Transitioning from Head of Data to Chief Data Officer

Moving to a more senior role can be an exciting and challenging experience. If you are transitioning from a Head of Data role to a Chief Data Officer (CDO) role you are likely expecting a significant shift in your responsibilities. One of the most significant shifts is moving from running a data team/s, to a role that’s about owning an asset and being responsible for its use, value creation and liabilities outside of your direct team/s.

As a CDO or an aspiring one, it is crucial to understand this shift. When you look across the C-suite, one of the primary responsibilities across all C-suite roles is the strategic management and ownership of an asset. The CFO is responsible for the financial assets of the firm, the CMO is responsible for marketing assets, brand value and positioning of the firm, the CTO is responsible for the technology assets of the firm etc.

What does data as an asset mean?

An asset is something with which an organisation can generate value from - this is usually financial as organisations ultimately look to maximise profit. However, for charities and foundations the value may be irradicating a disease or solving a societal challenge. Either way, data is absolutely an asset that can generate value and help organisations achieve their strategic goals. As a CDO, your task is to ensure data is truly managed and utilised as an asset for the organisation.

If you have spent your career in analytics type roles you are already very used to thinking about analytics use cases and their value. But, analytics is distinct from data and as you transition to CDO you’ll need to think about the latter. How does your firm use data? Is it critical across operational processes? Is it required to meet regulatory requirements? Does it drive R&D and innovation activities? Is data directly monetised via marketplaces?

As a CDO, you are responsible for data, so you need to understand where the assets are, how they are used, where it is costing you money, where is it generating you money and value and where is it being underutilised and should be doing more. 

One way to think about data as an asset is..

…to start by assigning it a monetary value. By assigning a monetary value to your data assets you can start having a conversation based on a language that all business areas understand… money. As a CDO, this allows you to kickstart your way into building an effective model that manages and uses data based on its actual value (you need to be able to stand behind the £ figure you assign) rather than its perceived value (which differs per person and team).

In practice: To bring this to life for colleagues, you can compare data to another asset. Lets take property. You could ask your CFO or CEO…How many properties do we own? Do you know which are the most and least valuable? How much do you spend on maintaining and securing our properties? Now what about our data? Maybe not…Well, if data is worth £x… shouldn’t we?

Douglas Laney and the late Heman Heyns are great brains on this topic as well as methodologies for data valuation should you want to read further into this.

Now you have a value associated to data, you can start to manage data proportionately. Managing data as an asset means treating it with the same care and attention as you would any other asset of similar value. For data assets, this includes things like improving data quality (so you can trust it when you use it) and agreeing data definitions (so you understand what it really means) and assigning classifications (so you can secure it appropriately) as well as understanding what data assets you are getting the most value out of (through analytical or operational uses) and the data assets that you aren't utilising (so you can delete it and save the storage costs and hassle, or start utilising and getting value back). A data owner is typically a critical role in this process.

In practice: You've reached out to a senior colleague and asked them to be a Data Owner. Its a critical role within data management but, whilst they recognise data is important, they can't easily articulate quite how important it is. On top of this, they now have to try and take on additional responsibilities in an area that they aren't always well skilled or trained in with support from a likely small data governance team.

By having a monetary value against your data you can shift this conversation. You can help your data owners understand more clearly how important the role is in monetary terms, enable them to bring others in on the journey and how they can use it for their own performance management conversations (that impact their promotions, pay, bonuses etc.). Whats more is you can show them which of the data assets they ‘own’ have the highest value and which have the lowest. Ultimately this is useful for them and your Data Office function as it reduces wasted effort on data and ensures that the highest value data assets receive the most attention, effort and costs.

Deliver, measure and communicate the value of data: If you're well connected to CDOs and Data 'voices' on LinkedIn, its likely you see a lot of posts about CDOs and Data Leaders struggling to articulate the value of their data initiatives. And, whilst I don’t always have sympathy for that stance, having data assets valued is a good starting point from which to build the data value story.

In practice: Start by focussing use cases around the highest value data assets you have. For the analytics teams, what are the data products they can build with those data assets that unlock that value? Again, think broader than analytics if you're new into (or seeking to move to) the CDO role…e.g. what would a data management initiative that cleans up the data by x% be on your organisations operational processes? Does that lead to fewer errors, higher quality and more efficient processes and ultimately happier customers? These are measurable things and the numbers can add up fast.

On top of this, communication is crucial in building momentum across the firm and creating a true data driven culture… a culture where treating data as an asset just happens, where data is always considered, is part of strategic conversations from investments to business plans, is used appropriately across the firm, is treated with care not just because you need it but because someone else will too... data as an asset means ensuring that everyone in your organization understands the importance of data and how it contributes to the organisations success.

In summary, moving into the Chief Data Officer role can be a significant step change. However, understanding the shift in responsibilities and the importance of owning and managing an asset can help you succeed in your new role - and valuing tat asset can set you off in the right direction.

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