Nataliia Liepshieieva, RedCore: “Today’s CTO is less about certain technology itself, but more about system thinking, resilience, and long-term strategy”
Shows & conferences - 11 February, 2026
During the recent ICE Barcelona 2026 event, Focus Gaming News had the opportunity to speak with Nataliia Liepshieieva, CTO at RedCore, to discuss the dynamic shifts impacting B2B and digital markets, the evolving responsibilities of a Chief Technology Officer, and the future of platform architecture.
Liepshieieva began by addressing the growing influence of artificial intelligence on B2B and digital markets. She asserted that there wouldn't be a "distinctive shift from AI" as it has already "infiltrated all spheres of our life" and will "stay with us for long". The focus, she explained, is now on "how AI can actually run the business". RedCore, for instance, is leveraging AI to automate business processes, generate insights, and "decrease manual labour", thereby reducing analysis time and the possibility of biased opinions. A significant trend she highlighted is the move towards "agentic workflows" – AI capable of autonomously taking actions – alongside the ongoing exploration of developer tools to accelerate building and shipping processes.
The conversation then turned to the transformation of the CTO's role within large enterprises, moving beyond hands-on coding to a more strategic position. Liepshieieva candidly stated that "a CTO has to be all three and even more", referring to the demands of being a platform architect, technology strategist, and crisis manager. The primary responsibility now involves "designing systems that can survive constant change, high load, regulation, market pressure". As a technology strategist, the CTO must discern "what to innovate, where to standardise, and where not to chase hype", directly influencing speed, compliance, costs, and margins. Furthermore, the role inevitably encompasses being an "anti-crisis manager", building teams adept at handling incidents calmly. Liepshieieva underscored the critical importance of people management, concluding that "Today's CTO is less about certain technology itself, but more about system thinking, resilience, and long-term strategy."
Regarding the future of platform architectures, Liepshieieva predicted continued evolution driven by "multiple areas of volatility" such as regulation, traffic spikes, rapid product changes, and external integrations. A paramount challenge she highlighted is "integration complexity", particularly as platforms become increasingly reliant on vast partner ecosystems. She stressed that "everything comes down to managing complexity", as whilst the pace of change cannot be slowed, systems can be designed to prevent critical elements from being overlooked. Consequently, automation has become a "baseline requirement", encompassing automated infrastructure provisioning, horizontal and autoscaling, self-healing, and automated testing. Architecturally, it is "critical to separate core product, regulatory and integration layers" to facilitate rapid feature delivery whilst maintaining platform stability under high load.