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Where CDOs Come From

The other day I (finally) published the long-promised analysis on the origins of executive level Chief Strategy Officers in an attempt to understand the philosophies on strategy that underpin the decision-making of major businesses. This post is a follow-up that looks at another type of Strategic Role on the Executive Team, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO).

The original idea behind the Chief Digital Officer was to create an executive-level change agent. The change in question was initially the addition of digital consumer engagement and commerce and, in some businesses the creation of hybrid products and services that had an internet-delivered component in addition to the traditional physical product or service. Over time, this role has morphed in the best organisations such that the CDO is effectively a Chief Transformation Officer, stewarding the business model, cultural, operational and technological change from an Industrial Economy base to a Digital Economy one.
I am old enough to have been consulting executives during the initial rise of the CDO. My observation on the type of person who was employed in this role is that they tended to see it as an agitation job. I vividly recall the moment one CDO (who'll remain nameless) told the other executives that they were dinosaurs destined for extinction... he embellished this viewpoint with quite realistic dinosaur noises. He didn't last.
As the chart above shows, there has been a retrenchment from that early requirement for agitation. Most CDOs come from a very conventional enterprise technology background. Only one executive CDO in the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 companies comes from an entrepreneurial tech background (I recognise that few natively digital companies have a need for CDOs as it's a fundamental part of their DNA). Most CDOs are in effect internal IT leaders who have responsibility for classical and customer engagement technology. Although it is a good thing to have senior software experts on a leadership team to bring the perspective of the 2020 Digital Economy, I question how close to that cutting edge one can be if one is so steeped in the big-iron vendor-led computing technology, process-centric operations and hierarchical management. If I'm right, who is the voice of an alternative way in Industrial incumbents? Changing the name of a job does not automatically bestow the beholder with the skills and experience they need.
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