FK T&P100 Report 2024-2025
Welcome to the T&P100 report.
A comprehensive, pan-European deep dive into the views of the leading Technology and Product executives and thought leaders on the continent today.
We created the T&P Forum in mid 2023, with the goal of connecting, challenging and better understanding the CTOs, CPOs, Engineering and Data executives building the most exciting companies in the world, from Europe.
In bringing the very best of Europe's technically-minded operators together, we wanted to strengthen and deepen the region's talent pool, support their success and, ultimately, move the ball forward for the continent's T&P talent.
The below report represents, we believe, the most comprehensive Tech and Product-specific research carried out across Europe. Selected from a range of geographies, asset classes, sectors and stages, there are many nuanced opinions to take in here.
Drawing conclusions from a sample of 100 is, of course, to be done cautionarily. Yet, at the same time, it is clear that this is a unique cohort of talent looking to contribute to commercial success as well as innovation, ambitious for themselves as well as their companies, excited by the potential of emerging technology and calling out for more authority and autonomy.
Hannah French & Stephen Rosenthal, Partners, Founders Keepers & Co-Conveners | Founders Keepers T&P Forum
Foreword by Martin Eriksson
“Europe doesn't matter anymore. Europe is basically a giant museum.”
So said Professor John J. Mearsheimer, echoed a year later by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The problem isn’t that two titans of international politics say it - it’s that we Europeans tend to believe it. While boundless chest-thumping optimism isn’t our style, we would do well to remember our strengths.
There are three pillars to a thriving startup (and scaleup) ecosystem - a tech and entrepreneur friendly regulatory environment, access to capital, and talent. While you can argue that there is still work to be done on the regulatory environment, and efforts such as EU Inc are important, Europe isn’t exactly a tough environment - it already creates more new companies than any other region in the world every year. With record new billion+ raises by funds including Atomico, Balderton, EQT Ventures, Index, as well as more and more deals by US funds in Europe, access to capital isn’t a problem anymore either.
And as this report shows, the Tech, Product, Data and Design talent in Europe is exceptional. We often talk about Europe being 5-10 years behind the US, but that is simply not true anymore. Listening to the insights of the Product and Technology leaders interviewed here, it’s clear that they are all on the cutting edge of technology and ways of working. There’s a reason Mind the Product - the world’s largest Product community - came out of London, and not the Valley.
2024 was undeniably a tough year, but T&P100 respondents show that they have just been getting on with the business of building world-class companies. As Technology and Product leaders, we have cross-functional superpowers on the strategic use of technology to drive business transformation and success. That impact is finally starting to be recognised in the C-suite, and I hope to see it more recognised around the Board table soon.
Europe’s ecosystem has 3.5 million employees, 350 companies over $1billion, $3 trillion total value, and ticks all the boxes for a thriving ecosystem. We can listen to the naysayers - or we can ignore them and focus on doing better, building bigger, and aiming higher as we continue to build incredible products and companies.
Which will you do in 2025?
Our T&P100
Any survey-based report is only as strong as its contributing participants. We can say with certainty that, regardless of whether they are currently based in a rapid-growth startup, scaleup, soonicorn, unicorn or multi-billion dollar entity, the Technology and Product leaders we have had the pleasure of working with in writing this report offer views of the very best of what Europe has to offer. Their opinions are worth understanding and, we humbly believe, hold the key to unlocking billions of dollars of innovation-based revenue and growth.
Thank you so much to our participants, submitting their perspectives from Aahus, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Cambridge, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Gothenberg, London, Munich, Paris, Prague and Stockholm.
What is your current job title?
What is your current company's asset class?
What is your gender?
A Selection of T&P100 Participant Companies
“We need to strengthen the Product network in Europe. With the absence of a broad network, you get confirmation bias from your own bubble. Without interacting with others, you miss the opportunity to explore new ideas and gain a different perspective on important topics.
“I strive to sorround myself with people with different DNA, to challenge my own thinking - finding the right mix of people is imperative for success.
"A wider community would also ensure we knew if we had enough of a seat at our particular table, asking other leaders if they have additional impact to help our companies succeed.”
T&P Representation on the Executive Leadership Team
A common theme from the past 12 months of CTO and CPO interviews across the continent has been where technical leaders sit within their wider organisations.
Chief Technology Officers are established members of technology-led companies. The days of CIOs feel numbered now, with CTO clearly overtaking CIO as the most common title for a company's technical leader.
