The Next Big Thing for CDOs

Data management gained significant attention after the 2008 financial crisis when regulations required banks to document their financial and risk metrics, leading to the emergence of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) role. Initially focused on regulatory compliance, CDOs expanded their expertise to other data processes across various industries, which became crucial with new regulations like GDPR and CCPA. As competitive CDOs shifted towards enhancing data strategies offensively, they began to revamp data stacks and build data products and services, paving the way for future challenges in managing digital products in production. Modern CDOs are developing strategies to identify and address issues in infrastructure, data, models, and applications, with data platform teams and the CDO organization working together to prioritize and resolve data issues. This collaboration is essential as data automation becomes crucial, with any flaws posing operational, reputational, and financial risks. Companies like Soda are dedicated to supporting data engineers and CDOs by providing monitoring tools and alerts to address data issues proactively.