News

April 2026

By Tammy Hawkins Client Partner, Head of Western United States, and Head of Technology & Digital – North America.

There’s a pattern we continue to see across organizations - and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Chief Data Officers are being hired with urgency, positioned as critical to transformation, and tasked with unlocking the full value of data across the enterprise. And yet, many of these roles stall - or turn over - within 18 to 24 months. This isn’t anecdotal. The data supports it. The average CDO tenure sits around 2 to 2.5 years - one of the shortest in the C-suite - despite the role now being present in the majority of large organizations. From where we sit, this gap between expectation and longevity is not about the quality of leadership being brought in. It’s about the environment those leaders are stepping into. This isn’t a data problem. It’s a leadership and organizational alignment problem.

The Expectation Gap

On paper, the mandate is clear:

• Build a data-driven culture Modernize data infrastructure
• Enable better decision-making Support AI and advanced analytics initiatives

But in practice, what we consistently see is far more complex. Data transformation touches every part of the business - technology, operations, finance, commercial teams. Yet, many organizations introduce the CDO role without fully aligning ownership, incentives, or decision rights across those functions. The expectation is enterprise change. The reality is functional fragmentation.

Where It Breaks Down

Typically, the first 12–18 months show progress - strategy definition, platform investment, initial wins. Then momentum slows. From our perspective, the breakdown tends to happen in a few consistent areas:

1. Misaligned Ownership
   Data is everywhere, but accountability is unclear. Business units, IT, and leadership operate with different priorities.
2. Cultural Resistance
   Organizations say they want to be data-driven, but decision-making behaviors don’t shift. Experience and instinct continue to override insight.
3. Fragmented Investment
   Significant spend on tools and platforms, but without a cohesive strategy tied to business outcomes.
4. Limited Executive Alignment
   The CDO is often expected to influence enterprise change without full alignment - or authority - across the leadership team.
5. Short-Term Pressure vs. Long-Term Change
   Data transformation requires sustained effort, but expectations are often set on near-term results.

The Human Factor Behind the Stall

What’s often underestimated is that data transformation is not just technical - it’s behavioral.

• It requires leaders to make decisions differently. 
• It requires teams to work differently.
• It requires organizations to operate differently.

And that’s where we see the greatest friction. You can build modern data platforms. You can hire strong data leadership. But if the organization doesn’t evolve alongside those investments, progress stalls.

Why This Is a Leadership Issue

The success - or failure - of a CDO is rarely about the individual. In fact, broader data shows that fewer than half of CDO appointments are considered fully successful, and many organizations still report that the role itself is not clearly defined or fully understood internally.

From our vantage point, this reinforces a consistent theme:

Organizations are investing in the role before fully committing to the change it requires.

• For CEOs, this raises a fundamental question: Are we truly prepared to operate differently as an organization? 
• For CHROs, it becomes a question of enablement: Do we have the leadership capability, incentives, and culture to support that shift?

Because data transformation cannot sit with one executive. It requires alignment across the entire leadership team.

What We See Working

The organizations gaining real traction are not just hiring strong CDOs - they are creating the conditions for success.

They are:

• Clarifying ownership across business and technology
• Aligning leadership incentives with data-driven outcomes
• Embedding data into how decisions are made - not just how they are reported
• Investing in capability building across the organization
• Treating data transformation as a business priority, not a technical initiative

Most importantly, they recognize this as a leadership transformation, not just a data one.

The Real Risk

The risk isn’t that data transformation fails outright. It’s that organizations underestimate what it takes - cycling through leadership, resetting priorities, and losing momentum over time. And from what we’re seeing, that pattern is becoming more common.

Final Thought

Data is often described as the “new oil.” But unlike oil, its value isn’t realized through extraction - it’s realized through people. How leaders interpret it. How teams apply it. How organizations act on it. The CDO role doesn’t stall because data isn’t important. It stalls when organizations expect transformation - without changing how they operate. And that’s the real leadership challenge.

We’re continuing to see this pattern play out across organizations - and it’s one that leadership teams can’t afford to overlook.