C-Suite Evolution: Traditional vs. Emerging Roles in Financial Services

As the mathematician Clive Humby once said, “data is the new oil,” and to extract its value, financial firms are elevating a new class of specialist leaders into the C-suite.

Titles like Chief Data Officer are becoming permanent fixtures in the org chart, reflecting the reality that future competitiveness depends on digital capabilities.

But how is this rise of digital-focused titles impacting the relevance of traditional roles?

Digital titles arriving in the C-suite

WEF’s 2025 Future of Jobs report projects a 110% growth in the worldwide job market for data specialists over the next decade, while identifying technological literacy as one of the fastest-growing professional skills.

I’m seeing this spike happen in real-time in the US financial services sector, evidenced by the rise of three specific C-suite titles.

1. Chief Data Officer (CDO)

Chief Data Officers ensure data earns its keep. Charged with turning vast data estates into strategic advantage, the CDO sets the rules around quality, privacy and regulatory compliance, then turns that foundation into commercial firepower.

Organizations are pouring resources into this function. In Deloitte’s 2025 CDO survey, 54% of CDOs said their team size grew last year, and 35% said their budgets had “significantly increased”, a clear indication of the value organizations see in the CDO function.

2. Chief Digital Officer

With digital infrastructure dictating speed to market, operating costs and service quality, boards want a single executive accountable for enterprise-wide execution. For many, that responsibility sits with the Chief Digital Officer, whose mandate centers on how technology reshapes the firm’s products, customer experience, and operating model.

Without that single authority, digital ownership sprawls across multiple leaders, creating duplicated investment, competing roadmaps, slower decision-making, and fractured customer journeys. Elevating a Chief Digital Officer concentrates control over priorities and budgets in one board-level executive whose performance can be measured against firm-wide outcomes.

3. Chief Data Scientist

The Chief Data Scientist turns advanced analytics and AI into tangible commercial and risk outcomes. The role pairs deep technical credibility with board-level influence, sets standards for model development and ethical use, and works closely with risk, compliance and the front office to move ideas from notebooks into production.

Hiring just one additional Data Scientist has been associated with a 13% uplift in average trading profitability among institutional investors – hard evidence that underlines the role’s commercial impact.

Data science roles in the US are projected to grow 36% over the next decade. Financial firms will be aggressively competing for this talent to ensure they extract genuine value from their tech investments.

How are technology roles coming through to the C-suite?

I see three dominant pathways bringing these roles into the C-suite:

1. Internal progression: Many digital Chiefs rise out of existing technology or transformation leadership posts within the business. This pathway reflects disciplined succession planning and a mature internal talent bench.
2. External hiring: When firms are launching new digital propositions, or entering new markets, without sufficient internal talent to lead that shift, they often hire from adjacent sectors like fintech.
3. Expanding incumbent executives’ remit: If a firm already has a credible C-suite leader with deep technological expertise and the confidence of the board, the role is sometimes broadened to encompass data, digital and AI leadership. This proves more straightforward than creating another executive seat, particularly during major restructurings or when organizational complexity is under scrutiny.

What links all three pathways is intent. Boards no longer treat these posts as temporary change agents. They appoint them as permanent stewards of competitiveness, governance and growth, with P&L influence and long-term succession plans attached.

How will digital-focused C-suite roles impact traditional roles?

The rise of digital Chiefs is transforming reporting lines and influence at the top table, but it isn’t erasing roles. Rather, it’s pushing traditional leaders to redefine where they create the most value. I see two roles being impacted more acutely than others: the COO and CIO.

The COO: From process guardian to digital operator

While organizations are leaning harder on operational leadership as digital complexity grows, they want executives who are technologically fluent and attuned to new challenges – not the bygone COO whose only focus was efficiency.

At Hanover, the COO mandates we’re receiving are placing greater emphasis on candidates who provide technology and customer oversight. It’s now common for operations heads to manage large transformation programs, or partner closely with CIOs and CDOs on process digitization. Gradually, they’re becoming orchestrators of digitally enabled operations.

The COO title is also reflecting this metamorphosis. Banks are designating “Chief Operating and Technology Officers”, and when Microsoft rehired a COO in 2024, it was described as a “newly created” role because it spanned digital ecosystems, a far cry from the traditional ops chief.

The CIO: Redefining authority in a crowded tech leadership team

The financial services CIO role is seeing its monopoly over technology leadership dissolve.

With every department using tech, it’s inefficient to route all decisions through one office. Instead, many companies are splitting the CIO’s responsibilities. It’s common in fintech, for example, to see a Chief Digital or Technology Officer take on customer-facing innovation and product technology, while the CIO focuses on core systems and governance.

Other firms have established the CIO as a super-conductor of platforms, data and security, with digital and analytics Chiefs operating as deputies. In fact, 42% of Chief Data Officers report directly to their CIOs, Deloitte reveals.

Then there are cases where firms are folding new duties into the traditional CIO role, reflected in hybrid titles like Chief Digital Information Officer or Chief Technology & Transformation Officer, thus eliminating the need for a separate digital office.

In any case, the role of centralized IT gatekeeper is giving way to broader, more distributed technology leadership. In some organizations that accountability still sits with a CIO. In others it appears under hybrid titles. What changes is the packaging and reporting lines, rather than the strategic importance of the role itself.

The new balance of power in the C-suite

The financial services C-suite certainly looks different than it did ten years ago. New digital-era titles are firmly established, and they have irrevocably changed the responsibilities and status of traditional CIOs and COOs.

The data shows these emerging roles have entered the mainstream, where they will remain as the indispensable marshals of growth in a tech-enabled era.

Traditional roles are by no means disappearing; they’re being adapted, rebranded. Talent in these positions will remain central to steering firms through the industry’s next phase, and will gain enormous advantage if they’re able to combine their deep institutional knowledge with digital and data fluency.

As firms forge ahead into AI-driven business models, we can expect the trend of specialized, tech-focused executives to continue. If you’re in the process of hiring such a leader, or would like insight on how your firm can fortify its leadership architecture, I’d love to have a conversation with you.