In this episode we discuss: The Future COO in Tech Companies. We are joined by Tony Olvet and Andrea Siviero from IDC.

We chat about the following:

• How do COOs navigate the evolving landscape of digital transformation while ensuring organisational stability?
• What are the key priorities for COOs in 2024, and how do they drive strategic thinking beyond technology?
• What role do COOs play as the connective tissue of organisations, orchestrating digital initiatives and driving innovation?
• How can COOs transition from being protectors of the organisation to digital disruptors, driving new revenue models and ESG initiatives?
• What skills are essential for CEOs and COOs to thrive in today's digital age, and how do they communicate the future state of the organisation effectively?

References: 

• https://ca.linkedin.com/in/tonyolvet
• https://it.linkedin.com/in/sivieroand

Biography: 

Tony Olvet, Group Vice President at IDC, leads global research on the intersection of business transformation and digital investments. With extensive experience advising organizations worldwide, Tony provides fact-based insights to inform technology strategy and digital business decisions. A sought-after speaker, he delivers keynote presentations at conferences and virtual events. Based in Toronto, Canada, Tony holds degrees from the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto.

Andrea Siviero leads IDC's European Digital Business and Future of Work Research group, providing insights to drive purposeful technology adoption. He also co-leads IDC's Worldwide MacroTech Research program, analyzing the impact of key macroeconomic factors on the digital landscape. With extensive experience in strategy and go-to-market projects, Andrea advises IT players on building forward-looking digital strategies. He holds a joint PhD in mathematics and is fluent in English, French, and Italian.

To learn more about Beth and Brandon or to find out about sponsorship opportunities click here. 

Summary:

• Cricket and personal life, including death and ex-fiance. 0:00
• Bethany shares her struggles with grief after an unexpected death of a teenager, while Brandon listens and offers support.
• Bethany and Brandon discuss their past relationship and reasons for reconnecting.
• Career changes, life lessons, and tech CEO priorities. 3:08
• Bethany and Brandon M discuss their experiences working with Tony Elvet at IDC.
• Brandon M reflects on his decision to leave London and return to Toronto, and how it impacted his career.
• Brandon M shared his experiences as a tech CEO with a research report, discussing new priorities and future orientation.
• Bethany asked Brandon about his insights on CEO priorities, which were included in the report, with little fundamental change observed.
• CEO role, digital transformation, and AI adoption in businesses. 7:13
• Brandon M: CEO role in 2024: partnering with finance leaders, making investment bets.
• Bethany: High performance culture: how to make it happen, translate into business.
• Brandon M: Digital transformation is not always transformative, but AI is a real transformation for all companies.
• Bethany: AI is the top priority for businesses in the next 5 years, but digital transformation has been on agendas for years without being transformative.
• CEO qualities and skills, with a focus on storytelling and operational abilities. 12:25
• Bethany shares her thoughts on the qualities of a successful CEO, mentioning the importance of both vision and execution.
• Bethany and Brandon discuss the contrasting views on the path to becoming a CEO, with some arguing that it's more common for CEOs to come from within the company.
• Bethany and Brandon discuss the importance of storytelling in business, with Brandon highlighting the founder's ability to communicate the company's vision and mission in a compelling way.
• Brandon recognizes his own limitations in storytelling and acknowledges that there's a time and place for different types of leaders, including those with strong communication skills.
• Storytelling, leadership, and CEO responsibilities in 2024. 17:01
• Bethany shares her insights on storytelling for senior leaders and execs, emphasizing authenticity and bravery in communication.
• Bethany reflects on her own storytelling capacity, recognizing the importance of being true to oneself and sharing uncomfortable thoughts with others.
• Bethany: Became braver over time, prioritizing connection over fear of consequences (0:19:19)
• Brandon M: Unlocking skills in CEOs is fundamental, but role of COO unclear (0:20:33)
• COO roles, priorities, and partnerships in digital transformation. 21:30
• Brandon M: SaaS software for career progression frameworks is emerging, addressing the need for simplified and clear frameworks.
• Bethany: CEOs should be aware of the tendency to over engineer, especially in scaled companies, and take a step back to assess if too much is being expected.
• Bethany and Speaker 4 discuss the importance of partnership between CEO and CLO in digital transformation.
• Speaker 4 highlights the difference in priorities and impact between scale-up companies and larger corporations.
• The COO is the right-hand person to the CEO, providing capable partnership and support.
• COOs partner with various C-suite executives, including CIOs, to drive growth and innovation.
• CEO roles, responsibilities, and evolution in 2024. 28:29
• CIOs are increasingly seen as essential for organizational success, with 85% of CEOs having risen through the ranks to their position.
• Andrea highlights the evolution of the CEO role, from protector to enabler and digital disruptor.
• Brandon M. asks about the hottest new function for CEOs in 2024, with a focus on ESG and customer success.
• Roles and responsibilities for AI adoption in enterprises. 32:31
• CEOs prioritize responsible AI leadership, COO involvement in decision-making.
• COO will play a crucial role in buying committee for operational technology in manufacturing.
• CEO role in driving sustainability and social impact initiatives. 36:33
• CEO and COO prioritize sustainability and ESG initiatives.
• Bethany asks about tools for measuring social impact, and Speaker 4 explains the complexity of defining and measuring social impact.
• Brandon M discusses the evolving skills of CEOs, including their role in driving transformation and partnering with other senior executives.
• Leadership skills for tech industry CEOs, focusing on communication and adaptability. 41:14
• Communication skills crucial for motivating through change.
• Tony and Andrea discussed the importance of communicating the future state of an organization and being able to adjust to unexpected events.
• They emphasized the need for CEOs to dedicate 70% of their time to traditional tasks and 30% to unexpected events.

