Technology Governance Needs Curiosity

There’s a version of the technology governance conversation that concludes: we need a technologist on the board. Someone who can evaluate architecture, assess vendor choices, and validate the technical program.

I think that framing asks for the wrong thing.

Of course, the answer isn’t identical for every organization. It depends on the industry, the regulatory environment, the complexity of the products, and the maturity of the technology stack. But even in more complex settings, the question isn’t simply whether you have a technologist, it’s whether you have someone who understands the risks.

A board member who can evaluate architecture decisions will struggle to stay at the right altitude. The temptation to get into technical detail is real when the expertise is there. And getting into technical detail often undermines the board-management dynamic that makes oversight productive.

Every board does need a baseline level of technology fluency, alongside a few members with deeper expertise. That’s not a binary. It’s a spectrum, much as we approach financial oversight. Not every director needs to be a CPA, but every board needs enough financial literacy to ask meaningful questions and recognize when the answers are incomplete.

The same logic applies here. We need enough fluency and curiosity to ask thoughtful questions, understand the answers, and recognize when we need to bring in outside expert advisors.

The profile that fills this governance gap most effectively is often not a technologist. It’s someone who has led through technology-dependent operations, managed vendor concentration risk, navigated a significant cyber or continuity event, or governed technology risk at the enterprise level. The operational context matters as much as the technical vocabulary.

As technology becomes more central to enterprise operations, technology governance fluency becomes a board effectiveness issue, not a specialty credential. I’ve seen this shift up close, having spent my career at the intersection of technology leadership and board governance.

Boards that nominate for curiosity and operating experience tend to get better oversight than those nominating for credentials alone.