day gathering for senior technology leaders who want practical insight rather than surface-level talks.
While the format remains consistent at each stop — small-group roundtables and peer-led discussion — every event is shaped by its local context. Attendees, facilitators, and discussion topics differ from city to city, ensuring each gathering reflects the challenges and opportunities CTOs are experiencing in that region.
Each session is designed to create space for honest conversation, shared problem-solving, and connections that continue beyond the day.
Small group discussions
12-15 CTOs and senior tech leaders per table, creating space for real exchange.
Peer-led conversation
Interactive roundtables and deep-dive sessions built around shared challenges and experience.
No slides, real conversation
No long keynotes or sales pitches. Just open, honest dialogue and practical insight.
Is this event right for you?
Conversations is built around one thing: the quality of the room.
Peers at similar stages, with similar-shape teams and similar problems on their desks – guided by facilitators who’ve held the role themselves. The conversations work because everyone is operating at the same level, and because someone experienced is steering.
It’s intended for senior engineering leaders who:
- Hold a senior engineering leadership title – CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Engineering, Director of Engineering, or equivalent
- Currently lead an engineering team
- Are in role at a single company, or recently between roles
If that’s you, you’ll get a lot out of it. If it’s not quite, but you think the room is a fit, get in touch.
Agenda
12:00pm – 1:00pm
Arrival and welcome
1:00pm – 1:15pm
Welcome remarks
1:15-2:15pm
Pick your table. Choose from our roundtables, each exploring a different leadership challenge. Bring your questions, share your experiences, and learn from peers who’ve been there.
Navigating the “do more with less” stress
The expectation hasn’t changed – deliver more, move faster, and prove impact – but the resources behind those expectations have. Budgets are tighter, hiring has slowed, and every engineering investment now needs a stronger business case than it did a year ago. In this facilitated discussion, we’ll unpack how engineering leaders are making difficult trade-offs without losing momentum or credibility. We’ll share practical approaches for prioritising work, evaluating investments, and communicating constraints to the business in a way that builds trust rather than creating friction. This is a candid conversation about deciding what not to do, protecting team focus, and balancing short-term pressures with long-term technical health.
Anna Hedlund - Founder & Leadership Consultant @ Rubberduck Consulting AB
Secure Software in an Untrusted Ecosystem
Your teams are shipping faster than ever – but they’re building on foundations they don’t fully control. Open-source dependencies, third-party services, AI-generated code, and automated delivery pipelines all accelerate development, but every new layer expands your attack surface. The old assumption that trusted software comes from trusted sources no longer holds. In this roundtable, we’ll explore how technology leaders are adapting to a world where verification is replacing trust. We’ll compare approaches to managing dependency risk, governing AI-generated code, securing increasingly complex software supply chains, and deciding where additional controls are worth the trade-off in speed and developer experience. This is a practical discussion grounded in real production environments, focused on balancing security, compliance, and delivery without introducing unnecessary friction.
Charlie Eriksen - Security Researcher @ Aikido
‘Culture Map in practice: decision-making under difference’
Cultural differences rarely show up as overt “culture problems”; instead, they emerge as slow decisions, unclear ownership, and friction within senior teams. This session uses the Culture Map as a shared reference point for an open discussion on how differences in communication, feedback, and authority shape decision-making at senior levels. Participants will share real experiences and collaboratively reflect on strategies that help leaders address these differences early, before ambiguity seeps into systems, processes, or organizational structures.
2:15pm – 2:45pm
Networking Break
2:45pm – 3:45pm
Pick your table. Choose from our roundtables, each exploring a different leadership challenge. Bring your questions, share your experiences, and learn from peers who’ve been there.
The Hidden Cost of Micro-Decisions: Building Scalable Decision Pipelines for Technology Leaders
Your biggest leadership bottleneck might not be strategy, budgets, or hiring – it might be the hundreds of small decisions landing on your desk every week. Over time, those micro-decisions quietly drain focus, slow execution, and leave less capacity for the work only you can do.
In this interactive session, we’ll unpack how decision fatigue shows up inside fast-moving engineering organisations and why it has become one of the most overlooked drivers of leadership burnout and delivery risk. Through practical scenarios covering incidents, delivery pressures, and hiring constraints, we’ll identify which decisions should be automated, delegated, standardised, or deliberately kept as leadership responsibilities.
Rather than trying to make better decisions one by one, we’ll focus on designing scalable decision pipelines that reduce cognitive overload while improving consistency, resilience, and speed of execution.