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Brandon M 0:00

Beth Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the operations room, a podcast for coos. I am Brandon mensinger, joined by my lovely co host, Bethany Ayers, how are things going? Bethany,

Bethany 0:15

I'm well, it's been a tough few weeks with the other death that I may or may not have mentioned on any of the podcasts. So this time was an unexpected death of a teenager. So it has been really hard, and as being a mother, it has hit me sideways, and we're six, seven weeks in. The funeral was last week, and it was an intense funeral, and it hasn't really given me the closure that I was expecting. But other than that, which has meant that I've just been a bit slower, not as productive as I'd like to be, trying to be really kind to myself, but I am slightly frustrated, and as awful as this sounds, a bit resentful that I have taken this death as hard as I have. On a happier note, I am going to cricket

Brandon M 1:06

tonight, cricket. Oh, my goodness,

Bethany 1:09

I know nothing about cricket. Well, I kind of know things about cricket. I feel like, when I watch it and people explain the rules to me, it all makes sense and it's quite logical. And like, Yeah, okay. And then two days later, if I were asked to explain the rules of cricket, I would just be able to say lay before wicket over batsman, and I would have no idea how those things are connected to each other. So tonight's a corporate hospitality type thing, and it's called the T 20. It's the start of the T 20, which is, I think it was 20 overs per team. So it's over very quickly. And an over, I think it's called an over, is the part where you bat. So

Brandon M 1:47

you're not a cricket person, neither am I. We're talking about cricket for some reason, but the really bad North American way, yeah, exactly. We have no idea what we're talking about. But why are you going to crooked again?

Bethany 1:58

Because my ex fiance has invited me, and therefore

Brandon M 2:01

it's a must do. That's quite fun, isn't it?

Bethany 2:04

We were technically an ex fiance, technically I had a ring and we had a wedding date, but we were 23 so we weren't really ever going to get married. If we're honest,

Brandon M 2:20

it's all young kids, silly, just doing things, getting rings

Bethany 2:25

Exactly. He's the reason why I'm in the UK. I met him when I was doing a semester abroad, finished uni in America, and then came over here to pretend to get married. We were together for a couple of years. Split up because 23 and he has this like adventuresome life in Iraq and Afghanistan and other parts of the world and all this travel. And now he's back in London, and that LinkedIn post that I sent when I left peak, the infamous LinkedIn post that gave birth to this podcast also prompted him to get back in touch and just say, Oh, you look like an interesting person now. So

Brandon M 3:08

Bethany 6:00

yay. I start with death and you end with death. This is like the preamble. Thank you for sharing your life experiences of the IDC or what IDC means to you. But you should also possibly mention that you were in the report that we're talking to them about

Brandon M 6:20

Yes, yes. I had the good fortune of Tony contacting me a couple months ago, and he had been forewarning me for quite some time that at some point he'd be writing a report around CEOs, around tech CEOs, and then at some point he would reach out to me. So I think in their their C suite research than they do, he felt like I was a good spot specific person to talk more about the scale up experience, to kind of round out their their set of profiles in their research report,

Bethany 6:46

and what jewels of wisdom did you share with them?

