Hawke Robinson
Chief Information & Technology Officer
Based in United States · 32+ years experience
Summary
Ethical Technology Innovation Leadership | “Perfect blend of business man & technical maven” | Ethics-first, data sovereignty, FOSS, & AI governance | SANS-published, Vice Media & Google-cited | hawke
About
"A perfect blend of business man meets technical maven... took a rag tag team of developers and built an amazing department through coaching and leading by example.
" - Brian Scardina, 2008. Reporting to Hawke at MightyWords, now runs SCARDINA Cybersecurity Consulting. Hawke was the technology leader 2000 to 2002. Built company infrastructure from 2 people (CEO, Chris MacAskill, & Hawke) to ~50 staff (plus offshore), managed $20M direct signature annual budget. Migrated from Solaris/Oracle (1.x) to open source reducing monthly cost from $1M to $350K in 3 months (2.x), & thanks to Scardina, created far better DRM (that replaced the "industry standard" Adobe DRM causing 30-50% support of sales) dropped support to under 1%. Achieved operational break-even & industry leadership in 18 months, later acquired by Barnes & Noble in 2002."
There are very few... who possess... the high-level 'soft' knowledge that maintains team cohesion... and essential support in investor pitch meetings.
" - Ben Dobyns, CEO, Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, August 2020. As technology leader from 2016 to 2021 built streaming platform from scratch for under $20K; during 2020 COVID forced conventions online & handled 20,000+ concurrent users/sec."
A rare combination of strategic vision, hands-on technical excellence, and ability to execute independently...
" - Jake Douglass, CEO, The Practicing Musician SPC, December 2024. Technology leader at Practicing Musician since 2024 & at ClimbHigh.ai since 2025, building enterprise AI with governance, ethics & data sovereignty designed in at the outset, self-hosted so data & intellectual property stay with the creator/organization.
Generally directly reports to CEO and Board of Directors.
Global Enterprise Architect & ESD Director of Operations at FranklinCovey with 3,988 associates across 150+ locations in 39 countries, reporting through their CTO, Mark Scarton, the year FC booked $585.2M. Also spent years as enterprise architect, sales engineer, cybersecurity specialist, and project manager at Trigeo (acquired by Solar Winds), Interlink Advantage (became Intrinium now Torchlight.io), serving 200+ client regional & enterprise organizations, & government agencies.
WA State Department of Health Registered Recreational Therapist. Adam Johns, Executive Director of Game to Grow, & other peers named Hawke "The Grandfather of Therapeutic Gaming" in 2018.
Proof of long-term foresight, his publications through SANS Institute in 2002 remained in their Malware FAQ until 2021. Google Chrome OS developer cited it in 2015 as basis for their PPTP ref
Skills
Software Architecture, Cloud & Infrastructure, M&A / Due Diligence, Platform Modernisation, Cybersecurity, Engineering Leadership, Vendor Management, DevOps, Governance & Risk, Data & AI
Regions covered
Industry experience
Not-for-profit, Professional Services, Retail, SaaS, Education, Healthcare
At a glance
Hawke brings hands-on experience across Software Architecture, Cloud & Infrastructure, M&A / Due Diligence, Platform Modernisation, Cybersecurity, Engineering Leadership and 4 other areas. Available for engagements across United States. Industry experience includes Not-for-profit, Professional Services, Retail, SaaS, Education and 1 more.
How fractional CTO engagements with Hawke work
Hawke works on a fractional basis — typically one to three days a week for an agreed engagement length — so you get senior technical leadership without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire. Engagements commonly include technical due diligence, board reporting, engineering team leadership, technology strategy, architecture reviews, hiring support, and stepping in as interim CTO during a transition.