In today’s fast-evolving business landscape, the convergence of technology and business operations has become increasingly critical. As organizations strive to remain competitive and responsive in an era dominated by rapid technological advancement, the need for professionals who understand both business imperatives and technical capabilities has never been greater. These individuals, often referred to as “purple people,” represent a hybrid of business and technology expertise—a fusion of skills and mindsets that bridges the traditional divide between these two domains.
Historically, businesses and technology teams have operated in silos, each speaking its own language and pursuing its own objectives. Business professionals focus on market trends, customer needs, and revenue growth, while technology teams prioritize system performance, security, and innovation. The disconnect between these groups can lead to misaligned strategies, inefficient project execution, and significant financial losses. According to recent studies, this misalignment can cost enterprises millions of dollars annually, alongside lost time and opportunities.
The concept of purple people emerges as a response to this challenge. These hybrid professionals possess a balanced understanding of business goals and technological possibilities. They are not necessarily deep experts in every technical or business discipline but have enough knowledge and empathy to act as translators and collaborators across the divide. Their ability to integrate perspectives is crucial to unlocking the full potential of technology in achieving business success.
Historical Context of Business and Technology Misalignment
To appreciate the significance of purple people, it is important to understand that the division between business and technology is not a new phenomenon. The roots of this divide stretch back several decades, shaped by cultural, educational, and organizational factors. In 2006, the book “The Geek Gap” highlighted the profound misunderstanding and mistrust that existed between business and technology professionals. This work underscored how these groups often viewed each other with skepticism, which hampered collaboration and innovation.
The persistent divide reflects deep-seated mindsets. Business professionals may see technologists as overly focused on complexity and detached from commercial realities. Conversely, technology experts may regard business leaders as lacking technical understanding or failing to appreciate the challenges of implementing systems. These stereotypes reinforce barriers and prevent the kind of integrative thinking necessary for modern enterprises to thrive.
Large organizations, in particular, feel the impact of this division acutely. Their size and complexity make rapid adaptation difficult, and the inertia inherent in established structures slows the alignment of business and technology strategies. Meanwhile, smaller, more agile competitors leverage advanced technologies to innovate quickly and capture market share. This dynamic creates a pressing imperative for enterprises to rethink how they bridge business and technology.
The Financial and Operational Costs of Misalignment
The costs associated with business-technology misalignment extend beyond missed opportunities. Enterprises often suffer significant financial losses due to inefficiencies, project failures, and poor decision-making. Studies indicate that misalignment can result in lost revenue averaging millions of dollars annually for large companies. Additionally, projects delayed by unclear communication or conflicting priorities can stall for hundreds of days, wasting valuable resources and momentum.
These losses are not merely numerical; they also affect organizational morale and reputation. When business and technology teams fail to collaborate effectively, trust erodes, frustration grows, and the culture becomes divided. This environment discourages innovation and limits an organization’s ability to respond to changing market demands.
Addressing these challenges requires more than process improvements or better tools. It calls for a fundamental shift in how organizations think about the roles and relationships between business and technology professionals. Cultivating hybrid individuals who can operate fluently in both spheres is a critical part of this transformation.
Understanding the Purple People Metaphor
The term “purple people” draws on the symbolic blending of colors to describe the hybrid nature of these professionals. Just as purple is created by mixing red and blue—two primary colors representing distinct domains—purple people combine the qualities of business (often associated with blue) and technology (commonly linked to red).
This metaphor was popularized to illustrate the potential for collaboration and integration across traditionally separate groups. Purple people are envisioned as connectors who possess enough expertise and empathy to understand and translate between business and technical languages, needs, and constraints.
It is important to note that purple people are not expected to be experts in all aspects of business or technology. Rather, their value lies in their ability to see both sides of the equation, appreciate each group’s pressures and priorities, and foster mutual respect and understanding. By doing so, they enable organizations to navigate the complexities of modern digital transformation with greater agility and effectiveness.
The Challenges of Developing Hybrid Business-Technology Professionals
While the idea of purple people is compelling, creating such professionals within organizations remains a significant challenge. Despite the clear benefits of bridging business and technology, purple people are rare. Several factors contribute to this scarcity, rooted in educational systems, organizational structures, and cultural mindsets.