Brandon M 6:51

He had asked me about a couple things of interest, I guess, like one is this question of what are the new priorities for CEOs, and how is that evolving over the next five years? So they're trying to get this future orientation of what the CEO space is going to look like a little bit if there's any fundamental changes. And to your point, in the report as it came out, there's really not a lot of change, per se. But the one thing that I did tell him was like, Look, I think, and this gets back to what we talked about earlier around storytelling, I think there's a real requirement or a skill, as I characterised it, to him around evangelism, which is, as a CEO, you need to be in a position where, outside of the CEO, you are in the second best position to really evangelise for the business, in whatever capacity that is required. And it's almost like that storytelling part two, skill set of not being the founder, the passionate founder, being able to articulate that in wild and wonderful ways, but from a CEO perspective, to be able to create a narrative and execute it in whatever form that's required, whether, again, you're kind of like doing a new round of investment for the company, you're being called upon to kind of be that bedrock person, to really add credibility to The pitch to the new investors or new recruits coming to the business where they want to hear not from the founder in terms of the passion around the business, but around how does this business operate? Can I work within this business? And when you think about, you know, some of the questions that candidates now want answers to, and having a deeper dive into things that are important to them, they need to have good answers for that. And I think the operations person, given the fact that you're holistic across the business, you can give them well formulated answers that are a good representation or proxy for the entire business in this case, and that

Bethany 8:33

they're going to have a job if they join a startup in the years. Yeah, well, that's always

Brandon M 8:37

Nothing about AI, because if I'm thinking about the biggest changes in businesses in the next five years. Ai, for me, is the top of that agenda. I

think you're absolutely right. When you think about their report that they produce. They called it the classic digital transformation, as being the single most important thing that needs to occur in 2024 according to their CEO study that they did.

Also, I think it's interesting that digital transformation. I think since digital transformation was created, has been at the top of priority lists, but it's not always been that interesting. The PC was a huge digital transformation. Then the internet was big, unless you were a mobile business. Mobile wasn't huge, really, in terms of changing the way people work. I think, I guess I'm looking at it from a tech lens. If you have a bunch of mobile engineers, it probably was pretty big, and then it's just been on the agenda, on the agenda, on the agenda, data, data, data. But it hasn't been fundamentally transformation. People just call it that. There's like an unending number of transformation projects, whereas now with AI, it's actual transformation, and it's life or death again, and it's the same as the internet. And I feel like we should have digital transformation, and real digital transformation, when we're talking about the

wave of digitization, is all off the back of the internet in some form, and most digital transformation, when people talk about it, is always in relation to big companies that are super slow moving, that have been around forever, that need to digitally transform. And that clearly is not the scale up world in which we live, because every scale up company I've ever worked with always tends to be on the front foot in terms of working with the best possible tooling that's available at that point in time as a scale up person, you're just used to that in terms of this whole idea of digital transformation, doesn't even like factor into the equation, basically, however, to your point now, AI is a thing for everyone, whether you're a scale up or whether you're corporate X, and it is gonna have an impact on how you figure out how to use it properly within companies is, to your point, like a real transformation that has yet to occur. Well,

there's always another thing, isn't there? There's always the next DocuSign, the next whatever piece big businesses are still dealing with paper All

right, so we've got a great topic today, which is, what does the future tech CEO look like, and we've got two amazing guests for this. We've got Andrea cervero and Tony olvett from IDC. Andrea is the research director at IDC and author of the future CEO and tech companies white paper. And Tony is the Group Vice President and world C suite and digital business research manager. Before we get to Tony and to Andrea, I just wanted to start with you, Bethany, with the first question that occurred to me out of that interview, which was Tonya talked about 85% of CEO hires were made internally, and 40% of those were coming from the CEO position, which means that the CEO role is used as a conduit and a primer, I Guess, for the CEO position in a lot of companies. And we had a podcast where we talked to Cameron Harold, and he had the exact opposite view, which you pointed out, which is, typically, CEOs don't move into that position. They do the CEO role over and over again for just larger companies involved their career in that fashion. And it got me thinking, what gap needs to be filled with people at our level, where there is an aspiration for a CEO position, and that thing that's out there, that skill wise, we need to have to be able to make that jump and to make it successful into being a CEO. Interestingly,

