Growth of the Chief Analytics Officer Position - 2019

As the world of data and analytics has grown over the past decade, a new role within organizations has become more common: the Chief Analytics Officer (CAO). This C-level officer, usually reporting to the President or CEO, is responsible for leading all of the company’s analytics efforts. These include statistical analysis, predictive modeling, data mining, data science, machine learning, AI, data management, business intelligence, and other analytical functions.

Crosly & Associates, the leading executive search firm in the analytics and data science industry, has conducted numerous searches for companies helping them to hire Chief Analytics Officers. For the past 4 years we have been empirically tracking the growth of the CAO position and have been publishing our results every year. Here are the results of our 2019 study.

In June 2019, there were 987 people on LinkedIn who listed their current title as Chief Analytics Officer, which was a 19.5% year-over-year (YOY) increase. 599 Chief Analytics Officers were in the United States; a 12.4% YOY increase.  Internationally, this title has continued to grow at a faster rate, increasing 31.6% YOY.*

Within the United States, it is not surprising that the cities with the largest number of CAOs are New York City (103), San Francisco (44), and Chicago (42). New York City had a 40% YOY increase in the number of CAOs, while the growth rate in Chicago and San Francisco slowed significantly, with each city having an increase of less than 5% YOY. Dallas-Fort Worth was fourth (23) and Los Angeles was fifth (20). The number of CAOs in Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles were both flat YOY. It appears that the growth in the United States is slowing as a whole and in most cities, except for the New York City, where the CAO growth is booming.

Internationally, the country with the largest number of CAOs is the United Kingdom (45). Companies in India are also starting to create CAO positions, and there are now 26 CAOs in India. Surprisingly, there are only 2 CAOs in China. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before we see the CAO trend hit companies in China.

Here are the largest industries in which CAOs classify themselves, and their frequencies:

Financial Services - 123

Information Technology and Services - 122

Hospital & Health Care - 72

Marketing and Advertising - 69

Computer Software - 52

Management Consulting - 49

After a modest 7% increase in 2018, the Information Technology and Services industry grew 19% in 2019. Financial Services (25%) and Computer Software (37%) also posted large YOY increases in the number of CAOs. One trend that we are seeing in the Financial Services industry is the position of Chief Risk and Analytics Officer. Historically, financial institutions would just have a Chief Risk Officer. Now, since almost all of the risk management decisions are made based on analytics, companies want their Chief Risk Officer to also be their Chief Analytics Officer.

Several industries had slower growth after large increases in previous years. After growing more than 50% last year, the number of CAOs in Management Consulting grew by only 6% this year, and in Marketing and Advertising the growth was only 4%, after a 31% increase the prior year. Perhaps we are seeing that these service-side organizations have caught up with the CAO trend and don't have much room left to grow in terms of creating more CAO positions. Hospital & Health Care companies posted a 12% YOY increase.

Where did the current CAOs get their education? The universities that produce the highest number of CAOs are those with strong STEM programs, elite MBA programs, as well as schools that offer continuing education in both technical and business disciplines. In June 2019, the following places of higher education produced the largest number of CAOs: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (24), Stanford University (17), Northwestern University (16), Harvard University (15), and University of Michigan (15). All of these schools are all known for their outstanding STEM programs as well as their top-tier MBA program. All of them also offer a lot of executive education programs. Additionally, Stanford has a very large offering of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). At Northwestern University, a number of CAOs have received  their education through their newer Masters Degree programs in Predictive Analytics and Data Science.

What about the closely-related title of Chief Data Science Officer? While not nearly as common as the title of Chief Analytics Officer, its growth has kept pace with the rate of growth for CAOs. In June 2019 there were 64 people on LinkedIn who listed their current title as Chief Data Science Officer. Of those, 37 were in the United States.

The Chief Analytics Officer position continues to grow every year and this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Although we are seeing the rate of growth slow in the United States and in certain industries, internationally the growth rate is still booming. Companies are finding it more and more important to have a C-level executive who has the domain expertise in analytics, and who can lead this business function.

*In June 2019, we changed our algorithm to better identify people with the Chief Analytics Officer title. The counts reflect this new method, but the YOY percentages were calculated using the same algorithm as in 2018, in order to make the appropriate comparisons.