How should I think about the CDO role and its overlap with the CIO / CTO role?

I agree with Julie, the CDO role is a sub-discipline within the office of the CTO or CIO depending on who has responsibility for your technology organization. The role is there to transform the business to a digital first business, which is typically code for cloud or completely modernizing their code and technology stack.

My opinion is that it's all just titles. They really are the same job. I hear about a lot of chief digital officers and the people that I know that are in those roles are super impressive. I do, however, think there is an element that organizations have taken from the corporate IT world. The role usually has little responsibility for delivering revenue and services. To be honest, I have been in big debates about whether this role should be in marketing even. It's kind of fascinating how it bounces around. In the end it's just really important work that needs to get done.

A chief digital officer role can be seen as someone who is driving digital led change in the organization business processes. One of the best way to look into CDO role is someone who is catalyzing change, bringing new digital levers to implement the change and pass this back to BAU teams under CIOs to run this environment.

I am actually not on the side of creating so many C level terms in the Information Technology area. This trend dilutes the meaning of the standard CIO role we have come to understand over the last two decades. This trend to Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Digital Officer, etc., etc. is what I call dilution of the role of the executive who heads the IT portfolio. We past, present and future CIOs should not be supportive of this trend.

While the CIO has responsibility over the entire ICT domain, the CDO is targeted at enabling true digital transformation (versus IT as a support vehicle of traditional back office).1) Map digital capabilities to strategic priorities.2) Digital Process Innovation 3) Manage digital project portfolio 4) Drive / own digital transformation The CTO is the individual who will define the HOW from a technology and architecture perspective.

Gartner pushed the concept of ‘bi-modal IT’ a couple of years back. The idea was that IT requires a fast lane in order to enable / accelerate digital transformation. Looking at the scope of MODE2 gives a good idea about the role of a CDO...( simply google Bimodal IT)