I was tagged on a post LinkedIn today that was about how Steve Jobs was only successful his second time at Apple because he and Tim Cook, and really it wasn't just about having the vision, it was about getting done, making the trains run on time, and how Apple really needed that, and that's also why Tim's done such a great job. But then in the comments, there were people referencing Tim Cook doesn't have a visionary bone in his body. He cares about efficiency, about getting stuff done, about profitability, which has meant that Apple has done tremendously well over the past 10 years or more, but has nothing of interest. Were surprised by AI, the iPhone is the same iPhone with just better battery life for 15 years now, and there's no innovation left. And so I guess, just because I had that article the other day, and you think about particularly the founder, CEOs are often being the visionary impetus, and all about innovation, CEOs don't tend to be that. And so maybe it's more. Just what does a business need at a certain time, rather than a skill you always need? I think

that's actually a great point, because I think you're exactly right. So I think there's an entrepreneurial person, which I know I'm definitely not. It's a bit of like, what is a business need at a particular point in time? And I suspect in the Tony olvett kind of numbers that he was laying out there, these are probably much larger organisations that are much more about stabilisation, incremental growth, as opposed to entrepreneurial scale ups in this case, and I suspect also have much more of a real operational, logistical component to them, kind of like the Tim Cook situation, where there's just, like, a legitimate, kind of, like a physical, good operational side of the business that's quite significant. The couple things that I was thinking about was the storytelling capacity, which is that ability to be in a position where, whether it's the vision, the mission, the purpose, the strategy, why we're here, why it's tremendously exciting, or taking the same storytelling capability and being able to sell people on it, which is, you know, New recruits, investors, strategic customers, or the initial batch of customers that you need to win as a founder led business or something like that. You know, translating storytelling into selling capacity and selling capability. I'm working for a company right now where it's just shown me yet again that the founder led sales can be so fabulous. You know what I mean, technically, they don't need to be salespeople, but they express such fluidity in terms of the passion around the product, the vision of the company, why it's tremendously exciting. And could talk about every subtle aspect of why it is like super compelling and very clear, crisp way. And he's a phenomenal communicator whenever I see it, or quite recently seeing it in action, it's just made me think that storytelling capacity is such a vital piece of the puzzle. And just reflecting on myself, I recognise that I'm not in that category of storytelling world, so to speak, right? It is never gonna be my shtick. And to your point, there's a time and place for that person, and there's a time and place for people like myself, and they're not at the same point in time. I

also think that storytelling is an essential skill for senior leaders and senior execs, regardless. And it might not be that it's a vision story, but there have to be some story, because you have to get people wanting to do stuff for you and understand why they're doing those things, even if it's maybe not the most fascinating story, knowing that you start with the punchline, you start at the big picture, frame it for everybody, and then move down into the rest of the argument. I think is still maybe it's not like a story, but we could call it a narrative, which are synonyms of each other, but they do have different emotional feeling.

There's almost like the founder led thing where there's an irrational passion that makes it compelling. It comes from an irrational space that doesn't live within me. And to your point, being able to create a standard narrative with a standard talk track, with a standard kind of like engagement, I feel comfortable or happy doing that kind of thing, and then I reflect on somebody like you, where I feel like you're you're in a different space as well. Have you reflected on yourself? I guess in terms of storytelling capacity, haven't

necessarily reflected on it, but it's good to make me now, and also good in preparation for the upcoming episode. I think for me, it's comes down to authenticity and the level of gagging myself or not that I'm willing to do also, because there's not only the communication on this podcast other podcasts, but I've been doing a writing course now for about a year and a half, and most of that writing is writing I'm unwilling to share with the world yet, and that has been a massive discovery of my voice and being brave to say what I want to say. And what I've discovered in those classes is it's not just the discovery of my voice, but everybody's voice is it's really interesting to hear people speak from authenticity, and I suspect that that is what makes me an interesting person to listen to, rather than a great passion, and I'm willing to say the things that other people are thinking but aren't brave enough to say, it just makes you feel a little bit less alone. I'm a verbal communicator and makes the world more real to me when I say it out loud. But I was really afraid for a long time, and I've just become braver over the years. Care less about what I might get back and the consequences of what I say, and care more about the connection that I make with other people. Sometimes I overshare and I get in trouble. But for the most part, it's okay, yeah. But