The Siloed Nature of Business and Technology Functions
One of the primary obstacles to cultivating purple people is the entrenched siloing of business and technology functions. Companies often organize themselves into distinct departments or teams that specialize either in business domains—such as marketing, sales, and finance—or technology areas like software development, IT infrastructure, and cybersecurity.
This division fosters deep specialization, which, while valuable for expertise, limits cross-disciplinary understanding. Employees tend to operate within their areas of comfort and knowledge, with few opportunities or incentives to engage meaningfully with colleagues outside their function. This isolation reinforces differences in language, priorities, and perspectives, making it difficult for individuals to develop the broad skills necessary to act as hybrids.
Educational and Professional Backgrounds
Another key factor is the differing educational and professional pathways that lead to business or technology careers. Business professionals often come from fields such as economics, management, or marketing, where the focus is on strategy, leadership, and organizational behavior. Technology professionals typically emerge from engineering, computer science, or information systems programs emphasizing technical skills and problem-solving.
These divergent backgrounds contribute to contrasting ways of thinking and problem-solving. Bridging these divides requires intentional learning and exposure, which many traditional education and training programs do not provide. The challenge lies in creating curricula and professional development opportunities that integrate business and technology competencies without diluting the depth of expertise in either area.
Cultural Differences and Communication Barriers
Cultural differences between business and technology groups also play a significant role in hindering the emergence of purple people. Each group has its own jargon, values, and decision-making styles. Business teams often prioritize customer outcomes, market positioning, and financial metrics, while technology teams emphasize system reliability, scalability, and technical innovation.
These differing focuses can lead to misunderstandings and frustration. For example, technology staff may perceive business requests as vague or unrealistic, while business leaders might see technology responses as overly technical or slow. Such miscommunication undermines collaboration and creates a trust gap that makes working together effectively difficult.
Developing purple people requires addressing these cultural and communication challenges by fostering environments where open dialogue and mutual learning are encouraged. Without this, individuals may find it difficult to acquire the empathy and translation skills that underpin effective hybrid roles.
The Role of Organizational Leadership and Strategy
Leadership and organizational strategy are critical enablers in developing hybrid professionals. Companies that recognize the strategic importance of integrating business and technology must actively promote collaboration and shared goals at all levels.
This can be achieved through deliberate initiatives such as cross-functional teams, joint training programs, and leadership development that emphasizes both business acumen and technological literacy. Leaders must model collaborative behavior and value the contributions of both business and technology groups equally.
Moreover, organizational incentives and performance metrics should be aligned to reward integrated thinking and teamwork rather than siloed achievements. Without this alignment, individuals may lack motivation to step beyond their specialized roles and develop hybrid capabilities.
How Purple People Add Value to Organizations
Purple people serve as critical catalysts in driving business success through technology. Their unique positioning allows them to unlock value in ways that purely business or purely technical professionals cannot.
Enhancing Communication and Collaboration
By bridging language gaps, purple people improve communication between business and technology teams. They can translate technical concepts into business-relevant terms and vice versa, enabling clearer understanding and more informed decision-making.
This enhanced communication reduces misunderstandings and speeds up the development process. Projects can move forward more smoothly because both sides appreciate the constraints and possibilities involved.
Driving Strategic Alignment
Purple people help align technology initiatives with business objectives. They ensure that technical solutions support market needs, customer experience, and revenue goals, rather than existing as isolated engineering efforts.
This strategic alignment is essential for maximizing return on technology investments and maintaining competitive advantage in fast-changing environments.
Facilitating Agile and Adaptive Practices
In organizations adopting agile methodologies, purple people play a vital role as product owners, scrum masters, or cross-functional leaders who understand both business priorities and technical capabilities.
Their dual perspective supports iterative development, rapid feedback, and continuous improvement, enabling organizations to respond swiftly to new information and market shifts.
Fostering Innovation
Purple people are often well positioned to identify new opportunities where technology can create novel business value. By understanding both customer needs and emerging technologies, they can propose innovative products, services, or processes that drive growth and differentiation.
Cultivating Purple People: Strategies and Best Practices
Developing hybrid business-technology professionals requires intentional effort from organizations, leaders, and individuals. Given the complexity of bridging two traditionally distinct fields, a thoughtful approach is necessary to create the conditions where purple people can emerge and thrive.
Creating Cross-Functional Learning Environments
One of the foundational steps in cultivating purple people is to encourage learning environments that cross traditional functional boundaries. This means providing opportunities for business professionals to gain technical literacy and for technology professionals to develop business acumen.