Becki Wordsworth - CTO @ Meela
Maintaining High Performance During Economic Strain: Leadership, Culture and AI
You’re being asked to deliver more with less. Budgets are tighter, priorities are shifting, and teams are looking to leadership for clarity – but maintaining performance without burning people out or damaging culture is becoming increasingly difficult. In this facilitated leadership discussion, we’ll explore how technology leaders are navigating economic pressure while keeping teams engaged, accountable, and focused on the work that matters most. We’ll discuss the decisions leaders are making around build vs buy, when to invest in internal capability versus external partners, and how AI can be used to improve productivity without weakening ownership or human judgement.This is a practical, peer-led conversation about the trade-offs leaders are making today: protecting technical standards, preserving team cohesion, and making difficult decisions with limited resources.
Kamil Dziublinski - CTO @ Xapo Bank
What Actually Works? A 5-Step Path to the AI-First SDLC
Everyone is being told to become AI-first, but few teams have a clear playbook for what that actually means in day-to-day software delivery. Experiments are everywhere, yet many organisations are still struggling to turn isolated AI wins into repeatable improvements in engineering velocity. In this session, we’ll share a practical five-step framework for building an AI-first SDLC, shaped by the real-world successes and frustrations of more than 3,000 engineers. We’ll move beyond the hype to examine the operational changes that are making a measurable difference, where teams are still hitting barriers, and the assumptions that haven’t held up in practice. In this session, we’ll share a practical five-step framework for building an AI-first SDLC, shaped by the real-world successes and frustrations of more than 3,000 engineers. We’ll move beyond the hype to examine the operational changes that are making a measurable difference, where teams are still hitting barriers, and the assumptions that haven’t held up in practice.
Paul Lunow - CTO @ Vention
3:45pm – 4:15pm
Networking Break
4:15pm – 5:15pm
Pick your table. Choose from our roundtables, each exploring a different leadership challenge. Bring your questions, share your experiences, and learn from peers who’ve been there.
Reducing Drag: Leadership, Friction, and Team Efficiency
Your team is busy, but delivery still feels unpredictable. Deadlines slip, decisions stall, and problems keep resurfacing – even when everyone is working hard. As organisations grow, the biggest barriers to efficiency are rarely capability or effort. They’re the invisible sources of friction: unclear ownership, competing priorities, and leadership habits that no longer scale. In this facilitated CTO discussion, we’ll unpack where drag really comes from inside startup and scale-up teams. Through real examples and peer discussion, we’ll examine how leadership decisions shape team effectiveness, where predictability breaks down, and the areas where CTOs have the greatest leverage to remove friction without introducing more process.You’ll leave with a practical lens for diagnosing the sources of drag in your own organisation, along with a set of questions to help identify what to simplify, what to stop doing, and where leadership attention will have the biggest impact.
Adam Horner, CTO, Synova Technology
Scaling Teams in a Fast-Changing World
This roundtable will explore the realities of technology leadership in a fast-changing environment. Bringing together senior leaders from across the Nordic technology community, the discussion will focus on scaling teams thoughtfully, driving innovation, and making strategic decisions in increasingly complex organisations. Expect an open and practical conversation grounded in shared experiences, collaboration, and long-term thinking.
Building Inclusive Engineering Cultures
This session will centre on building strong and inclusive cultures within modern technology organisations. Leaders will discuss trust, collaboration, alignment, and how to create environments where teams can thrive through change and innovation. The conversation will offer practical approaches and shared experiences from across the Nordic region.
Your facilitators
Charlie Eriksen
Anna Hedlund
Becki Wordsworth
Kamil Dziublinski
Paul Lunow
Adam Horner
Ready to join the Conversation?
Venue
Blique by Nobis
Gävlegatan 18, 113 30 Stockholm
We’ll be gathering at Blique by Nobis, a modern boutique hotel in the heart of Stockholm. With its light-filled spaces, contemporary Scandinavian design, and relaxed atmosphere, it provides the perfect setting for focused discussion and meaningful connection.Easily accessible from the city centre, Blique offers a comfortable, stylish environment to spend the afternoon in conversation with peers — and to continue discussions over drinks as the day winds down.
Registration is now open!
What your ticket includes
Facilitated small-group leadership roundtables
Practical peer discussion on real challenges (no slides, no panels)
Access to a curated room of senior tech leaders
Insights you can take straight back to your organisation
Refreshments throughout the afternoon
Drinks reception
Due to the intimate nature of this event, availability is extremely limited.
Our event partners
Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm