The Chief Data Officer is not what it used to be. Here’s why.

The growth of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) has been unprecedented and with good reason. Although there still exists great disparity in the CDO remit, given geographical, industrial and data maturity factors, the role has gained great traction. Gartner’s second annual survey showed that 30% of CDOs now report directly to their CEO and predicts 15% of the most successful will become CEOs or other C-level positions by 2020. Meanwhile Sainsbury’s has appointed their first ever Chief Data Officer with the aim to “take centralised control of its information management strategy, and improve the insights it gleans from data.”

It is clear that the CDO has come a long way from its humble beginnings and although many are still grappling with obtaining a formal seat at the executive table, those pioneering the role have been instrumental in transforming data into a powerful tool which can revolutionise their respective business models. In a bid to deduce a clearer picture of the current state of the CDO, I interviewed a cross-section of practitioners in order to understand their challenges and perspectives on the burgeoning role.

Evolution of First and Second Generation CDOs – From Defence to Offense

When asked about the evolution of the Chief Data Officer in the last 12 to 18 months and subsequent drivers, many of the respondents emphasised a movement from Data Governance and foundations to Value Creation from data.

Piers Stobbs, Chief Data Officer at Moneysupermarket.com Group stated that, “While historically, Chief Data Officers have had more focus on Data Governance, process and quality, I think increasingly, they are being asked to drive the front-end of the value proposition, delivering on the analytics and data science aligned to the corporate strategy.”

Gary Goldberg, Chief Data Officer at Mizuho International further accentuated this theme by telling me, “As the data office in many organisations gains maturity, there is a drive from compliance/regulatory activities and a DQMM focus towards greater value add and data science. I see a further convergence of what was traditional Data Office and Data Analytics activities.”

Graeme McDermott, Chief Data Officer at Addison Lee agreed with this assertion, “It has become mainstream outside Banking/Financial with obvious dilution from original role specification. I feel it has become less about Data Governance and more data exploitation in many companies – no bad thing.”

However, Caroline Carruthers, Chief Data Officer at Network Rail spoke of the relative newness of the CDO and provided her thoughts on organisations appointing the role in response to an awakening of the strategic importance of data. She stated, “Over the last 12-18 months, we are getting the position of the CDO recognised as a fundamental part of the C-Suite in an organisation. What is driving it is a recognition that we have a problem we have never had before. Data and information are the lifeblood of an organisation but we are being swamped by it and we need to understand how to look after and nurture it to make sure we get what we need. “

When questioned about the main challenges faced as a CDO, Caroline evangelised the importance of the fundamentals, “Our challenges are about getting the basics right. Most organisations have not given the focus needed in this area and have to play catch up now, making sure the right policies and information architectures are in place as well as the understanding of how important this is and what our responsibilities are around it.”

Piers and Graeme both cited organisational structure and the successful alignment of the various facets which build up a complete data strategy as major obstacles to be overcome, with Piers stating that “Organisational structure is still an evolving challenge, defining what capabilities (governance, quality, engineering, BI, analytics, data science, etc.) actually sit in the CDO office and what elsewhere. Regardless, I think a key construct which is hard but essential is evolving the data platform to allow efficient data processing and quick and easy experimentation.” And Graeme, “The CDO needs to avoid becoming the latest fad. The original role was C-Suite. Are we seeing dilution as more roles are really just “Head of” without power/prominence of C-Suite? Let’s not lose sight of the fact that governance of data/systems/analytics is important in big/small enterprises. As demand outstrips supply, like Data Scientists, fraudsters will enter the market and damage the role.”

Evolving Business Needs, Challenges and Responsibilities.

The majority of today’s businesses do not exist in a static state but rather constantly disrupted by a vast swath of micro/macro factors and considerations. The most successful CDOs and organisations will recognise, or better yet predict, these changes and react, pre-empt or change accordingly to prosper. As Gary Goldberg surmised, “The challenges are the same as they always were, keeping momentum, demonstrating value and helping to change organisational processes when the business is constantly moving/evolving.”

If you would like to hear more from leading Chief Data Officers and data executives, join the 5th  annual Chief Data Officer Europe taking place from the 20th to 23rd February in Central London. For more information on the agenda and speakers, visit: www.coriniumintelligence.com/chiefdataofficerseurope/