Networking

CTO Craft Con: Europe 2026

C

TO Craft Con: Europe 2026 brings together senior technology and engineering leaders from across the region for two days of practical insight, honest discussion, and shared experience. Focusing on AI adoption, organisational design, platform strategy, and the changing expectations of tech leadership, attendees will participate in talks and structured roundta…

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66Voices
8Underwriters
10Exhibitors
20On the bill · sessions
54Companies · in total
§I

The Voices

Programmed at CTO, in alphabetical order.
Adam Horner
CTO Coach and fractional CTO
Adelina Chalmers
CTO Strategic Advisor and Founder · The Geek Whisperer
Andy Skipper
CTO Coach, former CTO at Comic Relief and Made.com · Comic Relief/Made.com
Anton Kireev
Co-Founder & CTO · Muj Fres
Arbaaz Dossani
Chief Technology Officer - Cookbook GenAI Startup · HelloFresh
Ashutosh Saxena
VP of Technology at &Open · &Open
Becki Wordsworth
CTO · Meela
Carol Palombini
Coach & Consultant · Palombini Consulting & Coaching
Dan Smith
Executive Coach; Tech & Product Due Diligence and M&A Advisor
David Yakimischak
Chief Technology Officer
Dennis Pannuto
Executive Technology Leader & Coach
Edoardo Turelli
Exited Founder/CTO • Advisor • Consultant • Coach • CTO
Emma Hopkinson-Spark
CTO Coach, former Chief of Staff at 101 Ways · 101 Ways
Eric Weiss
CTO, Executive Coach, Speaker and Author
Evelyn van Kelle
Change Management Consultant & Trainer · Xebia
Francis Lacoste
VPE Coach, former senior engineering leader at Salesforce and Heroku · Salesforce/Heroku
Geoff Watts
Business and Personal Coach to ambitious leaders
Graham Hobson
Entrepreneur. Advisor. CTO. Founder of Photobox · Photobox
Guthrie Cooper
Senior Group Product Manager · Just Eat Takeaway.com
Hywel Carver
Founder and CEO · Skiller Whale
Irina Pushkina
Independent CTO & Executive Technology Advisor · Designed in Flow
James Conroy-Finn
Founder · Invetica

— and 44 more, by name unsung —

§II

Underwritten By

The houses behind the program. Tiers as disclosed.
QA.techGold
Skiller WhaleGold
SonarGold
AikidoSilver
VentionSilver
CoderExhibitors
Imaginary CloudExhibitors
QA Tech
§III

The Programme

Selected from 20 sessions on the bill.
  • 09:00-09:15

    Chair’s Opening Remarks

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  • 09:15-09:20

    Chair’s Opening Remarks

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  • 09:35-10:05

    Keynote – Communicating Effectively with Non-Technical Leaders

    One of the hardest and least appreciated challenges for a CTO is communicating with, negotiating with, and building trust with non-engineering leaders. There are three independent …

  • 09:40-10:10

    Keynote – Owners Not Renters: How We Build an Intelligent Future That Belongs to Everyone

    Your AI stack is built on infrastructure you don’t control. Models, platforms, data pipelines: all rented from companies whose interests don’t always align with yours. Drawing on …

  • 10:05-10:30

    Presentation – The Startup Way: Innovating Within a Corporate Environment

    Large organisations kill good ideas slowly. Approval cycles, risk aversion, and competing priorities turn promising initiatives into long-delayed projects or quiet cancellations. …

  • 10:10-10:35

    Presentation – Leading with EI: The Human Edge in an AI-Driven World

    The leaders who thrive in this era won’t do it by keeping pace with the technology alone. The capabilities AI cannot replicate, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, the ability …

  • 11:10-11:35

    Presentation – Shipping Faster, Trusting Less: Closing the AI Confidence Gap

    Every engineering org using AI coding tools has hit the same tension. Velocity is up. PRs ship faster than ever. But confidence in what’s reaching production hasn’t kept up. The kn…

  • 11:15-11:40

    Presentation with Hywel Carver

    Hywel has led a wide range of dev teams for the past decade (including two VC-backed start-ups), and is a published curriculum author. He wrote his first program in C aged 9, and i…

  • 11:35-12:20

    Panel – The Hard Calls: Leadership, Missteps, and What You Don’t Say Out Loud

    Being a CTO means making decisions with incomplete information, under pressure, about people. Most of those decisions don’t have a clean answer. Bringing together technology leade…

Intermission
Part the Second · For the Buyer

What does it mean when 54 companies show up — and 6 bet on three roles at once?

54 companies. six are betting more than once.

The numbers below are derived from the speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors on this page — cross-referenced into one ledger. They are the only thing here that 10times.com cannot tell you.

01Fig. 01 — Composition of the House
6All threespeak · spons · exh
2Sponsoringsponsor only
7Exhibitingexhibitor only
39Companies Speakingspeaker only

The Triple-Threat

Coder·Imaginary Cloud·QA.tech·Skiller Whale·Vention·HelloFresh

02Fig. 02 — The Voices, by Seniority

77% of the speakers carry senior titles — C-suite, Founder, VP, or Director-level.

  • C-suite3655%
  • Founder / Owner69%
  • VP-level711%
  • Director / Head of23%
  • Product12%
  • Engineer · IC58%
  • Advisor / Investor12%
  • Other roles812%

Of 66 on the bill · classified by free-text title

03Fig. 03 — The Heaviest in the Room
  1. 01CoderSp·EEx
  2. 02Imaginary CloudSp·EEx
  3. 03QA.techSp·G1V
  4. 04Skiller WhaleSp·G1V
  5. 05VentionSp·S1V
  6. 06AikidoSp·S
  7. 07HelloFreshEx1V
  8. 08SonarSp·G
  9. 09BabbelEx
  10. 10Booking.comEx
  11. 11CintEx
  12. 12DHL eCommerce2V
  13. 13EddingEx
  14. 14Just Eat Takeaway.com2V
04Fig. 04 — By Tier
gold3
38% of 8
silver2
25% of 8
exhibitors2
25% of 8
unspecified1
13% of 8
05Fig. 05 — The Missing · who's at peer events but not here

These companies sponsored two or more peer events recently, but aren't on this program. For an organizer, that's a list of warm prospects.

06Fig. 06 — Adjacent Convocations · by shared underwriters

Sister convocations

Same brand, other regions