MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How to Choose the Right Digital Leader for Your Company

Striking the right competence-credibility balance for digital leaders depends largely on how the role of the CDO is defined in a particular company.

Digital disruption is close to the top of the agenda in many boardrooms today, but who should lead the charge? Many companies are assigning the task to chief digital officers (CDOs). Yet, finding the right candidate is not easy and tenures tend to be short. Throughout late 2018 and early 2019, we analyzed the career paths of 508 CDOs, examined more than 1,000 survey responses from CDOs and other digital leaders, and interviewed 42 of them from across 28 countries and a broad range of industries to gain a better understanding of the position.

Our findings suggest that success in the CDO role is highly influenced by two factors: competence and credibility. Competence is an umbrella term for the combination of digital knowledge, skills, and experience. Credibility is the belief within an organization that a candidate can achieve the stated objectives.

About the Author

Michael Wade is a professor and Cisco Chair of Digital Business Transformation at IMD in Switzerland and coauthor of Orchestrating Transformation: How to Deliver Winning Performance With a Connected Approach to Change (IMD, 2019). Nikolaus Obwegeser is a researcher at IMD’s Global Center for Digital Business Transformation.

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