Cross-functional training programs can introduce employees to the basics of the other domain, highlighting how technology drives business outcomes and how business strategy influences technical decisions. For example, workshops on data analytics for business teams or business model fundamentals for technology teams can build shared understanding.
Beyond formal training, job rotations, shadowing programs, and collaborative projects where team members from different backgrounds work together foster experiential learning. These activities help break down stereotypes and build empathy by exposing individuals to the pressures, language, and priorities of the other side.
Emphasizing Soft Skills Development
Technical and business knowledge alone is insufficient for purple people to succeed. Soft skills such as communication, empathy, negotiation, and conflict resolution are critical enablers of effective bridging.
Organizations should integrate soft skills development into professional growth frameworks. Coaching and mentoring programs that emphasize interpersonal skills help individuals navigate cultural differences and build trust between teams.
Particular attention should be given to cultivating active listening and the ability to translate complex concepts into accessible language. Purple people act as interpreters, and their effectiveness depends heavily on their communication finesse.
Designing Roles that Encourage Hybrid Thinking
Creating formal roles or career paths that explicitly require hybrid skills signals organizational commitment to purple people. Roles such as business analysts, product managers, solution architects, or technical project managers often naturally blend business and technical perspectives.
Organizations can further refine these roles to emphasize the importance of balanced expertise and provide targeted support for skill development. Clear career progression paths for hybrid professionals encourage retention and signal value.
Embedding hybrid capabilities into leadership development is also essential. Future leaders must understand both business imperatives and technological possibilities to guide organizations through digital transformation successfully.
Leveraging Technology as a Learning Enabler
Technology itself can be a powerful tool in cultivating purple people. Digital platforms offering interactive learning, simulation, and collaboration tools enable employees to build cross-domain knowledge flexibly.
For example, virtual labs allow business users to experiment with technical tools without risk, while data visualization platforms help technology professionals grasp business metrics intuitively.
Using collaborative platforms that facilitate communication and information sharing across teams reduces siloing and fosters ongoing exchange of knowledge.
Overcoming Organizational Barriers to Hybrid Development
Despite the strategies available, many organizations struggle to nurture purple people due to systemic barriers embedded in culture, structure, and processes.
Addressing Siloed Organizational Structures
Rigid organizational structures that separate business and technology functions inhibit collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas. Companies must reassess how they organize teams and projects to enable more fluid interaction.
Adopting matrix structures, creating integrated cross-functional teams, or establishing centers of excellence focused on business-technology integration can reduce silos. These structures encourage joint accountability and shared objectives.
Leadership commitment is essential to support these structural changes and to model cross-functional collaboration behaviors.
Shifting Cultural Mindsets
Cultural resistance can be a significant barrier to the emergence of purple people. Deeply ingrained attitudes about “who does what” and skepticism toward the other side create friction.
Organizations should engage in cultural change initiatives that promote mutual respect and highlight the value of hybrid roles. Storytelling, role modeling, and recognition programs can help shift perceptions.
Leaders play a critical role in setting a tone of inclusivity and openness, encouraging curiosity and learning across boundaries.
Aligning Incentives and Performance Metrics
Performance management systems often reinforce silos by rewarding functional excellence without considering cross-functional collaboration. To cultivate purple people, organizations must design incentives that encourage integration.
This includes evaluating individuals and teams on their ability to work across business and technology, deliver end-to-end value, and contribute to organizational agility.
Compensation, promotion criteria, and recognition programs should reflect the importance of hybrid capabilities and collaboration.
Managing Risk and Ambiguity
Hybrid roles often involve navigating uncertainty and balancing competing priorities. Organizations need to support purple people in managing risk and ambiguity effectively.
Providing clear frameworks for decision-making that integrate business and technical considerations, alongside coaching and peer support networks, helps individuals thrive in these challenging environments.
Case Studies and Examples of Successful Hybrid Professionals
Examining real-world examples provides valuable insights into how purple people function and contribute to organizational success.
Product Managers as Purple People
Product managers frequently act as hybrids, bridging customer needs, business strategy, and technology delivery. Successful product managers possess strong business instincts and sufficient technical understanding to guide development teams effectively.
In organizations where product managers excel, projects tend to align more closely with market demands, innovation accelerates, and time-to-market shortens. These individuals translate customer feedback into technical requirements and balance competing priorities to optimize outcomes.
