Stop being a software engineer and start focusing on solving business and people problems. My experience has been that if you're good ( at both software and business) the company will try to move you in the 'leadership' direction as opposed to push you into a Sr. dev role.<p>Companies need more executives that understand technology, because there is a huge technology war going on in old tired industries right now and even the not so bright see technology as the future. Software really is eating the world.
They don't. At one particular tech company, I examined all 100+ VP's. Only one had a software engineering background and no longer works there. Merely talking about engineering will get you labelled as a serf in any big company.
More generally: From my (limited) experience 90% of the executives studied law or economics and simply worked for the company long enough to out live all competitors. At one the "Big four" companies I worked for the managing director had a degree in strict sciences, and worked his/her way up by specialising in security in the financial sector.<p>Three psychological factors before they got to the highest echelons: they were efficient, they knew the business VERY well, and they liked taking risk (many did extreme sport like freediving etc.).