Growth of the Chief Analytics Officer Position - 2021

As the world of data and analytics has grown over the past 2 decades, the position of the Chief Analytics Officer (CAO) is becoming more prevalent.?This C-level officer is responsible for leading all of the company’s analytics efforts, which include statistical analysis, predictive modeling, data mining, data science, machine learning, AI, business intelligence, and other analytical functions.?The CAO usually reports to the President or CEO, but in some organizations will report to the CIO/CTO, Chief Strategy Officer, or possibly the CMO if the company's analytics is heavily focused on marketing.

Crosly & Associates, the leading retained executive search firm in the analytics and data science industry, has completed numerous searches for our client companies hiring Chief Analytics Officers.?For the past 6 years we have been empirically tracking the growth of the CAO position and we have been publishing the results every year.?Here are the results of our 2021 study.

In June 2021, there are 1,186 people on LinkedIn who listed their current title as Chief Analytics Officer, which is a 10.0% year-over-year (YOY) increase. This is similar to the rate of increase in 2019-2020 of 9.3%.?There are 705 Chief Analytics Officers in the United States, an 11.5% YOY increase. ?Internationally, this title grew at a slightly lower rate, increasing 7.7% YOY, compared to a 15.2% increase from 2019 to 2020. This is the first time in the past 6 years that the rate of growth internationally was less than the growth rate in the United States.

Within the United States, it is not surprising that the cities with the largest number of CAOs are New York City (109), Chicago (52), San Francisco (35), Dallas-Fort Worth (30), and Los Angeles (28).?All of the cities experienced 20%+ YOY increases, except New York and San Francisco.?New York had an 8% increase and San Francisco saw a 12% decrease.?This was likely driven by remote working arrangements due to COVID, which allowed people to relocate out of these high cost of living cities.

Internationally, the countries with the largest number of CAOs are the United Kingdom (72) and India (37).?The UK and India had a 29% and 7% respective YOY increase in the number of CAOs.

In what industries do CAO's work?

Here are the largest industries in which CAOs classify themselves, and their frequencies:

Financial Services - 168

Information Technology and Services - 148

Hospital & Health Care - 104

Insurance - 82

Banking - 79

Marketing and Advertising - 71

Management Consulting - 59

Computer Software - 50

For the second consecutive year, the industries with the largest YOY increases in the number of CAOs are Hospital & Healthcare (19.5% this year, 20.8% last year), and Financial Services (16.7% this year, 17.1% last year).

Where did the current CAOs get their education?

In June 2021, the following places of higher education produced the largest number of CAOs: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Stanford University, and University of Michigan.?This list is unchanged from last year.?These schools are all known for their outstanding STEM programs as well as their top-tier MBA programs.

What about the closely-related title of Chief Data Science Officer?

While not nearly as common as the title of Chief Analytics Officer, its growth has surpassed the rate of growth for CAOs over the past few year.?In June 2021 there are 96 people on LinkedIn who listed their current title as Chief Data Science Officer, a 29.7% YOY increase.?Of those, 57 are in the United States.

In conclusion...

The Chief Analytics Officer position continues to grow at an average annual rate of 9-10%.?Companies are finding it more and more important to have a C-level executive who has the domain expertise in analytics, and who can lead this business function for the organization.