It’s been about 20 years since the term “Chief Digital Officer” first appeared on the organization chart . In these years, we frequently come across two types of articles in academic and business literature:

• The first category, who spoke about the importance of this position for the success of digital transformation.
• The second group who identified this phenomenon as a buzz role which is not neccessary.

According to them, one of the current senior managers (usually the senior director of information technology) can perform the same duties as the CDO, and they also envisioned this role temporarily in the structure of the organization; This means, CDO will not be present in the organization in the near future.

Recently, “HotTopics” institute, in collaboration with HPE, introduced top 100 digital senior managers for 2022.
teh list covered varied range of industries, from hightech to food industries,fashion and clothing to medicine and automobiles.
Mostly big and reputable companies: General Electric, L’Oreal, HSBC Bank, Ikea, Bank of America, General Motors, British Telecom, Nestlé, etc.

It seems that out of the two approaches that have been proposed in relation to CDO in the past years:

the first approach is still important for organizations determined to undergo digital transformation, and adding the burden of transformation to the current responsibilities of an organizational unit is not a popular approach in the world.

Digital transformation is the duty of whole organization, but its leadership cannot be plural.