Hail to the Chief
Smart Business, March 2001
by Thomas Claburn
"Vice president" just doesn't cut it anymore. Far better to be a chief, with no suggestion of subordination. Welcome to the age of the CXO.
What the C means, says Richard Spitz, managing director of the Los Angeles office of executive recruiter Korn/Ferry International, "is that you have a seat at the table with senior management to help determine the course of the business. Are there instances where 'executive vice president of marketing' would work just as well as 'chief marketing officer'? Yes. There are no title police."
Perhaps there should be. We expect every CEO to be a chief executive officer. That is, unless she's a chief experience officer. According to Abbie Lundberg, editor-in-chief of CIO magazine, such novel titles are the product of the dot-com boom, representing "an effort to emphasize the importance of relatively untraditional, new-economy–type activities while de-emphasizing the corporate stuffiness that was so uncool in the late 1990s. The ones that will endure and proliferate, however, will be those that define an absolutely core activity."
Title Translation
CAO Awareness
CBO Business
CCO Compliance, Content, Customer
CEO Experience
CFO Fun
CIO Inspiration
CKO Knowledge
CMO Marketing, Media, Medical
CPO People, Privacy
CQO Quality
CSO Sales, Scientific, Security, Strategic
CUO Underwriting
CXO Xbox, all of the above
