C-suite jobs have advanced to meet rapidly-changing workplace needs in the digital age and new economy.
Although the new c-level job titles may sound superfluous or too touchy-feely:
Chief Listener
Chief People Officer
Chief Happiness Officer
. . . they’re cropping up in diverse corporate settings and seem to be here to stay.
We can assume that more, fresh c-suite roles will appear, in response to future corporate and workplace demands.
Signaling the new trend, in February LinkedIn Jobs ran this listing:
Chief Human Resource Officer- A new “C” suite role Job at An Architectural Engineering Consulting Firm
Last year in The Atlantic, Deepak Advani, IBM’s VP of Business Analytics Products, suggested the need for a Chief Analytics Officer (CAO), to lead a consolidated center for analytics:
“A big advantage of having a centralized analytics group is that it can ensure that the enterprise is operating from a standardized set of reports, dashboards, and models, which can drive greater alignment and faster decision-making across the enterprise.”
Geoffrey Colon, VP of Social@Ogilvy, noted in an article in The Futurist last summer:
“New job title creation happens every few years as technological shifts force changes in work functions.”
He anticipated the following new roles will shake up the C-suite:
Earned Media Officer – S/he will push earned media impressions and engagement, exploiting the fact that earned media is the dominant marketing model moving forward.
Chief Content Officer – Working closely with community managers, s/he will embrace established and emerging social media when publishing content for the brands they manage across all channels.
Open-Source Manager – S/he will work internally and externally with open-source talent to share best practices and find the best solutions.
Chief Linguist – S/he will stay on top of the latest social media lingo and shorthand expressions, to best communicate with the company’s customers.
Chief Data Scientist – S/he will replace the chief marketing officer or the chief digital officer, both of whom typically lack the analytical skill to understand how to manage the emergence of big data.
In a Forbes article early last year, C Is For Silly: The New C-Suite Titles, Jeanne Goudreau noted that some top organizations have already embraced the trend for new titles at the top executive level:
- Kodak and Dell — Chief Listener
- Facebook — Chief Privacy Officer
- Coca-Cola — Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Scientific and Regulatory Officer, and Chief Quality and Product Integrity Officer
- Microsoft — Chief People Officer
- IBM — Chief Information Officer
- Xerox — Chief Strategy Officer
- New York City — Chief Digital Officer
The article included a photo slide show of six other new c-suite titles now in circulation:
- Chief Internet Evangelist
- Chief Happiness Officer
- Chief Knowledge Officer
- Chief Customer Officer
- Chief Innovation Officer
- Chief Observance Officer
In the same article, Peter Cappelli, a University of Pennsylvania management professor, said:
“Big companies are more likely to take these titles “seriously” with resources and infrastructure, but small businesses may have more leniency and ability to be creative.”
© Copyright, 2013, Meg Guiseppi. All rights reserved. The content in this post, and elsewhere on this site, may not be reproduced, republished, reprinted or distributed without written permission.
Related posts:
7 Things Successful Executive Job Seekers Know
I’m a CMO But I Need Help Writing My Executive Resume
5 Things Executive Recruiters Want: Executive Job Search Best Practices
photo by TooFarNorth
