Why the Chief Digital Officer Role Needs a Reset for Modern Transformation

When McKinsey director Kate Smaje sat down in 2015 to discuss digital transformation, the business world was grappling with fundamentally different challenges than those facing organizations today. Her interview, “The Secrets to Going Digital,” outlined what seemed like sensible advice: think disruptively, make tough decisions quickly, hire patient CDOs, and ensure they work themselves out of a job by infusing digital throughout the organization. Nearly a decade later, this framework deserves critical reexamination.

Smaje’s central thesis that successful digital transformation requires companies to “aim where the ball should be” rather than pursue incremental improvements remains sound. However, the execution framework she proposes reveals assumptions that have not aged well. The reality of digital transformation has proven more complex, more continuous, and more culturally challenging than the 2015 playbook suggested.

The Disruption Paradox: Aiming at a Moving Target

Smaje correctly identifies that leading companies avoid the “me too” trap of simply matching competitors. They challenge themselves to envision different business models and stress-test whether their ambitions are sufficiently disruptive. This forward-looking orientation remains critical. Yet the metaphor of “aiming where the ball should be” implies a predictable trajectory, which rarely exists in practice.

Consider General Electric’s Predix platform initiative. GE invested billions to become a “digital industrial” company, aiming for where they believed the industrial internet ball would land. By 2018, GE had dramatically scaled back these ambitions, eventually selling off major portions of GE Digital. The company aimed for a future that never materialized in the way they anticipated. The failure was not in thinking big or being willing to disrupt themselves, but in assuming they could accurately predict a single future state.

Contrast this with Microsoft’s transformation under Satya Nadella. Rather than aiming for a single predicted future, Microsoft built organizational capabilities for continuous adaptation. The shift to cloud computing, the embrace of open source, and the acquisition strategy spanning LinkedIn to GitHub to Nuance reflected ongoing recalibration rather than a single big bet on where the ball would land.

The distinction matters. Digital transformation is not a one-time reorientation toward a new future state. It is the building of organizational muscle for perpetual transformation. Research from MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte found that digitally maturing companies are distinguished not by having picked the right future, but by their ability to sense and respond to emerging opportunities and threats continuously.

The Decision-Making Dilemma: Speed Versus Learning

Smaje’s emphasis on making tough decisions quickly, particularly her advocacy for “shameless” creative destruction of failed initiatives, captures an important truth about organizational inertia. Legacy companies do tend to let failed projects limp along far too long. The “app amnesty” example she provides—where a client consolidated dozens of mobile applications into two or three focused efforts—illustrates the value of periodically pruning digital initiatives.

However, this framing oversimplifies the relationship between speed and learning. Not every initiative that appears to be failing should be rapidly killed. Amazon’s AWS business was unprofitable for years before becoming the company’s profit engine. Netflix’s streaming service cannibalized its profitable DVD rental business long before the economics made obvious sense. These examples suggest that patience with strategic initiatives can be as important as speed in killing tactical failures.

The challenge lies in distinguishing between the two. Rita McGrath’s research on discovery-driven planning provides a more nuanced framework than “fast creative destruction.” She argues that digital initiatives should be structured with clear assumptions, checkpoints, and learning milestones. The decision to continue or kill should be based on whether critical assumptions are being validated, not simply on short-term performance metrics.

Additionally, organizational learning theory suggests that companies learn as much from thoughtful failure as from success. Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety demonstrates that organizations that treat failure as shameful, even when they claim otherwise, actually suppress the risk-taking necessary for transformation. The goal should not be shameless failure but rather thoughtful experimentation with clear learning objectives.

Rethinking the Chief Digital Officer: Beyond Patience

Smaje’s characterization of patience as “probably the most important quality for CDOs” reflects the reality that these leaders must operate without direct authority across much of the organization. Cross-functional influence, stakeholder management, and collaborative capabilities are indeed essential. Yet elevating patience above all other qualities reveals a troubling assumption: that CDOs should primarily be expert influencers rather than builders with genuine authority.