The same cannot be said for Chief Product Officers. As the below shows, Product leadership is less-well understood or invested in by non-technical European Founders and investors. When they are appointed, CPOs are often the last addition to the executive team. Subsequently, and as seen clearly during the global post-pandemic economic downturn, CPOs have often been the first executives to leave the C-suite, most often rolled into the CTO's organisation, with "CTPO" potentially a bellwether for troubled times. We have discussed this at length with our T&P Forum.
The Product community in Europe is of the highest calibre it has ever been, and is asking for C-suite opportunities. European investors are starting to get wiser to this, pushing for more executive and non-executive Product leadership. We see this trend only increasing over the next 12 months. One thing is clear - the lack of a C-suite level Product leader is a red flag for any Product talent, who see it as an indicator that the company does not prioritise Product.
Are you a member of the Executive Leadership Team?
If "No", what is your current role?
"The best Product leaders will not go to a company where they are simply an executioner, where Product is expected simply to deliver exactly what the CEO tells you to do."
Do You Report to the CEO?
"The invisible line in the board room is the biggest challenge the Product function faces. If we don’t tackle it, European Product will be under threat.
"I always tell my Product teams: we need to learn the language of Commercial - it will never be enough to have great Product ideas without understanding of the key drivers of the P&L. If your Commercial counterparts don’t see a direct connection to P&L drivers in Product, you will not succeed."
T&P Teams - Headcount, Functions & Where they Work
As of 2024, there are more than 3.5m people employed within European technology companies, showing Europe is major powerhouse in global technology. With that scale comes Tech and Product functions of significant scale and complexity, as demonstrated below.
Headcount alone doesn't tell the whole story of course. With Europe spanning fifty states, multiple languages and cultures wholly distinct from one another, the construction and leadership of pan-continental teams is incredibly complex, giving European CTOs and CPOs challenges unlike those of their US counterparts, many of whom will have similar-sized headcounts, yet concentrated in fewer, bigger and similarly cultured hubs.
The key headlines of this section are amongst the most fascinating and counter intuitive of the T&P100 2024, namely: There has been a clear pendulum swing back from a preference of "remote" to "in-office".
The global experiment of completely remote teams, brought about by the necessity of the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020 and beyond, seems to have now been rejected by a significant number of CTOs and CPOs, many of whom had been amongst its biggest advocates mid and post-pandemic.
What is your company's current headcount?
What is your team's current headcount?
What functions do you Lead?
What is your current office policy and what would be your preferred office policy?
T&P Teams - Diversity & Hiring Challenges
The majority of CTOs and CPOs surveyed believe their teams are suitably diverse. To stress, diversity can, of course, refer to a broad number of attributes, from race, gender, class and education to location, neurodiversity, sexual orientation and age, amongst others. The key point here is that the executives believe they are headed in the right direction, with many citing policies they and their teams have instilled within Tech and Product to help make progress here. Engineering still lags behind, with considerable work to do.
There is still far too great a delta between diverse hiring at entry level and that at the senior and C-suite level, and it's no coincidence that, of our 100 executive surveyees, 80 identify as men.
With the extraordinary announcements of the reversal of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies coming out of the largest US technology companies in early 2025, businesses will inevitably see themselves judged by potential future employees on how they navigate these unknown waters.
In terms of the hardest roles to hire for, our respondents point to individual contributor Product Managers. CPOs have a part to play here. Education and advocacy are amongst the most important roles T&P leaders can play, making commercially-minded arguments as to how PMs can unlock their and their company's success.
You can read more on this from a T&P Forum Dinner write up on the rise of the Chief Education Officer, here.
How would you rate the current levels of diversity in your team(s)?
Which roles are the hardest to fill in your organisation?
"The Product function looks different in every organisation, depending on each company’s problem set. The higher up you get, the more new problems you encounter, none of which have any established, formal frameworks.
"That’s why high calibre functional networks are absolutely vital. Product networks are massively under-developed in Europe. Technology is far more mature of course. We need Product to catch up at pace."
T&P Aircover - Boards, Investors and their T&P Fluency
Do you believe your CEO and wider C-suite have the required grasp of your team's work to understand, assess and contribute to your output?
Is there T&P representation on your Board?
If no, does that affect your ability to influence?
"Not having a Tech or Product-minded person on the Board who understands what it takes to make things means you are restricted on longer-term strategy and plans. Those topics get restricted in place for more short-term, known entities - something investors have seen other companies in their portfolio do, with more likely return on investment.
"Without a more risk-taking or long-term thinking NED voice, Product and Tech initiatives tend to get watered down."
T&P100 Pulse Check 2024
- There is a major discrepancy between the influence and resource Tech and Product leaders are granted by the "non-technical" side of the leadership table and the results they are expected to deliver.
