July 29, 2013: “When I started tracking this two years ago, there were 75 CDOs worldwide in major organizations,” says David Mathison, who curated the first-ever CDO Summit in February 2013. “Today there are hundreds — more than 300 at most recent count.”
April 16, 2013: David Mathison is the founder of the CDO Club, which in February hosted the first CDO Summit in New York City. He is consulting for six universities looking to hire CDOs. After reviewing hundreds of resumes, Mathison says the biggest surprise has been that candidates’ backgrounds are largely entrepreneurial.
“They are coming out of these high-tech environments, with successes behind them in the digital world, and being called on by bigger companies,” he said. “They are technical, but that’s not the main skill that gets them hired.”
What gets them hired, he says, is how they answer this question: “Can you come in here and quickly evaluate our system . . . to give us short-term solutions and longer-term goals?”
Mathison is studying the emerging role of CDOs and says their functions vary, depending on how much an organization has shifted in its digital evolution. In broad terms, CDOs increase revenue through digital products, decrease costs through digital fulfillment, improve customer service and improve the return on mobile and online investments. They also help organizations respond to disruptors, or innovations with game-changing potential. To many in academia, that means massive open online courses (MOOCs).
“There weren’t many [CDOs] around five years ago, and in academia it’s really been in the last year or two, with the MOOCs that have really spooked everyone,” Mathison said.
NEW YORK, February 21, 2013 – Organizers for the inaugural Chief Digital Officer Summit have announced that sales have exceeded expectations, and last week, the Summit completely sold out of tickets. To handle the overwhelming demand for access, conference officials announced a sponsorship
NEW YORK, January 31, 2013 – Teddy Goff, the Digital Director for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, will be the featured guest speaker at the inaugural Chief Digital Officer Summit on February 28, 2013 at
NEW YORK, January 22, 2013 – Vivian Schiller (SVP and Chief Digital Officer, NBC News); Jonathan Miller (former Chief Digital Officer, News Corporation); and David Payne (Chief Digital Officer, Gannett Co., Inc.) will deliver keynote addresses at the inaugural Chief Digital Officer Summit, to be held on February 28, 2013 at Thomson Reuters at 3
December 5, 2011: “Since David Mathison became a recruiter for executive-search firm Chadick Ellig Inc. in August, he said, two dozen Yahoo employees, including more than a half-dozen vice presidents, have connected with him on LinkedIn to signal their willingness to talk.”