Hurst AdvisorsLLC

Providing technology leadership during critical transitions.

Hurst Advisors fractional Chief Technology Officer services help assure you stay on track during challenging times. Whether this is a planned and expected growth related change, an unexpected bump in the road, or adapting to emerging technology such as Artificial Intelligence, we are here to help you and your team.

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Leaders who benefit from my expertise and engagement.

Executives

Chief Information Officer or Business Leader

Looking for engineering leadership, perhaps as you're adopting AI or your startup is growing.

Product

Chief Product Officer

Looking for a technical counterpart to help strategize on how to strengthen customer value.

Technology

CTO or VP of Engineering

Looking for guidance and a sounding board as your scope is increasing or you are looking for areas of improvement.

My approach: team first, AI second

First align your teams as product owners. Then use AI to unlock their capacity.

Read about product focused teams
Where I focus

When an expert leader has a big impact.

01

Interim CTO while recruiting for a vacancy

Steady technology leadership while you search, and a clear hand-off to the person you hire.

Read more 02

Smooth growth transition for a CTO whose mandate is expanding

A sounding board and a second set of hands as the CTO takes on a larger organization.

Read more 03

Navigate the move to a business unit or product aligned structure

Design the target structure and lead the transition without stalling delivery.

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Portrait of Walter Hurst
Who I am

Walter Hurst

I have led technology organizations for more than 25 years, from founding a venture-backed software company to running technology for a business at the center of U.S. banking.

Get to know Walter

3B+ Inquiriesannual volume for the fraud and identity products owned as Certos CTO
20× TPVpayment growth at Boku, $500M to $10B, while VP of Data and Security
200+ Stafftechnology org guided through two major transformations to establish product ownership
99.9%availability reached across a dozen products, tracked against SLOs
How we partner

Engagements shaped to the need.

I work alongside your leadership team, not around it. The aim is a structure your people can run without me.

For a clear starting point

Focused assessment

A defined look at how your people, process, technology and data work today, with a plan to improve.

Read more For ongoing leadership support

Advisory retainer

A regular cadence with you and your leaders, adjusting the plan as you learn.

Read more For a moment of change

Transition support

Hands-on support through a reorganization, platform change or the search for a full-time CTO.

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From the field

Results from leading technology organizations.

People

Two reorganizations into product ownership

Led a 200+ person group through two reorganizations into teams that own features, resiliency, quality and security together.

 Process

Quarterly planning that earned board funding

Adding quarterly planning to the annual cycle led to two straight years of hitting product, security and revenue targets, and new board funding.

 Technology

Vendor consolidation worth millions

Consolidated vendor portfolio including removing vendors from across an enterprise, sunset legacy products and renegotiated platform contracts for millions in savings.

 Data

A clean audit for a 1PB+ dataset

Took a 1PB+ dataset serving 2,000+ banks through a clean data-quality audit and stronger governance.
See all results

Tell me about the outcome you're after.

Whether it's a team that has slowed down, an AI plan that needs direction or a board asking hard questions, it starts with a conversation.

Start a conversation