My favorite? The Chief Mindfulness Officer,
a function now found at Aetna, Google, IBM and SAP
23 September 2018 (Athens, Greece) – It’s the age of the Chief ____ Officer. As companies struggle to keep pace with rapid changes in business, culture and consumers, they’re appointing more and more “chiefs” to cover what they might be missing.
Suffered a nasty data breach? Time to appoint a Chief Privacy Officer. This year the PwC Global State of Information Security survey found that 79 percent of companies worth over $10 billion have appointed a privacy executive head.
NOTE: that PwC survey is one of my favorite reads every year. It is based on responses of 9,500 executives in 122 countries and more than 75 industries. It is actually two reports: the first report examines why businesses are vulnerable to cyber disruptions and how leaders can help their organizations build resilience to sustain operations and boost economic performance. The second report focuses on the need for business leaders to revitalize data privacy and trust by jolting stalled risk management efforts into action.
This year’s survey was an eye-opener. Business leaders reported that theft was not the rising concern in cyberattacks. It is the growing manipulation and destruction of data (without the owner’s knowledge) and the resulting damage to critical information infrastructure.
Customer experience not up to snuff? Time for a Chief Customer Officer or Chief Experience Officer—a role that is sometimes a rebrand of the Chief Marketing Officer, but with more focus on customer outcomes to accompany the traditional marketing and brand building responsibilities.
Overall, it’s the CMO role that has seen the most tinkering—with Chief Brand Officer being another popular substitute—which is not surprising given how tenuous the job is. At a recent AdAge event I attended, executive-search and leadership-consulting firm Spencer Stuart noted found CMOs average a scant 44 months on the job, the highest turnover of all C-suite executives. And they noted one big change is the effort to tie marketing to growth by blending the CMO role with the responsibilities of the Chief Revenue Officer to give rise to another hybrid title: the Chief Growth Officer. This executive might work hand in hand with the Chief Commercial Officer who oversees a company’s sales. And it somewhat explains the development of yet another chief … the Chief Visionary Officer.
But boosting a company’s internal smarts is a job I have seen assigned to the Chief Learning Officer. At the same AdAge event, it was suggested another title for this cross-functional, communicative role: Chief Synthesis Officer. There’s competition for the CSO title, with AdAge’s Simon Dumenco suggesting companies hire a Chief Sanity Officer, a role that balances the need to innovate against the risk that new innovations may drive away existing customers. I am not so sure that was a suggestion with tongue-in-cheek.
Feeling overwhelmed by all these new titles? Perhaps you should check in with your company’s Chief Mindfulness Officer, a function now found at SAP, Google, Aetna and IBM.
Creating these roles provides a snazzy sounding press release for companies, and an incentive for promising execs to stay on, but keeping track of them all can cause a real headache. Often, there is already an existing role within companies sharing the responsibilities of these new chiefs. The privacy officer is really just a goosed up Chief Technology Officer. Employee mindfulness can fall under the Chief Human Resources Officer (and what some now call a Chief People Officer). Improved collaboration between CEOs, CFOs and CMOs would make the titles of CGOs, CVOs or CSOs superfluous.
At the end of the day, if everyone is a chief, doesn’t that mean nobody is?