From CDO to CTIO – what tech leader job titles really imply, and who calls the shots  

In your organisation, do you’ve gotten a CIO? A CTO? A CTIO, maybe?

Technology is infamous for its acronym-laden array of job titles. Indeed, nearly like software program code they appear to carry on proliferating. This is probably as a result of expertise is itself such a fast-moving space – as the discipline of duties and priorities retains shifting and growing, so job titles preserve evolving too. In latest instances, we’ve began to see all types of recent roles and titles created – even extending to Chief Robotics Officer and VP of Future.

The result’s that each enterprise appears to have an nearly distinctive mixture of post-holders and titles. Nevertheless, as a recruiter of senior tech professionals, I see numerous frequent themes and linkages between the key figures. So, here’s a checklist of eight of the high tech leader job titles – and what they imply and how they inter-relate.

1. CIO – We begin with the basic primary place – the Chief Information Officer, historically answerable for all IT inside an organisation. In most FTSE and Fortune companies, you’ll nonetheless discover a CIO at the high of the expertise tree. But in fact, the function has been altering as expertise has expanded from back-office IT techniques run by way of on-premise servers to absorb cloud, digital and extra open, outward-facing platforms. The CIO will set the technique for IT, and they usually sit on the Operating Board (65% of them do in accordance to the newest Nash Squared Digital Leadership Report). If they don’t sit on the Operating Board, they’ll report into it. They take care of, and lead, every little thing from purposes, infrastructure and cloud to tasks/merchandise, innovation and change. The CIO normally additionally has IT safety, knowledge and digital inside their transient, though these could generally fall exterior of their remit. 

2. CDO (Digital) – There are two most important and rising ‘challengers’ to the dominance of the CIO (or the CIO identify) as expertise modifications, expands and turns into extra pervasive throughout organisations – considered one of these is the Chief Digital Officer, whereas the different is the CTO (subsequent on my checklist). In most circumstances, there’ll both be a CIO or a CDO or a CTO. What’s the distinction? The CDO could counsel that the leader has extra bias in direction of customer-facing applied sciences – they is perhaps extra targeted on income era or advertising and advertising expertise. They have a tendency to be forward-looking and very targeted on innovation. However, it’s true that some CDOs sit alongside a CIO, whereby the CIO manages inside techniques and infrastructure and the CDO focuses on the on-line world – internet, cellular, advertising, portals. In this occasion, the CDO is perhaps extra senior, extra junior, or a peer to the CIO relying on the context.

3. CTO – Like CDOs, Chief Technology Officers are very a lot on the rise. Particularly in expertise corporations themselves and in start-ups, you’re probably to discover a CTO at the head of the ship quite than a CIO, and that is additionally the case in lots of legacy companies who are aiming to rework themselves into technology-led organisations: the emphasis on expertise in the title higher displays the wider transient of at this time’s digital leader. So, the CTO function may be very a lot ‘of our times’. There once more, the CTO is also a quantity two to the CIO who leads all of expertise, structure and/or software program engineering. In the previous the CTO additionally used to refer to the high leader in infrastructure, however we see that much less generally now.

4. CDO (Data) – With knowledge so important to enterprise efficiency and customer-centricity, the Chief Data Officer has a key function. The CDO generally studies into the CIO – however could report to the CEO or COO as a substitute. The CDO will lead knowledge technique, governance, analytics, BI and reporting, knowledge innovation and monetisation. Data is often understood to be the concern of the whole organisation, and as such many CDOs really feel that being siloed inside the expertise perform doesn’t enable them to be simplest. That stated, extra lately we’ve seen that in the extra superior organisations with cloud primarily based, product and platform cultures, the CDO could have come up the knowledge engineering route and shall be very a lot a technologist – they’ll fortunately sit in the tech perform and lead groups of knowledge engineers to construct platforms and merchandise and allow real-time streaming.

5. CISO – Like the CDO (Data), that is one other function that’s comparatively unambiguous in its scope. The Chief Information Security Officer is the leader in the key areas of cyber, data and expertise safety. They will lead the organisation’s technique to shield in opposition to the rising menace of cyber assaults, and get well swiftly from people who do occur. They will consistently consider threat. The CISO could report into the CIO, however they might even be a peer to them, reporting into the COO (and even the CFO) as a substitute. Like knowledge, safety is a priority for the whole organisation and as such it may be useful for the CISO to have a peer relationship with different enterprise executives.

 6. CPO – The Chief Product Officer leads on general (digital) product technique and possession for the enterprise. They are normally a peer to the CIO/CTO.  Historically, the CPO has principally been present in expertise corporations and start-ups, however as all companies evolve into technology-first organisations with prospects at their coronary heart, the CPO function is on the rise. This individual shall be answerable for aligning the product technique to the enterprise technique, and is finally accountable for making certain all merchandise inside the organisation are profitable and worthwhile.

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