"First, we know that tech, innovation, and R&D departments themselves do not have enough exposure to the top team. In fact, only 34 percent of CIOs report directly to the CEO, according to the latest survey from Harvey Nash/KPMG."
I think this is the key problem. In many corporates, from my experience, the CEO doesn't have any facetime at all with the technology and innovation team. It's hard for them, then, to speak credibly to startups.
How do we fix this? More CEO appointments from the CTO ranks?