Gartner research shows that the number of CDO positions peaked around 2020 and has since declined. However, this is not necessarily because digital has been successfully “infused throughout the whole organization” as Smaje’s framework would predict. Instead, many organizations found that CDOs without sufficient authority, resources, and technical credibility struggled to drive meaningful change, no matter how patient they were.

DBS Bank’s transformation offers an instructive counterpoint. Rather than appointing a patient CDO to gradually influence the organization, CEO Piyush Gupta declared that DBS would become a “digital bank,” not just a bank with digital capabilities. The bank invested heavily in engineering talent, rebuilt core systems, and fundamentally restructured how product teams operated. This was not patient influence but rather decisive structural change backed by CEO authority.

The most effective digital leaders combine patience with impatience. They are patient with the cultural and behavioral changes that cannot be rushed. They are deeply impatient with structural obstacles, resource constraints, and technical debt that impede progress. This requires not just collaboration skills but also technical credibility, business acumen, and the positional authority to make hard tradeoffs.

Smaje’s suggestion that technical expertise matters less than soft skills for CDOs has not been borne out by subsequent research. A 2021 study by Harvard Business Review found that CDOs with strong technical backgrounds were significantly more likely to drive successful transformations than those selected primarily for political or collaborative skills. Technical credibility proves essential for making sound architectural decisions, evaluating vendor claims, attracting engineering talent, and maintaining respect from technical teams.

The Self-Eliminating CDO: A Flawed Endgame

Perhaps the most problematic element of Smaje’s framework is the notion that “CDOs need to be doing themselves out of a job” because “the endgame is that digital is infused throughout the whole organization.” This sounds appealing in theory but reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how digital capabilities evolve.

Digital is not a fixed set of capabilities that, once distributed throughout an organization, no longer requires dedicated leadership. Rather, digital represents a continuously evolving set of technologies, practices, customer expectations, and competitive threats. The idea that an organization can “finish” its digital transformation and no longer need a CDO is akin to suggesting that once quality is infused throughout an organization, no one needs to think about it anymore.

Consider the evolving digital landscape since 2015. Organizations that declared digital transformation complete after implementing mobile apps and basic analytics now face entirely new challenges around artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, quantum computing, and the metaverse. Digital capabilities are not a one-time acquisition but rather an ongoing race where the finish line constantly moves.

Leading technology companies do not eliminate their CTOs once engineering excellence is “infused” throughout the organization. Instead, they maintain strong technical leadership to drive ongoing evolution. Similarly, mature digital organizations are more likely to evolve the CDO role than eliminate it. Some convert it to a Chief Technology Officer or Chief Information Officer role with broader remit. Others maintain dedicated digital leadership but shift the focus from transformation to innovation and continuous improvement.

The University of St. Gallen’s research on digital maturity models reveals that organizations at the highest maturity levels do not have less need for digital leadership. Instead, they have different needs. Early-stage transformations require digital leaders who can drive adoption and overcome resistance. Mature digital organizations require leaders who can anticipate emerging technologies, manage complex technical ecosystems, and ensure the organization stays ahead of disruption.

CEO Commitment: Necessary But Not Sufficient

Smaje correctly identifies CEO buy-in as essential for digital transformation. Without CEO commitment, CDOs lack the mandate for tough choices and cannot secure necessary resources. Her observation that CEOs must “role model what it means to be a digital organization” aligns with extensive change management research demonstrating that transformation requires visible leadership commitment.

However, framing this as primarily about CEO buy-in understates the broader leadership challenge. Successful digital transformation requires commitment not just from the CEO but from the entire executive team and board of directors. When digital transformation is seen as “the CEO’s initiative” rather than the organization’s strategy, it becomes vulnerable to leadership transitions and competing priorities.

Microsoft’s transformation succeeded not because Satya Nadella personally championed it, though he did, but because the entire leadership team committed to cultural and strategic change. The shift to a “growth mindset” culture, the embrace of collaboration over competition, and the willingness to cannibalize legacy businesses reflected enterprise-wide leadership alignment, not just CEO sponsorship.

Additionally, the CEO role-modeling requirement can create unrealistic expectations. Not every effective CEO needs to be personally fluent in agile methodology, design thinking, and the latest DevOps practices. What matters more is whether the CEO creates space for these practices, holds the organization accountable for digital outcomes, and ensures digital considerations shape strategic decisions.

