Changes in the marketplace and new company tech needs led to changes in enterprise organizational charts, with companies creating new positions to oversee different aspects of IT. Today’s various tech-related C-suite jobs might confuse other employees, but understanding each C-suite tech role and its duties is crucial to ensure optimum collaboration.
The earliest IT positions required skills in the physical installation and management of the technology needed to run the company. However, the individuals in these roles eventually took on strategic responsibilities as well. Today, many companies employ a chief analytics officer (CAO), chief data officer (CDO), chief digital officer (CDO), CIO, chief information security officer (CISO) and CTO.
Although there is some overlap, each role operates within different lanes, with specific responsibilities and required skills. In addition, the person selected for each role is responsible for building teams to help them execute their responsibilities and objectives.
Here’s an overview of what tech and nontech employees should understand about each C-suite tech role.
1. Chief analytics officer (CAO)
As companies began to collect and store large amounts of data, technologies emerged that allowed IT leaders to analyze digital data at a volume and velocity that surpassed previous analog efforts. The role of the chief analytics officer emerged in parallel with these enterprise IT trends.
The CAO oversees an organization’s data analysis and data analytics strategy. A CAO must be able to devise a strategic analytics plan, including identifying when, where and how the company can apply analytics to generate value. The CAO should also be able to prioritize certain analytics applications based on expected ROI.
To carry out their duties, the CAO must work with other C-suite leaders to ensure the technical and data infrastructure exists to deliver the desired analytics capabilities.
2. Chief data officer (CDO)
The chief data officer is responsible for managing an organization’s data. The CDO identifies all the data that their organization can potentially acquire and use. The CDO also establishes the frameworks for how their company can and should use that data to create value while also not violating any ethical or legal standards, including guidelines around collecting, storing and sharing data. The CDO manages data and the data lifecycle within those frameworks.
Some companies combine the responsibilities for data and analytics into a single chief data and analytics officer, or CDAO, position.
3. Chief digital officer (CDO)
The role of chief digital officer rose to prominence as organizations moved from analog processes to digital ones in the first two decades of the 21st century, which led to myriad opportunities to work differently and create new value propositions. The CDO role arose from a need for a leader to focus specifically on identifying those opportunities and developing the strategies to help transition companies from old workflows and methods of value generation to new, digitally-enabled ones.
The CDO is expected to continually deliver digital transformation by evaluating new and evolving technologies. The CDO creates their organization’s digital strategy and works with other executives to ensure that other leaders are cooperating and coordinating with the efforts required for successful transformation.
A CDO’s responsibilities are sometimes assigned to a CIO instead.
4. Chief information officer (CIO)
The CIO is the oldest of the tech-centered executive positions. The CIO focuses on the selection, implementation and management of the technology required to support their company’s work processes and carry out its strategic tech objectives.
Historically, the CIO’s key responsibilities were making sure that the organization’s tech systems worked as needed and met expectations. However, as IT became more and more important to an organization’s ability to survive and grow, the CIO’s responsibilities increased as well.
Today, the CIO carries out the role’s traditional responsibilities and is also tasked with identifying opportunities for growth and transformation. The CIO helps craft enterprise strategy, then develops an IT roadmap that supports and drives the company’s enterprise strategy.
5. Chief information security officer (CISO)
A CISO develops and implements the strategy to secure the organization’s critical IT infrastructure from internal and external threats.
To carry out their duties, a CISO must understand the IT environment itself and potential threats against it. The IT environment includes the assets that the organization owns, such as on-premises servers, network equipment, and personal devices; external assets that the company uses and accesses, such as SaaS systems and cloud-based servers; and assets that access company systems, such as business partners’ systems.
A CISO must also be aware of the data that is collected, stored and moved among those assets as well as the applicable privacy and security regulations.
The CISO works with other enterprise IT leaders to evaluate security risks, create a security strategy, implement the strategy and change the strategy if needed.
6. Chief technology officer (CTO)
Like a CIO, a CTO focuses on an organization’s tech strategy. However, the CTO is generally responsible for the technology products and services that the organization sells to customers or that the company’s customers use. Given that focus, the CTO’s work usually includes ideation and R&D responsibilities. The CTO must conduct their work in a way that aligns with the company’s current market position and its targeted future state.
Many organizations employ a CIO and a CTO, and if both positions exist at a company, the two are usually peers in the C-suite. However, some companies’ CTOs are responsible for IT operations and act as the CIO and CTO. In addition, some CIOs are responsible for developing, creating and managing the tech products and services that are sold to or used by customers instead of a CTO taking on the job.
Mary K. Pratt is an award-winning freelance journalist with a focus on covering enterprise IT and cybersecurity management.