Data Analysts Bridging Business and Technology
Data analysts and data scientists often operate at the intersection of business and technology. They combine statistical and technical skills with an understanding of business processes and goals.
Organizations that empower data professionals with hybrid skills unlock deeper insights and make data-driven decisions more effectively. Purple data professionals help ensure that analytics efforts focus on meaningful business questions and communicate findings in accessible ways.
Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters
Agile coaches and scrum masters frequently serve as purple people by facilitating collaboration between business stakeholders and technical teams. They possess knowledge of agile principles alongside an understanding of business value and customer priorities.
Their role in aligning teams, removing blockers, and fostering communication exemplifies the impact of hybrid professionals in enabling agility and responsiveness.
The Future Outlook for Purple People
The demand for hybrid business-technology professionals is poised to grow as technology continues to reshape industries and competitive dynamics.
Digital Transformation as a Driver
Digital transformation initiatives underscore the need for individuals who can navigate both technology and business landscapes. Organizations embracing cloud computing, artificial intelligence, automation, and other emerging technologies require purple people to ensure these investments translate into tangible value.
As the pace of change accelerates, the ability to connect technological capabilities with strategic objectives becomes a critical success factor.
Expanding Educational Pathways
Educational institutions are beginning to recognize the importance of integrating business and technology curricula. Interdisciplinary degree programs, joint certifications, and continuing education options are emerging to equip future professionals with hybrid skills.
This evolution in education will help address the talent shortage and prepare a new generation of purple people ready to meet complex business challenges.
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Automation
As artificial intelligence and automation transform roles and workflows, purple people will be instrumental in guiding ethical, effective adoption. Their understanding of both technical possibilities and business implications positions them to lead change responsibly.
They will also play a key role in redesigning processes and organizational models to capitalize on new technologies.
Managing Risk and Ambiguity
One of the defining characteristics of hybrid roles is navigating the gray areas between established disciplines. Purple people frequently operate in environments filled with ambiguity, conflicting priorities, and evolving expectations. This space requires comfort with uncertainty, adaptive thinking, and the capacity to manage trade-offs between technological feasibility and business value.
Organizations should support purple people by providing structured frameworks that help guide decision-making in these ambiguous environments. This includes developing clear criteria for balancing competing demands, offering training in risk management, and creating safe spaces where experimentation is encouraged. Peer support networks and mentoring can also provide much-needed perspective and encouragement, especially when hybrid professionals encounter resistance or conflicting messages.
To further enhance their ability to manage uncertainty, purple people should be trained in scenario planning and design thinking. These methodologies enable them to frame problems from multiple angles, anticipate downstream consequences, and develop solutions that are both technically viable and strategically sound. By institutionalizing these practices, organizations can empower purple people to lead with clarity even when operating in fluid or poorly defined contexts.
Embedding Hybrid Capabilities in Leadership Development
Leadership is one of the most influential levers in driving organizational change. When leaders themselves embody the traits of purple people, they signal that integrative thinking is not only valuable but essential to success. As such, leadership development programs must explicitly cultivate hybrid capabilities.
To do this, organizations should design programs that expose emerging leaders to both technical and business domains. For example, a leadership rotation might include time spent leading a digital transformation project, managing a product development team, or participating in a strategic planning initiative. This experiential learning encourages leaders to develop a dual lens and apply it across organizational functions.
Another powerful approach is co-leadership or pairing emerging leaders from business and technology backgrounds on key initiatives. This arrangement forces collaboration, exposes blind spots, and builds shared understanding. Over time, such practices create a leadership pipeline filled with professionals who are not only comfortable navigating both domains but also capable of unifying diverse teams around common goals.
Executive leaders should also engage in ongoing learning. In a world where technological change outpaces most corporate planning cycles, senior leaders must remain informed and agile. Participation in executive education programs that address digital strategy, innovation, and cross-functional leadership ensures that top decision-makers model the same hybrid mindset they expect from others.
Measuring the Impact of Purple People
For any initiative to gain sustained organizational support, its value must be measurable. Cultivating purple people is no different. To justify investments in hybrid capability development, organizations must track and report outcomes tied to performance, innovation, and alignment.
Key metrics might include project success rates, time-to-market for new initiatives, user adoption rates, and reductions in costly rework due to miscommunication. Employee engagement surveys can assess the degree to which cross-functional collaboration is perceived as effective and rewarding. Leadership assessments can capture improvements in hybrid thinking and integrative decision-making.
