Why Can’t Chief Data Officers Hold Their Positions for a Long Time?

Why do chief data officers take the crown in IT roles but have very little tenure with high turnover?

In the era of big data, data-driven is imperative. Business uses their collected data to improve their product performance and strengthen their company with their competitive edge. Chief Data Officers is an important position to manage data. CDO should have 5-10 years of experience in a senior-level data management role.

The Chief Data Officer (CDO) first focused on data governance and compliance of utilizing data to drive business outcomes. And also Overseeing data management, data analytics, and data governance. He is an executive that understands strategy as well as using data to drive a business in the desired direction and he'll be able to justify that direction to investors and stakeholders, Ensuring data privacy.

Key Roles and Responsibilities of Chief Data Officer

• Data governance is the primary function of CDO. He's responsible for protecting collected data from interference, theft, corruption, and loss
• Utilizing data collected to inform business practices, data strategy and increase revenue or cut costs.
• Designing a system to analyze to implement data strategies and systems.
• Lead, motivate and manage large technical teams.
• Implementing data privacy policies, protecting data privacy, and complying with data protection regulations.
• Determine where to cut costs and increase revenue based on insights derived from data.
• Be aware of the intentions of anyone who might want to purchase your data.
• Effectively communicate the status, value, and importance of data collection to executive members and staff.
• Knowledge of relevant applications, big data solutions, and tools.
• Ensuring your organization is using data ethically.
• Leading the design of the data architecture and analytics infrastructure

Reasons Behind Chief Data Officers' Short Tenure

The Chief Data Officer is a crucial position at a company but it's hard to stay in. CDO tenures are short, turnover is high. The average tenure of CDOs is two to two-and-a-half years. The reason behind for this:

• CDO position is relatively new, so many companies are still trying to decide what they want from their data execs.
• Many organizations expect too much and the impossible, unclear priorities from their CDO.
• CDOs often may also find trouble to sell their achievements to business audiences.
• the importance of managing data for companies and recognition that data execs are different from similar roles, like CIOs, CDAO, Chief Digital Officers, chief technology officers, etc.
• CDOs, who have high salaries and are traditionally less business savvy, might become targets to other employees.
• One way to preserve a CDO role is to have it include analytics and AI since it's much easier to demonstrate value in those areas.
• Organisations can't create the ideal data environment within their companies, it's very expensive because legacy companies have legacy systems and data environments.
• Data strategies must be tied to business strategies and goals. Once the goals are agreed upon, the CDO can build the data assets so a firm can achieve its goals. Scalable and sustainable data analytic products to accelerate time and value for business units can also lengthen tenure.
• This job is like failing because it's expected to carry out cultural change as well as implement a series of important technical changes but it's not experienced in change management and finds the cultural change very difficult to achieve.