A First CTO for a Builder
CRB, a global provider of engineering, architecture, construction, and consulting for life sciences and food and beverage, named Joe Finsterwald as its first chief technology officer on July 23. The word "first" is the story. A firm that designs and builds regulated manufacturing facilities has run for decades without a single executive owning technology strategy end to end. Creating the seat now says the leadership concluded that scattered IT and project-level tooling no longer meet the moment. Chief executive Vahid Ownjazayeri put it plainly, saying "technology is inseparable from how our clients design, build and operate their facilities."
That framing is worth sitting with. CRB's clients are pharmaceutical and food manufacturers who face intense regulatory and quality demands. When the firm building your facility treats technology as inseparable from the work, the implication is that data, automation, and AI now shape delivery timelines and compliance outcomes. For our readers in adjacent project-heavy or asset-heavy businesses, the pattern is familiar. Technology moves from a support function to a determinant of margin and risk, and at some point the organisation needs one person accountable for the whole of it. CRB reached that point and acted.
Who Finsterwald Is
Finsterwald brings more than fifteen years across cybersecurity, financial services, enterprise software, and high-growth technology. Most recently he co-founded Aberrant.IO, where he served as chief product and technology officer and chief information security officer. Before that he was chief technology officer at First Republic Bank, and he held senior technology roles at Gradifi, Vistaprint, and Karmaloop. That resume is notable for a construction and engineering firm. It leans toward software, security, and startups rather than the built environment, which suggests CRB wanted a technologist who can bring product discipline and a security mindset into a sector that has not traditionally centred either.
The security thread is the one we would watch. A leader who has held the CISO title tends to build with resilience and threat exposure in mind from the start. In a firm handling sensitive client facility designs and increasingly connected field technology, that instinct is valuable. Finsterwald described his aim modestly, saying he looks forward to working with teams "to strengthen our digital capabilities, help our people work more effectively." The plain language matters here. The near-term job is internal capability and effectiveness, and the more ambitious client-facing technology work follows once the foundation holds.
The Mandate Runs Into the Field
CRB defined the role broadly. Finsterwald will oversee technology, IT, and data functions while guiding overall technology strategy. His stated focus areas include AI adoption, automation, cybersecurity, digital field technologies, and enterprise data capabilities, all pointed at strengthening project delivery and operational performance. The inclusion of digital field technologies is the tell. This is a remit that reaches beyond the back office, onto the construction site and into how facilities actually get built, which is where a firm like CRB creates or loses value.
That breadth is a double-edged mandate. Owning everything from cybersecurity to job-site technology gives a CTO real leverage, and it also spreads attention across problems with very different rhythms. Enterprise data platforms move on quarters. Field technology adoption depends on crews, subcontractors, and habits that change slowly. For readers who hold similarly wide mandates, the discipline is sequencing. CRB has signalled the destination, a coordinated technology strategy spanning office and field. The order in which Finsterwald tackles those fronts will decide whether the role delivers compounding gains or spreads itself thin chasing too many initiatives at once.
Why AI Adoption Sits in the Job Description
CRB explicitly tied the role to advancing AI adoption and automation. In an engineering and construction context, that language points at concrete uses. Think design automation, generative approaches to facility layout, predictive scheduling, and pulling signal out of the enormous document trails these projects generate. The firm serves life sciences clients where validation and documentation consume vast effort, and that is fertile ground for automation that actually saves hours. Naming AI in the first CTO's mandate makes the expectation explicit from day one rather than leaving it as an aspiration to be discovered later.
We would caution readers not to read AI ambition as AI readiness. The gap between naming AI in a mandate and running it in production is where most enterprises stall, and construction has particular hurdles around data quality, fragmented systems, and field adoption. CRB's advantage is that it created a single accountable owner before scaling those efforts, which is the right order. A coordinated data foundation has to exist before AI delivers reliably. Finsterwald's oversight of enterprise data and AI in the same remit at least gives CRB a chance to build those layers in sequence instead of bolting AI onto a shaky base.
The Signal for Project-Based Firms
CRB is part of a broader move among engineering, construction, and professional services firms to formalise technology leadership. For years these businesses treated IT as plumbing and kept technology decisions close to individual projects. The creation of a CTO seat reflects a recognition that client expectations, competitive pressure, and AI have raised the stakes. When rivals start delivering facilities faster or with better data-driven insight, the firm without a coherent technology strategy falls behind quietly, project by project, until the gap is hard to close.
For our readers running technology inside PE-backed services or project-based businesses, CRB is a clean example of the maturation curve. The first CTO hire is a milestone that changes how the organisation invests, governs, and talks about technology. It also raises expectations internally, and the new leader inherits the burden of proving the role's value quickly. The lesson is to pair the appointment with a concrete near-term mandate and visible early wins. A first CTO who disappears into strategy documents for a year invites doubt about whether the seat was needed at all.
What to Take Into Your Own Planning
The through-line of CRB's move is that technology has crossed from support into the core of how the firm delivers and differentiates. If you lead technology at a business where the product is a project, an asset, or a physical outcome, the question CRB just answered is whether one executive should own the full technology strategy across office and field. CRB decided the answer is yes, and it hired a software and security veteran to do it. The composition of that hire, heavy on product and security, is itself a statement about where the firm sees risk and opportunity.
The practical takeaway is to define the mandate before the market forces your hand. CRB linked its CTO explicitly to project delivery, client value, and AI, which gives Finsterwald a clear scorecard. Vague technology mandates produce vague outcomes and easy budget cuts. If you are building or reshaping a technology leadership role, borrow CRB's specificity. Tie the seat to the outcomes the business already cares about, and the case for investment writes itself when the next planning cycle arrives.
