How to Become a Chief Analytics Officer

As data and analytics have gained more attention as key components of successful modern businesses, it's not a surprise that we are seeing more c-level executives charged with driving analytics and data initiatives. CEOs are recognizing the strategic importance of putting data at the center of the business, business decisions, and even communications with customers. And as firms now have more respect for the critical importance of their data, they also need executive-level workers to oversee the efforts. Ambitious analytics pros looking to make their mark may want to consider the chief analytics officer job as a place they want to be in 5 or 10 years. But what are the day-to-day duties? What are the career paths from CAO? To find out, we've invited Dun & Bradstreet CAO Nipa Basu to AllAnalytics radio to talk about her job, her duties, and what an CAO does every day. Consider it your opportunity to score an information interview with an insider who can answer your toughest questions about the job. And be sure to bring those questions to our live show on Wednesday, July 26 at 1 pm ET/10 am PT. You can register for the show now at this link. In her role as CAO at Dun and Bradstreet, Basu not only oversees her own company's analytics strategy, but she also has an insider view into how CAOs work inside other companies. She's served as CAO at a time when the role has risen in importance. A study of 180 chief data officers and chief analytics officers by market research firm Gartner in in November 2016 found that CAOs and CDOs are more likely to report to the CEO than they are to anyone else (30%). The second most likely executive for them to report into was the CIO (16%). (Gartner VP Mario Faria told me last year that the shift in CAOs reporting to CEOs from CIOs is moving at a much faster rate than Gartner had expected.) CAOs and CDOs have increased in numbers, according to Gartner, from just 15 in 2010 to 1,400 in 2016. And if your ambition extends beyond CAO, there's a path for you, too. Gartner predicts that 15% of successful CDOs and CAOs will move into other C-level positions, including CEOs, by 2020.