CDAOs: the new cool kids in the enterprise C-suite - Part Two
What can CDAOs learn from CISOs on the journey to C-level stardom
In my last post, we reviewed the journey CISOs went through from the under-appreciated security nerds to celebrities.
Even though I’m exaggerating a bit with that statement, I do think there’s a lot to learn from that journey to the benefit of rising CDOs and CDAOs.
It’s all about the money
Meja was (partially) right… It is all ‘bout the money. Data and analytics exists to serve the business. Security exists to protect the business (and its customers, partners, employees…). The only successful CISOs I’ve seen are those who can tie security technology to business outcomes.
The only successful CDAOs we’ll see, are ones who can tie data and analytics investments into business outcomes. If you are not such a CDAO at the moment, you may want to consider becoming one. It’s not just me saying this, half of the sessions at the CDOIQ Symposium last year talked about it. (if you’re unfamiliar with the Symposium, it’s a really interesting conference for data and analytics leaders, worth going there)
Your CEO, CFO, and even other C-levels at the company, don’t care about the technicalities of the data stack. They care about how their part of the business will be more successful.
Many CISOs took a long time to learn this, some still haven’t. Don’t make that mistake. Instead, once a quarter, go to every business leader in your company, and ask them what their priorities are. Then craft your strategy to help them. Philip Zelitchenko has been doing this successfully at ZoomInfo, as he shares in this interview. Barr Moses, CEO and Co-Founder of Monte Carlo, has been repeating this message a few times too.
This will achieve a few things:
You will make sure your department works on things people in the org care about.
Leaders in the org will help you get budget and priority for the initiatives you are promoting.
You will be able to collect ROI feedback from the business leaders (more on that below).
It’s NOT all about the data
CDO - Chief Data Officer - is a problematic title. Your business stakeholders don’t want data… at least not raw data. They want insights, analyses, reports, etc. Not the 10,000-row data dump your analyst just pulled.
So, by assuming the CDO title, you are saying “I am leading the organization that is responsible for managing, storing, governing, organizing the data”. It’s like an ice cream store calling itself “the milk, sugar and random additives store”. How many children do you know who would want to go to that?
Those business leaders you want to work with don’t care about all the work that goes into managing the data (and there is a ton of work!). When you tell them about your new data catalog, their eyes glaze over.
Maybe the CEO cares somewhat, because protecting the data is important these days. Maybe also the CFO cares a bit, because of governance/regulatory reasons. The CISO might? But the various leaders of business functions and business units don’t really.
They care about analytics. They care about making faster/better decisions and being more successful in their role.
In 2023, 64% of respondents to a Gartner survey said they need to focus on “the organization’s data architecture and ecosystem”. I think they’re wrong. Focusing on that sends you in the reverse direction… away from C-level, and back into a manager in IT. That’s why CDOs have some of the shortest tenures in the industry.
Be a CAO, or CDAO. Not just CDO.
Well, it’s a bit about the data
Huh? Am I contradicting myself here?
Not exactly - remember my point about ROI a few paragraphs up? Well… it is your job to collect data on how the output of your department is used across the company, and where you are making real business impact.
In Hebrew, there’s a saying - the shoemaker walks barefoot. Many data and analytics leaders, have a challenging time pointing to hard data to justify their existence. That’s unfortunate.
The successful CDAOs we’ve witnessed are those who are constantly collecting insight from the business departments they serve: specific examples where the output of the CDAO’s team’s efforts impacted the business. June Dershewitz from Amazon Music evens recommends doing quarterly business reviews to showcase this information.
So, it’s all pretty simple. Think about the business. View the world from the business leaders’ lenses. Make sure you’re delivering true value to them. This will get you prestige. Budget. Authority. The ability to bring in technologies you think are important, and hire people you know you need.
And a seat at the table.