Hear how this CFO uses 

Tech for Non-Techies to lead in the Digital Age

Gustavo Juarez is the Chief Financial Officer of a luxury car maker

• Are you secretly confused by tech speak?
• Do you need to interact with data scientists, developers and product managers (but you're nervous you don't really know what they do)?
• Do you have an idea for a tech venture, but no tech skills to build it?

Then you're in the right place! At Tech for Non-Techies, we help business leaders thrive in a world changed by tech. 

Our clients:

• Lead digital transformation in corporates
• Transition career into fast growing tech businesses
• Build tech ventures as non-technical founders
• Make smart angel investments in tech 

Hear how this MBA professor uses

Tech for Non-Techies to lead in the Digital Age

Professor JeAnna Abbott teaches AI, Data Science and Digital Strategy at Mays Business School at Texas A&M

Our classes have been taught at

When I got into business school, I thought my career was sorted

When I got the admissions letter from Chicago Booth, I thought life was going to be sorted. Or at least my career! 

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is consistently ranked as the global #1 business school by Business Week and The Economist, and counts Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, and the founders of Grubhub among its alumnae. Honestly, I was feeling pretty smug.

My plan, as I wrote in my admissions essay, was to get to business school, come up with a brilliant startup idea, get a team together, get funding and leave with an MBA and a startup. Naturally, world domination would follow.

By this point, I had worked in a top financial PR company, had a stint in a private equity firm in London and worked in India. I had very little knowledge of the tech sector, but it seemed to be where all the opportunity was coming from. 

I decided to launch a tech venture

But I had zero tech knowledge

I desperately wanted to join the tech boom, and spent most of business school testing various ideas for tech startups. Eventually, the beginnings of an idea for a retail tech business began to take place.

I managed to convince some of my classmates to join me and, through sheer bloody-mindedness, we got into the Chicago Booth New Venture Challenge, the top academic accelerator in the United States.

The problem was, none of my classmates actually new how to build the thing we were pitching. Naturally, we didn't get very far in the accelerator, but again, through more persistence, I managed to raise some angel funding and marched bravely forth. 

I pretended to understand what developers were talking about

This is when disasters began to strike.

I began working with a CTO who said words to me I did not understand. I secretly Googled them and watched endless YouTube explanations that left me more confused. I signed up and paid for coding courses, which I either hated and completed, or failed to finish and wallowed in guilt. 

There are plenty of courses helping you to retrain to become a developer or a data scientist, but that's not what I needed. I needed to know how to work with technical professionals to deliver a product into users' hands. 

I ended up learning how to hire and work with developers, designers and data analysts on the job. It was a hard, painful and expensive journey, but when I was going through it, there was no other way.

Then I realized that to succeed in tech

You need to learn how to work with developers, not become one

I began writing about what I was learning in Forbes, and when my article What Non-Technical Founders Really Need To Know About Tech reached thousands in less than a day, I realised that I was not alone. This article was the beginning of Tech for Non-Techies.

I saw that there was a group of people like me, who wanted to understand the tech world and join this economic boom, but we were not going to become tech bros. 

If you've ever gone to a tech meet up, you'll know that being a non-technical professional there can feel like being an illiterate ape.

Hackathons with bro-grammers, beer and pizza did not welcome me with open arms.

I don't believe the brogrammer way is the only way

I began giving talks to teach tech concepts to non-technical professionals. I taught University of Chicago alumni, spoke at the Mayor of London's office and at entrepreneurial hubs like WeWork. 

One day, an MBA student from London Business School came to my talk and found it so useful, he convinced London Business School to host my course. 

Since then, students have used Tech for Non-Techies to build products, lead digital transformation at corporates and transition into careers in tech.

To succeed in today's economy, ambitious professionals need to become Digital Collaborators. Being a Digital Collaborator means speaking a common language with tech teams and asking the right questions. It means learning to work with developers, data scientists and designers, NOT retraining to become one.

I created Tech for Non-Techies because it is exactly what I wish I had when I began my rocky road into getting to grips with tech. It is a place where smart, curious and ambitious professionals can come together to learn and boost their careers.