- Many T&P leaders consider that their contributions are the least well understood by the commercially-minded C-suite and investors - often starting with a non-technical Founder and/or CEO. However, CTOs and CPOs are expected to support revenue growth through radical and rapid innovation: "make it go faster" or "just add some AI."
- Tech and Product leaders increasingly understand the need to demonstrate how their work impacts customers and, crucially, revenue generation for their companies. It's not enough to be an ideas factory of long-term roadmaps. Many acknowledge that as much as Commercial leadership needs to better understand Tech and Product, the inverse is also true.
- Far too often, as our survey shows, CTOs and CPOs have seen the success or failure of their functions depend on their ability to "speak tech to the exec", rather than the best ideas winning.
- A significant number of our T&P100 believe they have strong commercial understanding - often in contrast to the relatively weak Tech understanding of non-technical Founders, CEOs and/or investors. Product leaders feel this most keenly, with our data showing that they are least likely to have commercial accountability or a non-executive counterpart to mentor, guide and offer them Board-level advocacy.
- AI was, of course, the hottest topic of 2024. CTOs and CPOs are broadly convinced that their companies need to embrace it, but there is a healthy cynicism that we may still be in the midst of a hype loop.
There is a clear line down the board room table between the "commercial" and "technical" sides of the business, with technical considered inferior to commercial.
Net Opinion
As a Technology/Product/Data leader, I'm expected to be responsible for innovation across the business.
Net Opinion
"In growth companies, the best Boards really lean into product bets. If you're aiming for innovation, you have to be ready to fail more than you're going to win and manage this effectively.
"Boards should be encouraging companies to move quickly and fail as quickly as possible, not invest huge amounts of money for months on end trying to work out whether they've got a good idea or not."
The success or failure of the Technology/Product/Data function in a business relies too heavily on the communication and convincing skills of the CTO/CPO/CDO.
Net Opinion
"Product and Tech leaders aren’t rewarded on outcomes or outputs. Outcome is everything.
"I see the Human Success Formula as: Input + Output = Outcome.
"Most companies don’t reward Input, but that’s the piece you can control 100% - the way you show up every day, working smart and in an engaged way.
"Output - you also control 100% - Is the work you do best-in-class? Is it thoughtful?
"Outcome is the one you don't control 100%.
"If you only reward on the outcomes people deliver, you create bad behaviours and toxic cultures.
"Product teams are rarely measured on input, output or outcome. Tech and Product leaders will have to change this to maintain engagement from the wider organisations they exist within."
As CTO/CPO/CDO, I have a sufficient understanding of the commercial reality of the business.
Net Opinion
"The thing I’ve been harping on about the past few months is that Product and Tech are experiencing a bit of a reckoning. They’ve been “agile-splaining” why they can’t be held accountable for their actions. “We need to listen to customers and test and learn" etc.. Except, this is real life. People are losing their jobs and businesses are failing. You have to be accountable.
"All the CTO/CPO roles I was seeing in 2024 were saying “commercially-minded CTO/CPO”. They’re frustrated at the lack of business acumen in these execs.
"Tech and Product guys have to win back credibility. Founders are so frustrated in hearing “Founders don’t get it” from Tech and Product leaders. It’s a symptom of the same problem."
As a CTO/CPO/CDO, it's important to regularly attend sales calls.
Net Opinion
CTOs/CPOs/CDOs need to be accountable for revenues to have true impact.
Net Opinion
If we don't embrace AI within our business, at pace, we are at real risk of future failure.
Net Opinion
Too few Technology/Product/Data leaders are appointed to CEO.
Net Opinion
"I don’t see any reason why a commercially-minded CPO or CTO couldn’t be a highly effective CEO. In SaaS businesses it’s a no brainer - the product is the company and the company is the product!
"It’s about giving Tech and Product leaders a chance - I don’t feel we get one currently."
It's increasingly hard to make a case for "build" versus "buy".
Net Opinion
Salary Survey
Base Salary by Function
Equity Value by Function
As of today, what is the current value of your equity?
Current Equity Value / Asset Class £0-£1m
Current Equity Value / Asset Class £1m+
Base + Bonus Compensation / Asset Class
What is your current risk appetite?
Current risk appetite/function
So, where do we go from here?
As the T&P100 report underlines, Europe's Technology and Product leaders represent the broadest possible range of perspectives on their disciplines and the wider organisations and sectors they operate within.
Our interactions with clients, candidates, wider ecosystem and T&P Forum consistently show that the technological side of the executive table has incredible ability, vision and ambition to transform their companies for the better.
If you would like to discuss any of these findings, introduce your CTOs and CPOs to the T&P Forum or connect more broadly, we'd be delighted to hear from you.
Hannah & Stephen
February 2025