The board’s role deserves particular attention. Research by McKinsey itself, published after Smaje’s interview, found that board digital fluency strongly correlates with transformation success. Boards that understand digital business models, technology risks, and digital talent markets provide better oversight and support. Conversely, boards that view digital as purely an operational matter often undermine transformation by pushing for unrealistic timelines or underinvesting in necessary capabilities.

A Modern Framework for Digital Transformation

What would a 2024 update to Smaje’s framework look like? Several elements deserve reconsideration:

• Build organizational ambidexterity. Replace the metaphor of “aiming where the ball should be” with the ability to simultaneously exploit current digital capabilities while exploring emerging opportunities. This requires different structures, metrics, and leadership approaches than a single-minded focus on a predicted future state.
• Practice disciplined experimentation. Shift from “fast creative destruction” to a model that emphasizes learning and assumption-testing, not just speed. Amazon’s practice of writing press releases for proposed initiatives before building them, then pressure-testing the customer value proposition, provides a model for thoughtful go/no-go decisions.
• Redesign the CDO role for impact. Reimagine the CDO role as requiring both technical credibility and organizational influence. Ensure the role has positional authority, resource control, and technical expertise alongside stakeholder management skills.
• Evolve the mandate continuously. Abandon the “work yourself out of a job” mentality in favor of a permanent digital leadership capability that shifts focus as the organization matures.
• Widen leadership ownership. Expand the leadership requirement beyond CEO buy-in to include board digital fluency, executive team commitment, and distributed digital leadership throughout the organization.

Practical Implications for Today’s Leaders

For executives currently leading or contemplating digital transformation, several practical recommendations emerge from this analysis:

• Invest in continuous transformation capabilities. Build organizational muscles for sensing emerging opportunities, rapidly experimenting, learning from both successes and failures, and reallocating resources dynamically.
• Give digital leaders real authority. If you appoint a CDO, ensure they control sufficient resources, have decision rights over critical technical choices, and can drive changes to organizational structure and processes.
• Treat digital maturity as ongoing. Build ongoing digital learning into leadership development, strategy processes, and organizational culture. The goal is not to complete digital transformation but to become perpetually transforming.
• Align the board and executive team early. Confirm board members understand digital business models, ensure executive incentives support cross-functional collaboration, and verify the organization can make and execute tough decisions.
• Balance speed with learning. Kill initiatives that are clearly failing or no longer strategic, but use a disciplined approach: articulate assumptions, define learning milestones, and extract lessons from outcomes.

Conclusion

Kate Smaje’s 2015 interview captured important truths about digital transformation that remain relevant today. Companies must think disruptively about future business models rather than pursue incremental improvements. They must make tough decisions to stop wasteful activities and kill failed initiatives. They need digital leaders who can work across organizational boundaries. And they require CEO commitment to fundamental change.

However, the execution framework she outlined has not weathered well. The notion of aiming for a predicted future state underestimates the continuous nature of digital evolution. The emphasis on fast creative destruction can undermine organizational learning. The characterization of ideal CDO qualities prioritizes influence over authority and downplays technical credibility. The vision of CDOs working themselves out of jobs misunderstands the ongoing nature of digital leadership. And CEO buy-in, while necessary, is insufficient without broader leadership alignment.

Nearly a decade of subsequent experience with digital transformation provides richer, more nuanced lessons. Successful digital organizations build capabilities for perpetual transformation, not just one-time change. They structure digital leadership roles for genuine authority backed by technical credibility. They recognize digital maturity as an ongoing journey requiring permanent leadership attention. And they align the board, executive team, and CEO around digital imperatives that extend well beyond any single leader’s tenure.

For business leaders navigating digital transformation today, the challenge is not to implement the 2015 playbook but to learn from both its insights and its limitations. Digital transformation remains as critical as ever, but the path to success requires frameworks adapted to current realities—not those designed for a different era. The organizations that thrive will be those that build capabilities for continuous evolution, not those that aim for a single predicted future and declare victory when they arrive.