Over time, organizations may also identify a correlation between the presence of purple people and overall business performance. Divisions led or supported by hybrid professionals may demonstrate higher innovation output, faster adaptation to market changes, and more consistent delivery of business outcomes from technology investments.
By establishing a robust feedback loop and using data to inform and refine hybrid talent strategies, organizations can continuously improve their approach and clearly demonstrate the strategic importance of purple people.
Developing an Organizational Learning Ecosystem
Becoming a breeding ground for purple people requires more than just a few initiatives; it demands a systemic commitment to learning and growth across all levels of the organization. This means building an ecosystem where knowledge flows freely, curiosity is rewarded, and continuous development is embedded in the organizational DNA.
One important aspect of this ecosystem is creating multiple on-ramps to learning. Not every employee will take the same path to becoming a hybrid professional. Some may begin with business roles and gain technical exposure over time; others may follow the reverse route. Organizations should offer flexible, personalized learning journeys that cater to various entry points, paces, and career goals.
Microlearning platforms, cross-functional mentorship, guided learning paths, and competency-based certifications are examples of tools that support this kind of tailored growth. Organizations can also partner with external educational providers or develop in-house academies that blend technical and business education into integrated programs.
In addition to formal learning, organizations should prioritize knowledge sharing and peer learning. Lunch-and-learns, internal conferences, communities of practice, and collaborative workspaces foster spontaneous exchange and relationship-building across domains. These environments help purple people expand their influence and share what they’re learning with others, multiplying the impact of hybrid thinking.
Cultivating Empathy as a Core Competency
Perhaps the most underestimated yet critical attribute of purple people is empathy. The ability to truly understand and appreciate the experiences, priorities, and pain points of colleagues from different disciplines enables meaningful collaboration and trust-building.
Empathy is not a soft or peripheral skill; it is a foundational element of effective hybrid performance. Without it, attempts to bridge business and technology often fall flat, devolving into turf battles or surface-level alignment.
Organizations can cultivate empathy by integrating it into hiring, training, and performance management processes. Behavioral interviews can assess candidates’ ability to listen actively and engage with unfamiliar perspectives. Training programs can include modules on perspective-taking, active listening, and inclusive communication. Feedback systems should reinforce and reward empathic behavior, especially in cross-functional settings.
Leadership plays a critical role in normalizing empathy. When leaders take time to understand the technical realities behind delivery delays or the commercial pressures behind shifting priorities, they set a tone that encourages openness and understanding. This cultural shift is essential for purple people to thrive.
Leveraging Diversity to Strengthen Hybrid Thinking
Diversity and inclusion are often discussed in the context of social justice and representation, but they also play a powerful role in building hybrid capability. Diverse teams—across race, gender, culture, experience, and discipline—bring a wide array of perspectives that enrich problem-solving and innovation.
Purple people are uniquely positioned to leverage this diversity because they are trained to see value in multiple viewpoints. They can facilitate conversations that bridge cognitive and experiential differences, surfacing insights that might otherwise be overlooked.
Organizations should actively recruit talent from varied backgrounds into roles that encourage hybrid development. This includes non-traditional candidates who may have followed unconventional career paths, self-taught technologists with business savvy, or entrepreneurs transitioning into corporate environments. What matters is not where someone started, but their willingness and ability to integrate different forms of expertise.
To support this diversity, inclusive leadership practices must be adopted. Managers should create psychologically safe environments where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, taking risks, and admitting when they don’t know something. These conditions accelerate learning and encourage the kind of vulnerability and curiosity that purple people exhibit naturally.
Building a Shared Language and Conceptual Framework
One of the greatest barriers between business and technology professionals is the lack of a shared language. Terms like “MVP,” “ROI,” “sprint,” “technical debt,” and “customer journey” can have very different meanings depending on who’s using them. Without a common vocabulary, collaboration becomes inefficient and fraught with misunderstanding.
Purple people play a key role in bridging this communication gap, but organizations can amplify their impact by standardizing terminology and conceptual frameworks. Glossaries, visual models, and shared documentation practices help ensure that teams are literally and figuratively on the same page.
Training programs should include content on basic principles of both business and technology. Even a surface-level understanding of how systems are designed, how revenue is generated, and how value is delivered can go a long way in reducing misalignment.
