“Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks with­out clay.” So said fic­tion­al sleuth Sher­lock Holmes, frus­trat­ed at a lack of evi­dence. Today, this “clay” is every­where, pro­duced by organ­i­sa­tions at an eye-water­ing rate, with the onus on mod­ern day Holme­ses to put it to their advan­tage.

Step for­ward the chief data offi­cer (CDO), whose job it is to col­late and decode the many pack­ets of infor­ma­tion har­vest­ed by organ­i­sa­tions minute by minute, then com­mu­ni­cate, advise, and con­struct an evi­den­tial basis for strat­e­gy.

The job itself is embry­on­ic, with Cap­i­tal One report­ed­ly appoint­ing the first ever CDO in 2002. In many cas­es, exec­u­tives are the first to hold the posi­tion with­in their organ­i­sa­tion. Nev­er­the­less, more than half of the For­tune 500 now has a CDO, accord­ing to research by New­Van­tage Part­ners.

CDOs help to quan­ti­fy and prove the ROI of data ini­tia­tives in the con­text of real busi­ness val­ue, like cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, rev­enue, or oper­a­tions excel­lence. In some busi­ness­es they also set the guard rails for the use of data across the organ­i­sa­tion.

But unlike the more famil­iar ini­tialisms of CEO, CFO and CMO, the new­ness of the CDO role means it is yet to be square­ly defined. The same sur­vey found that 72% of organ­i­sa­tions felt the job descrip­tion remains “unset­tled”, with only 28% call­ing it an “estab­lished” role.

So what is a CDO? What does a good CDO look like? What are their respon­si­bil­i­ties, who should apply for the job and how could it evolve in future? It’s time to answer these ques­tions once and for all.

Quants with a head for business

The demand for data-focused senior lead­ers began around the mil­len­ni­um with new laws gov­ern­ing dig­i­tal inter­ac­tions. Leg­is­la­tors saw a need to stew­ard data-based exchanges between peo­ple and ser­vice providers; CDOs ensured their employ­ers toed the line.

How­ev­er, the role has evolved. While CDOs remain an organisation’s dig­i­tal secu­ri­ty guard, the job now also encom­pass­es ele­ments of busi­ness devel­op­ment. A mod­ern CDO is respon­si­ble for improv­ing busi­ness out­comes by under­pin­ning strate­gies, encour­ag­ing inno­va­tion and cut­ting waste, as well as com­ply­ing with the law.

“Para­mount to the role is being able to deliv­er mea­sur­able out­comes for the busi­ness,” says Jonathan West­ley, CDO at Exper­ian. In his view, the job is about change man­age­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and com­mer­cial acu­men, not just num­ber-crunch­ing. 

“These traits pro­vide the abil­i­ty to define a pro­gres­sive roadmap that influ­ences not only short-term improve­ment in data qual­i­ty, but also the evo­lu­tion and dis­rup­tion of busi­ness mod­els,” he says. “CDOs help to quan­ti­fy and prove the ROI of data ini­tia­tives in the con­text of real busi­ness val­ue, like cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, rev­enue, or oper­a­tions excel­lence. In some busi­ness­es they also set the guard rails for the use of data across the organ­i­sa­tion.”

The CDO’s work over­laps with that of the chief infor­ma­tion, dig­i­tal and/or tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer, but the skillset is entire­ly dif­fer­ent. While a CTO is respon­si­ble for the smooth oper­a­tion of soft­ware and hard­ware sys­tems and a CIO looks after dig­i­tal assets, an IT back­ground isn’t a deal-break­er for a CDO. 

Ensur­ing that data is stew­ard­ed cor­rect­ly and dis­persed across the organ­i­sa­tion as smooth­ly as pos­si­ble can make the dif­fer­ence to a business’s suc­cess or fail­ure

More impor­tant is the abil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy and pri­ori­tise high-val­ue data, whether it’s retail cus­tomer con­ver­sions, the effi­cien­cy of an engine or pres­sure points in a sup­ply chain, and build a case for action that can be pre­sent­ed to the board. This means sto­ry­telling is also key.  

Accord­ing to Alan Jacob­son, chief data and ana­lyt­ics offi­cer at Alteryx: “While there are many sim­i­lar sound­ing titles, data sci­ence lead­ers are typ­i­cal­ly agents of change who lever­age data sci­ence to help pro­vide guid­ance to oper­a­tions, as well as imple­ment­ing new opti­mi­sa­tion and automa­tion into the busi­ness.”

Who needs a data boss?

The sim­ple answer is “every­one”. What organ­i­sa­tion wouldn’t ben­e­fit from crys­tal clear ana­lyt­ics on its cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers, prod­ucts, peo­ple, com­pe­ti­tion and mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties? Cou­ple this mis­sion-crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion with data gov­er­nance, the oth­er string to the CDO bow, and you’re left with a role that feels indis­pens­able in the mod­ern era.

