Appointments Underline Rise of the CDO

Public and private sector organisations are elevating the importance of data with the appointment of Chief Data Officers. Among others, December saw new CDOs at insurance group AXA and at the U.S. Marshals Service.


AXA added the CDO title to the role of company veteran Philippe Marie-Jeanne, already Head of its Data Innovation Lab. He reports to Group COO Véronique Weill, who is chair of the newly created Group Data Board.

Marie-Jeanne, who now takes charge of the global data strategy and roadmap, was P&C Technical Head at AXA France from February 2007, and four years later took the role of Group Head of AXA P&C Retail. He became Head of the Data Innovation Lab in January 2014. Prior to AXA he spent ten years at the SMABTP, an insurer in the building and construction sector.


The U.S. Marshals Service, much of whose work revolves around the transport and handling of prisoners, has appointed Roberta Griffith, formerly of the departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, to help improve its handling of data and develop 'an organizational culture that treats data as a cross-functional asset'. As CDO, Griffith will manage ten federal and contracted employees, working with the organisation's lead data scientist Kimberly Noonan.


Also in mid-December, data intelligence solutions firm ClearStory Data announced it had appointed Micheline Casey, most recently the first-ever Chief Data Officer for the Federal Reserve Board, to its advisory board. Casey's previous roles include the first state CDO in the US, in Colorado from 2009 to 2011; founding consultancy CDO, LLC; Senior Director of Identity Management for ChoicePoint Government Services (now LexisNexis Risk Solutions); and consulting roles at IBM Global Services and iXL, Holdings, Inc.

ClearStory founder and CEO Sharmila Mulligan says the firm will 'benefit greatly from [Casey's] data governance experience in pioneering new approaches and leading complex data management initiatives and business transformation for large organizations'.


A month ago, tech industry B2B data and insights provider Aberdeen Group has appointed Charlie Allieri as Chief Data Officer and MD of its office in San Diego, California.


Web sites: www.axa.com , www.usmarshals.gov and www.clearstorydata.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.