CBTS has appointed Mark Giles as chief technology officer, consolidating AI, product management, and emerging technology strategy under a single executive. The move, announced August 31, puts the Cincinnati-based technology company's technology evaluation and client deployment functions on a shorter path, with Giles continuing to lead enterprise AI adoption.
Giles has spent a decade at CBTS across sales, delivery, operations, and technology roles. Most recently, he served as vice president of AI, leading enterprise adoption of artificial intelligence. As CTO, he will set company-wide technology priorities, oversee development of client offerings, and continue to direct AI adoption and product management.
A structure built around deployment speed
The appointment connects the teams evaluating emerging technologies more directly with the groups responsible for developing, packaging, and delivering services to customers. CBTS said bringing technology evaluation, product strategy, and solution architecture under one executive should reduce internal handoffs and create a more direct route from experimentation to production deployments.
"Our clients are looking for more than access to new AI capabilities; they need a partner who understands where those capabilities will make a meaningful difference," CBTS CEO Kristin Russell said. She pointed to Giles' experience across the organization as important to determining where AI can produce practical results in customer environments.
Giles' background at CBTS includes helping build the company's automation infrastructure and launching its network-as-a-service and software-defined wide area networking, or SD-WAN, offerings. Before his corporate technology career, he served as a Data Systems Chief in the U.S. Marine Corps, working in large-scale systems management.
Internal deployment as a reference model
The expanded role follows a company-wide deployment of Anthropic's Claude Enterprise that CBTS used to test how generative AI could be governed and scaled internally before applying the operating model to client work. Under Giles' leadership, CBTS expanded Claude Enterprise from an initial 250 users in March 2026 to all 2,300 employees within four months.
The company centralized governance of AI access, spending, and agent activity through a single control plane, addressing operational issues that can become more complex as enterprise AI moves from isolated pilots to broad employee adoption. CBTS said the program recovered its full investment in less than three months and has contributed approximately $2 million in closed-won revenue.
The company also reported no major security incidents attributable to AI during the deployment and said incident containment is running twice as fast with an agentic Security Operations Center. Those results illustrate the operating model Giles will now apply more broadly: evaluate technologies within CBTS, establish the governance and infrastructure needed to run them at scale, and use those deployment lessons to shape services offered to clients.
"Technology strategy should be measured by how effectively we move the right capabilities from experimentation to execution," Giles said. "Emerging technology creates value when it improves the environments our clients manage every day."
Customer requirements drive development priority
The structure gives CBTS clients a more direct role in influencing which emerging capabilities receive development priority. Rather than separating technology research from product management and service delivery, the company plans to coordinate those functions around the requirements encountered in customer environments.
That approach is particularly relevant for enterprise AI, where deployment involves more than providing employees access to models. Organizations must also manage security, permissions, costs, data, agent activity, and integration with existing applications and infrastructure. CBTS is positioning its own AI rollout as an operational reference point for handling those requirements at enterprise scale.
For executives evaluating how to structure AI leadership, the CBTS model offers a concrete case study. The AI Learning Path for CTOs covers similar territory for technology leaders building governance and deployment frameworks. The appointment also reflects a broader trend in AI for Executives & Strategy, where technical evaluation and business delivery are increasingly managed under one mandate.
Founded in 1994, CBTS designs, builds, and operates technology infrastructure for mid-market and enterprise organizations across North America. Its services span AI, data, applications, platforms, and security. CBTS and its OnX Canada division serve more than 3,000 clients, and the company ranks No. 44 on CRN's Solution Provider 500.
Why this matters for executives and strategy leaders
CBTS compressed a 250-user AI pilot to a 2,300-employee deployment in four months and recovered its investment in under three months. For executives, the takeaway is structural: consolidating technology evaluation, governance, and product strategy under one leader removed handoffs that typically slow enterprise AI adoption. If your organization still separates AI research from the teams that package and deliver services, you are likely carrying the same friction CBTS just eliminated.
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