What is a chief analytics officer? The exec who turns data into decisions

The IT World article, “What is a chief analytics officer? The exec who turns data into decisions," quoted Russell Reynolds Associates Consultant Justin Cerilli about the function of the Chief Data Officer. The article is excerpted below. 

The chief analytics officer (CAO) heads up a company’s data analytics operations, transforming data into business value, and drives data-related business change. The role is often viewed as interchangeable with that of the chief data officer. For Gartner’s recent report on “The State of the Office of the ‘Chief Data Officer,’” the company surveyed 180 chief data officers and chief analytics officers, making no distinction between the titles. 

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“A chief data officer is most likely a technology person who’s been in data management and understands data quality and processes,” says Justin Cerilli, who heads the data and analytics practice for consultancy Russell Reynolds Associates. “They have tech backgrounds but aren’t deep data scientists. We’ve seen them come from big services companies like Accenture.” Analytics executives do have deep data science backgrounds, he says. “Some come from companies like McKinsey or Bain.” 

To read the full article​​, click here.