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Q&A: Dan Pham, Chief Technology Officer

Last updated on August 10th, 2023

Dan Pham, our Chief Technology Officer, guides us through his story and shares with us his views about leadership and what it takes to succeed in tech.

Tell us about your career path

I earned an Engineering degree and then started off as a software engineer at Nortel. Nortel turned out to be an excellent school to learn rigorous software development. Due to my interest in business, I’ve also completed an MBA early in my career. Throughout the years, I’ve gradually taken on more responsibilities including development management, QA, devops and product management. I’ve had the chance to work in software companies in multiple verticals which exposed me to all kinds of different environments. In the past 8-10 years, I’ve held executive-level positions to scale up software businesses.

What does the role of CTO entail?

The role of CTO in a tech startup goes from the early-stage tech startup CTO who codes during the day and manages developers at night – to the late-stage CTO who is externally-facing, mandated to build a scalable team and ensure that the tech is aligned with the business. The latter role tends to require a strong business acumen/intuition and the ability to work with sometimes vague objectives.

What drew you to Novisto and the position of CTO?

I’ve been a CTO in a number of different tech companies and as I’ve shared with many around me at Novisto, I think we have something very special here: an opportunity to make a difference at scale in a new fast-growing market that impacts our lives.

What exciting projects is the team working on? What is the most exciting project or challenge that Novisto can offer to a talent?

Novisto positions itself as an ESG data management platform and the team is actively working on enhancing the set of features that facilitate the acquisition, configuration and exporting of our customers’ ESG data. Our vision is to use AI and other ways to help our customers to achieve their ESG goals year over year and make a bigger impact through the acceleration of sustainable practices around the world.

What does being a leader mean to you?

Being a leader means properly communicating the overall direction to your team, then giving your employees the tools and conditions to succeed. If your employees aren’t able to succeed, it is the leader’s problem one way or another.

How would you describe the culture at Novisto?

The culture at Novisto was built on a group of mission-driven individuals who are dedicated to the cause of the company. We believe in work-life balance, gender equality and socially-responsible behavior – and we work hard to promote such values.

What excites you most about Novisto’s future? What advice would you give to someone who aims to grow into a CTO role?

We strongly believe in the future of the ESG industry. The most exciting aspect about working at Novisto is that we’ll all be part of building something bigger than ourselves that will make a real difference in people’s lives and at scale. We have every intention of building one of the next Canadian unicorns.

What type of talent are you looking to add to the Novisto tech team? What are key skills they should possess?

We need full-stack developers, data engineers, QA automation engineers, AI experts and a variety of software experts. But over and above the technical skills, we’re looking for passionate people who have strong ambitions and who want to be part of something big – REALLY big.

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