Chief data officers 'need to play an offensive role' and industry needs more of them, says Teradata governance chief

'It's hard to think of anyone in a company who doesn't use data' says Charles Griffith

The world needs more chief data officers and they need to "play an offensive role", practice lead and senior industry consultant for data governance at Teradata, Charles Griffith, believes.

Speaking at a session entitled "Chief Data Officers; What's the BIG Deal?" at Terradata's Partners 2015 conference in Anaheim, California today, Griffith pointed out how, between 2008 and 2014, banks had paid out $100bn in legal penalties and settlements, with much of this down to data-related issues.

This, said Griffith, shows that business requires more than the 200 CDOs that Gartner estimates currently exist and, more crucially, CDOs need to "play an offensive role" in changing the way companies look at data.

Griffith said big data is very much a fact of life in the finance sector, with banks now gathering and storing petabytes of data, while just 15 years ago "a large bank could run on 10-15 terabytes", Griffith observed.

"[And] with this huge variety of data it's helpful to have a CDO who can look at the environment and help increase the business value, and reduce the pain," he said.

Reducing this pain, said Griffith, required CDOs to assume a more "ambassadorial role", as opposed to simply reacting to problems.

"They speak the language and bridge the gaps across the organisation," said Griffith.

"You have so many people in the company involved in data, it's hard to think of anyone in a company who doesn't use data," he continued.

Griffith cited Charles Thomas, chief data officer at banking firm Wells Fargo.

"He spoke of ‘CDO' standing for 'chief diplomacy officer'. If you have someone like a CDO who is a chief strategic leader, works with the group and takes up the things that need to be done, they can get the budget and resources needed to start using data," said Griffith.

A CDO, he argued, can easily bridge the gap between analytics teams and the wider business - an increasingly crucial role that often lies outside the direct remit of IT.

"Mid-level management see, in many cases, difficulty getting their analytical questions answered," said Griffith.

"Maybe they [get a certain answer], they like that answer, and say they'd like it daily or weekly, but they go back to the team and are told it may take three weeks to generate that data again. A CDO can help with this problem," he suggested, adding that a chief data officer could more directly manage expectations.

Griffith said that the CIO and the CDO can make an effective team, especially in terms of focusing on different areas of data policy.

"The CIO typically works with infrastructure and firewalls. A CDO can work with internal fraud and data breaches. Another pair of eyes on this is probably welcomed by the CIO," he said.

At the same time, Griffith suggested that a CDO should not be afraid to report into a CMO, as well as the CIO or CEO.

"The CMO can be more focused on marketing campaigns and the customer, so fundamental governance issues don't get [as easily] addressed. The CDO reporting into the CMO could be the ideal solution - think again of offence and defence," said Griffith.

In the UK, the government's first ever chief data officer, Mike Bracken, resigned in August 2015, having only taken up the post in March this year.