What will the C-Suite look like in 5 years? 

To find out, we surveyed 1,000 working professionals between 25 and 45 years old at the Director, VP, and SVP levels. Respondents were asked to select the C-Suite position they thought was most likely to be phased out or diminished over the next five years, along with the role that will increase in importance and influence.

Phased-out roles: Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Diversity Officer

The role next-gen leaders think will be phased out the most over the next five years: the Chief Transformation Officer. Nearly one-third (29%) think so. The next-highest answer is the Chief Diversity Officer, with 13% of up-and-coming leaders thinking that role will be gone. 

We don’t believe these choices mean the next generation of C-suite leaders will stop transforming their organizations—or no longer care about diversity. In fact, the opposite: While these roles may be phased out, their purpose and function will be more ubiquitous throughout organizations.

Transformation and change management are integral to all aspects of a business, and as leaders embrace this idea, the rest of the C-Suite may see the scope of their roles updated to include the responsibilities traditionally assigned to the Chief Transformation Officer.

Similarly, as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) become more embedded in an organization’s values and culture (and therefore the shared responsibility of the entire C-Suite), and with HR professionals increasingly expected to be knowledgeable in and able to execute on DEI initiatives, the role of a Chief Diversity Officer may become unnecessary.

Phased-In Roles: Chief AI Officer and Chief Data Officer

The Chief AI Officer received the lion’s share of responses (40%) for which C-Suite role will increase in importance and influence over the next five years, with almost four times the responses of the next-highest response, Chief Information/Data Officer (11%).

Our take? Organizations are still developing and refining their use cases for AI, but there is near-universal agreement that this is not a flash-in-the-pan technology: It’s a game-changer that will have widespread implications on the future of work. While the responsibilities for overseeing these initiatives may become shared over time among leadership, there is a perceived need by up-and-coming executives to have a dedicated member of the C-Suite to oversee AI adoption—at least for the time being).

While AI is the big thing right now, it is not the only thing. Organizations are learning that the winners and losers in any given industry will be determined by who is the best at gathering, analyzing, and leveraging data. Data-driven business operations are on the rise, and at this moment organizations believe this responsibility – that of a Chief Information/Data Officer – will become more essential.

The Great Debate: Where Does the Chief Digital Officer Go?

Perhaps the most interesting data point in the poll is that the Chief Digital Officer ranked third in both categories—the role that is most likely to disappear and grow in importance over the next five years.

This is telling for a couple reasons:

1. Unlike roles that have more standard responsibilities like CFO and CMO, in our experience the Chief Digital Officer’s role and responsibilities differ widely from company to company. What the CDO works on likely determines which category it falls into—disappear or increase in importance.
2. The “do we need a chief digital officer or not” debate often correlates with a company’s digital maturity, which varies by industry and size. For certain industries, the Chief Digital Officer is a critical role to grow digital’s influence to make progress, but in others the organization has reached a maturity level where digital is more engrained into the company’s operations and doesn’t need one leader.

The bottom line: Neither digital nor transformation are ever “done” in a company and ownership in the C-suite is often better when everyone is accountable instead of one person. This reinforces the findings from our signature research, “The Digital Disconnect.”

Methodology

West Monroe surveyed 1,000 working professionals between 25 and 45 years old at the Director, VP, and SVP levels. Respondents were asked to select the C-Suite position they thought was most likely to be phased out or diminished over the next five years, along with the role that will increase in importance and influence.

It is important to note that CEO and CFO were not included in the 10 possible answer options.