Like oil, data takes time to locate and extract, while refin­ing it is a com­pli­cat­ed process. Hir­ing some­one who can over­see all three tasks will cre­ate com­pet­i­tive advan­tage over rivals, espe­cial­ly if the CDO helps to fos­ter a wider data cul­ture with­in the organ­i­sa­tion.

“There isn’t a spe­cif­ic com­pa­ny type that would ben­e­fit from embrac­ing the pow­er of data over anoth­er,” says Justin Mar­cuc­ci, chief dig­i­tal offi­cer at Enda­va. “We live in a hyper dig­i­tal world, so if you are not think­ing about how your busi­ness can thrive in a dig­i­tal con­text, using data to pow­er and mon­e­tise for the busi­ness, you’ll soon get left behind.”

But good data sci­ence can also move the nee­dle beyond the realm of com­pet­i­tive com­merce; in fact, it could save the world. Not-for-prof­it busi­ness accel­er­a­tor Sub­ak works with start-ups that bat­tle cli­mate change, pro­vid­ing tools to help them achieve their goals soon­er. CDO Dan Tra­vers says pack­ag­ing and shar­ing data is implic­it in solv­ing the world’s most press­ing prob­lems.  

“Ensur­ing that data is stew­ard­ed cor­rect­ly and dis­persed across the organ­i­sa­tion as smooth­ly as pos­si­ble can make the dif­fer­ence to a business’s suc­cess or fail­ure,” he says. 

The com­pa­ny is access­ing, cat­a­logu­ing and shar­ing cli­mate-relat­ed data with all organ­i­sa­tions that have an inter­est in cli­mate change, he adds, includ­ing for-prof­it and non-prof­it enti­ties and those in the aca­d­e­m­ic and gov­ern­ment sec­tors. “We want to apply best prac­tices to this cli­mate-relat­ed data, to ensure the essen­tial action to address cli­mate change can move as fast as it pos­si­bly can,” Tra­vers says.

It’s an idea whose time appears to have arrived. A recent study from Exper­ian shows an increase in for-prof­its using their data mus­cle for non-com­mer­cial ends. Just under 80% of busi­ness lead­ers said they want­ed to con­tribute to soci­etal good in the wake of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, main­ly by col­lab­o­rat­ing and shar­ing infor­ma­tion for a pos­i­tive impact.  

The future of CDOs

Ques­tions over the impor­tance of data were set­tled long ago. Every­one around the board­room table gets it, even if they don’t under­stand it, so data depart­ments will receive more time, ener­gy and mon­ey in com­ing years. That means more CDOs and, as like­ly, more pow­er and account­abil­i­ty for those tak­ing up the role.

But a greater reliance on data to track con­sumer trends, for exam­ple, will lead to CDOs that must be diplo­mat­ic and empa­thet­ic, capa­ble of com­mu­ni­cat­ing the ben­e­fits of increased data-shar­ing with stake­hold­ers, gov­ern­ment, and the pub­lic at large.

The future CDO will be mul­ti-tal­ent­ed, oper­at­ing at board lev­el above most – per­haps all – oth­er tech­nol­o­gy roles. Dr Shorful Islam, CDO at brand con­sul­tan­cy Trib­al World­wide, believes this will lead to huge organ­i­sa­tion­al influ­ence – and bud­gets to match.

“As data becomes more impor­tant, a chief data offi­cer will be a board-lev­el role. It will become a role that’s val­ue gen­er­at­ing, as data is seen as a com­pa­ny asset. Over time, the CDO will have large bud­get sign­ing author­i­ty, as more tech­nol­o­gy is required to col­lect, store, safe­guard, process and analyse the data, just as mar­ket­ing has had in the past cou­ple of decades.”

With­in the space of two decades, CDOs have gone from nov­el­ties to vital com­mer­cial assets. As organ­i­sa­tions rely more on insight and data’s val­ue sky­rock­ets, it’s hard to imag­ine a uni­verse in which their influ­ence does­n’t con­tin­ue to soar. 

Spotlight on the CDO

Ott Velsberg, CDO, Government of Estonia

As the government’s chief data offi­cer, my main role is to coor­di­nate data use and data gov­er­nance. I work with organ­i­sa­tions like Sta­tis­tics Esto­nia to make the gov­ern­ment more effec­tive in the way it oper­ates, turn­ing raw data into prac­ti­cal mea­sures.

One of the key areas I’m work­ing on right now is the imple­men­ta­tion of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in the pub­lic sec­tor; how dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and min­istries can use data sci­ence in their work prac­tices and how we can pro­vide open data to the pub­lic.

