What’s a CDO to do?

Data governance is straightforward; data strategy is not.

By Julie Steele and Scott Kurth
January 31, 2017
Chessboard. Chessboard. (source: Pixabay)

Data has become a critical asset for nearly every company, and, at many of those companies, managing it is now the responsibility of the chief data officer (CDO)—a relatively new role that’s still being defined and standardized, says Julie Steele, communications director at Silicon Valley Data Science.


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The CDO role initially arose as a response to data governance requirements in fields like health care and payments, says Steele, but in addition to managing data governance, many CDOs are also responsible for data strategy—finding value in their organizations’ data. While the governance issues are clear, data strategy is murkier.

In this clip from Strata + Hadoop World 2015 in London, Steele highlights the chief data officers at Wells Fargo, Allstate, the City of San Francisco, the Federal Reserve Board, and Seattle Children’s Hospital, explaining their strategic work in terms of centralization, facilitation, and evangelization.

Post topics: Data-Driven Business
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