3 focus areas for the chief data officer: Data Leaders Guild

Winning executive buy-in, driving change thorough an ecosystem of stakeholders and enabling ESG compliance are the key challenges facing chief data officers today according to CDO think tank, Data Leaders Guild.

Data Leaders Guild brought together cross-industry data chiefs to understand the key challenges facing CDOs today and the tactics they use to drive value.

The Voice of the Chief Data Officer report summarises the key learnings from the event, including how CDOs can effectively lead transformation, build trust and better influence senior executives.

Winning executive buy-in

Aligning the value of data to business performance is an effective way of driving change from within the organisation and motivating employees to integrate data into their daily work.

According to Didier Mamma, VP of data value creation and head of AI factory at Decathlon, “Our first guiding principle is proof of value: without it, it’s a no-go.”

The report said, “Take an end-to-end view of how the value of any data project can be fully maximised for the company. Work with the business to implement changes in processes and systems to remove roadblocks and fully activate models.”

The CDO ecosystem

According to David Gonzales, CDO at Vodafone Business, “It’s our responsibility to change the perception of the data organisation by closing the gap between what we do and how much value it creates across the entire organisation.”

The report reveals that CDOs must prioritise becoming effective facilitators, in order to engage trans-disciplinary teams, and leverage diverse perspectives to maximise data’s full potential.

“To better influence senior executives, learn to speak their language - know the business, the corporate KPIs and the value the data strategy directly contributes to them,” the report said.

Driving ESG compliance

When it comes to ESG, CDOs are becoming responsible for leveraging data in order to manage their organisation’s carbon footprint, especially as regulation increases the impetus for businesses to solidify their ESG program.

“As a CDO in a group function, you have to decide if the causation between climate change and data is true. And when you do it will change everything you do from that day forward,” said Volker Buscher, global chief data officer, Arup.