Common frameworks like design thinking, lean startup, and agile development are especially helpful because they naturally straddle business and technical concerns. These methodologies provide a shared process for ideation, iteration, and delivery that reduces friction and encourages collaboration.
Empowering Purple People to Lead Change
Purple people are not only translators and collaborators; they are also change agents. Their dual fluency positions them to spot opportunities, challenge outdated assumptions, and propose integrative solutions that traditional specialists may miss.
To fully leverage this capacity, organizations must give purple people the authority and resources to drive change. This includes appointing them to influential roles, involving them early in strategic planning, and giving them a seat at the decision-making table.
When hybrid professionals are empowered, they become a force multiplier. They champion customer-centric innovations, advocate for user-friendly technologies, and ensure that business priorities are technologically achievable. Their impact cascades across the organization, driving cultural transformation and strategic alignment.
Change leadership training can further enhance this capability. By equipping purple people with tools for stakeholder management, organizational design, and influence without authority, organizations help them become not just collaborators but catalysts for progress.
Creating a Long-Term Talent Strategy
Building a workforce rich in purple people is not a short-term project. It requires a sustained, strategic approach to talent acquisition, development, and retention. Organizations must view hybrid capability as a core competency, on par with technical expertise or market knowledge.
This begins with talent acquisition. Job descriptions should clearly articulate the dual expectations of hybrid roles and emphasize both technical literacy and business insight. Interview processes should be redesigned to evaluate adaptability, systems thinking, and cross-functional communication.
Once onboard, hybrid professionals should be supported with clear development paths. Career progression should reflect their unique skill set, avoiding the trap of forcing them to choose between a “technical” or “business” track. Instead, dual-path or lattice-based models that recognize the value of integration are more appropriate.
Retention efforts should focus on creating meaningful, challenging work that aligns with hybrid professionals’ desire to make a broad impact. Regular engagement with senior leadership, involvement in high-visibility projects, and opportunities to mentor others can help sustain motivation and satisfaction.
Succession planning should also include a focus on hybrid roles. As technology becomes increasingly embedded in business models, future executives will need a balanced perspective. Identifying and preparing purple people for senior leadership positions ensures continuity and resilience.
The Broader Implications of Purple People
The rise of purple people signals a broader shift in how organizations function in the digital age. No longer can business and technology operate as separate spheres; their integration is now fundamental to competitive advantage.
Purple people are not just employees with hybrid skills—they are the embodiment of a new organizational mindset. One that values collaboration over control, learning over rigidity, and systems thinking over narrow optimization. They represent the kind of talent organizations must cultivate to remain adaptive, innovative, and customer-focused.
As industries continue to evolve, the ability to translate between technical potential and business value will become even more vital. In healthcare, purple people might guide the responsible deployment of AI in diagnostics. In finance, they may architect seamless digital customer experiences. In education, they could design adaptive learning systems that personalize instruction at scale.
In this way, purple people are not just responding to change—they are creating it. Their fusion of insight and action makes them indispensable in shaping the future of work, strategy, and innovation.
Final Thoughts
The emergence of purple people marks a defining shift in how organizations must think about talent, collaboration, and innovation in the modern era. These hybrid professionals—fluent in both business and technology—are not simply bridges between departments, but architects of integration, clarity, and transformation. Their value lies not just in what they know, but in how they think: holistically, adaptively, and with deep empathy for both user needs and system constraints.
In a world where complexity is growing and change is accelerating, organizations can no longer afford to operate in silos. The future belongs to those who can synthesize knowledge across domains, lead with curiosity, and act as connectors in a fragmented landscape. Purple people are the catalysts of this future.
But cultivating such talent requires intention. It demands a culture of continuous learning, systems that reward cross-disciplinary collaboration, and leadership that models integrative thinking. It means redesigning education, reshaping job descriptions, rethinking career paths, and recognizing that some of the most valuable contributors may not fit traditional molds.
For leaders, the imperative is clear: invest in purple people. Not as an afterthought or niche initiative, but as a strategic priority. Identify them, develop them, and give them the tools, authority, and trust to lead. Their presence will not only improve communication between business and tech—it will enhance decision-making, accelerate innovation, and future-proof your organization against the uncertainties ahead.
Purple people are not just a trend. They are the talent blueprint for the next generation of resilient, adaptive, and high-performing organizations. The question is no longer whether you need them—but how fast you can find, grow, and empower them.