Who is a Chief Data Officer (CDO)?
A CDO leads the data teams within an organization. The CDO oversees:
- Data strategy
- Data architecture
- Data analysis
- Data governance
- Compliance
- Security
The chief data officer is the senior person, with a business focus, who understands the strategy and direction of the business, but their focus is on how to underpin that with data.
Caroline Carruthers, director at consulting firm Carruthers and Jackson and author of The Chief Data Officer's Playbook
CDOs have in-depth knowledge of their industry, strong business acumen and strong leadership skills at C-level. They have experience in IT project management.
They’re familiar with big data solutions, cloud tools, distributed computing, data architecture, data science, visualization and governance. (Quite a tall order! 😱)
What does a CDO do?
A CDO is responsible for crafting data strategy for the organization and implement it at every level within the organization.
A CDO oversees how data is acquired, processed, stored, managed and monetized.
The CDO is the last word on collecting and maintaining accurate data, ensuring data security, and devising and implementing data privacy policies. Because of this, the CDO is the ethical “conscience” of the company, defining and following ethical guidelines for the collection and use of data.
Bernard Marr, Big Data consultant and author
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