We are work­ing on a data track­er, giv­ing cit­i­zens infor­ma­tion about how the gov­ern­ment process­es their infor­ma­tion, as well as a con­sent man­age­ment plat­form allow­ing peo­ple to decide whether pri­vate sec­tor groups can access their infor­ma­tion.

I start­ed work­ing for the gov­ern­ment in 2018 and back then we didn’t have a chief data offi­cer; I am the first. We only had a cou­ple of AI solu­tions, today the num­ber is 80. 

For instance, we have tools that fore­cast the prob­a­bil­i­ty of unem­ployed peo­ple get­ting jobs, which helps pre­dict pres­sure on the ben­e­fits sys­tem. We are work­ing on mea­sures to pre­dict when some­one will become unem­ployed, as well as increas­ing the like­li­hood of them get­ting a good job. The suc­cess rate of job rec­om­men­da­tions by sup­port agen­cies has risen 20%. 

We use satel­lite images to ensure farm­ers spend agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies cor­rect­ly, because it’s much eas­i­er than vis­it­ing in per­son. The same tech­nol­o­gy mon­i­tors for­est log­ging, for­est fires and the country’s tree stock, as well as ice lev­els which we use to guide ice-break­ing ves­sels.  

We use data to pre­dict traf­fic acci­dents, which roads are more prone to the prob­lem and the main caus­es of crash­es. It helps us set the speed lim­it and make deci­sions on where to invest in new safe­ty infra­struc­ture.

These are just a hand­ful of exam­ples of where we are putting data to good use, but we are still grow­ing. In 2018 we had 18 data sets to work from, today it is more like 800.

As a CDO, I con­sid­er myself to be a col­lab­o­ra­tor and also a sell­er of ideas. A chief data offi­cer must have man­age­ment skills as well as tech­ni­cal ones, so inno­va­tion man­age­ment, under­stand­ing of the data life­cy­cle and qual­i­ty assur­ance.

It’s about sell­ing the idea, then, in my team’s case, help­ing dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions car­ry out the projects even though they have lit­tle-to-no expe­ri­ence of what is going on. 

Cindi Howson, chief data strategy officer, ThoughtSpot

My main role is to coach data and ana­lyt­ics lead­ers with­in our cus­tomer base, but also work to improve ThoughtSpot’s cloud ana­lyt­ics plat­form. Pre­vi­ous­ly I worked for Deloitte and Gart­ner in data sci­ence roles and I’m the host of the Data Chief Pod­cast. 

I advise on the pil­lars of what it takes to be a data-dri­ven organ­i­sa­tion, includ­ing peo­ple change man­age­ment, data flu­en­cy, mod­ernising the tech­nol­o­gy stack and, in gen­er­al, get­ting their data house in order. Being a CDO means dri­ving cul­tur­al change and then work­ing with key stake­hold­ers to gauge busi­ness out­comes. Opti­mis­ing, while ruth­less­ly shut­ting down lega­cy process­es.

That’s dif­fer­ent from the first gen­er­a­tion CDOs, whose main pri­or­i­ty was to safe­guard data assets and make them more acces­si­ble for ana­lyt­ics. That, in itself, was a heavy lift and kept them very busy, but hav­ing done that job the next phase was to unleash their val­ue. 

So I have to be busi­ness-savvy, a con­nec­tor, a col­lab­o­ra­tor and a politi­cian. There are com­pet­ing pri­or­i­ties on the table, so it’s about lis­ten­ing, under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ent busi­ness lines and get­ting lead­ers to agree with each oth­er on what hap­pens next.

It’s impor­tant to take a bal­anced approach and not nec­es­sar­i­ly be swayed by prof­it cen­tres in the busi­ness. HR often comes last in use cas­es, but in the Covid world they are crit­i­cal to the job of keep­ing the busi­ness func­tion­ing. 

As a CDO who advis­es oth­er CDOs, I deal with our cus­tomers’ inter­est­ing data issues every day. They might bring me what they think is a crazy idea and I’ll tell them what hap­pened when oth­er busi­ness­es tried the same thing, the chal­lenges and what they should look out for.

One of the top ques­tions CDOs wres­tle with is whether they should be more open with their data. For exam­ple, by set­ting up an inter­nal data mar­ket­place so that the entire com­pa­ny has vis­i­bil­i­ty on it. 

Oth­ers go fur­ther and want to know if they should share data in real time with cus­tomers and stake­hold­ers. A man­u­fac­tur­er might be con­sid­er­ing whether to share real-time sup­ply chain data with a retail­er; the tech­nol­o­gy makes it pos­si­ble but it’s a major shift in the busi­ness mod­el.

There are so many oppor­tu­ni­ties to work with data. I think every organ­i­sa­tion, no mat­ter how small, should have some­one who is respon­si­ble for mak­ing it work for them.

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