there definitely is an impact, I think, on senior executives where there's a space that people can't enter or they're afraid to enter,

yeah, and there's a lot of polarisation, and there's a lot of people looking for you to misspeak. The second

thing I wanted to ask you was in the conversation. Station that we had with Tony and Andrea. They talked about two new responsibilities for tech CEOs in 2024 one was sustainability and ESG metrics and compliance and etc. And they also talked about the second one being unlocking skills in a much more fundamental way, in partnering with the people person to make that happen. I'm just wondering on the unlocking skills part as a new responsibility. What's your take on that? Because it feels like in the scale up space that's always been somewhat front and centre, I think, for CEOs, to be honest, and not really own, characterise it as a new responsibility that's kind of fresh out of the box. I was

struggling to see that there was anything particularly new in general in the report, I agree with you that unlocking skills and CEOs or coos is a fundamental part of the job. I guess it points out more to the problem of what is the role of a COO? Is it a back office coo who has finance and people reporting into them, and so by default, working with the people team is important. Increasingly, you have Chief People officers, they don't report to the COO, but the COO is still responsible for aligning everyone and creating that operational strategy piece. And Chief People officers don't tend to think that way, that you still have somebody who's actually thinking about the people strategy. But yeah, whether it's new for 2024

I question the SaaS world that we live in really is, in one way, tackling spreadsheets. I would say anything that's done manually in a spreadsheet at scale is always problematic. So there's many SaaS companies that have popped up over time that really solve that fundamental problem in a particular sphere. So one that was quite interesting to me last year was this career progression framework SAS software piece and career progression frameworks as an actual kind of SaaS software is now starting. We're starting to see it pop up within the HRIS as an add on module, which makes entirely good sense. The fact that it hasn't been there previously is mind boggling to me. But what I do know is that in the past seven years, having done this many, many times, what we've always ended up doing is creating spreadsheets around the levels the individual contributor track, the management track, and the values and the competencies, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And these spreadsheets that we end up building are enormous in size. They feel like very heavyweight in a lot of ways, I guess. And there's no way around it other than building a proper SaaS tool that can make this easy and simplified and clear, I suppose. So. I'm just curious your experience dealing with these, these frameworks, and what your thought is, I guess, with the the SaaS module add ons that are now starting to pump up,

it's so difficult to find that line between art and science. It's such a cliche in business in general, but there's certain elements that, particularly what I think when they land in the COO remit, can be over engineered, because coos might possibly have a tendency to over engineer, I don't know. We like mythological things. And you can engineer the humanity out of stuff and actually engineered to the point that you lose efficiency because it's perfectly architected. It's something that CEOs should be aware of and notice in themselves, a tendency to over engineer. And certainly something I do is take a step back, and am I? Am I doing too much? Am I expecting too much,

especially in scaled companies, because you're not trying to solve the world's problems, where you're trying to do is put a framework in place that is suitable and enough there to make it work. All right, so why don't we move on to our conversation with Tony and Andrea,

Speaking more broadly, what are the priorities for coos in 2024 that you found from your research?

Yeah, so we do an annual CEO and C suite survey, and in the C suite survey, we break it down by roles, and when we look at what coos told us, the top business objective for this year is supporting the digital transformation of the organisation. You know, I take a pause and think about that, and also consider, well, is that not also the CIO role or objective? And to me, there is a partnership that needs to happen there, and the chief operating officer needs to think more strategically, not technology first, and also be a partner to the CEO, and I think that's what's driving some of that, but also the fact that there's so much change happening in organisations, most recently, led by the explosion and interest in implementation of use cases around generative AI, that there needs to also be a kind of a second steady hand, looking at that and considering the organisational impacts as well as the business model impacts. And I think that's what the CLO can bring to the strategy and the discussion.

The reality is that what Tony was describing the fact that the product and the digital element, or the business and digital. Are not separated anymore. And that's the VIP. No, that's the new thing. They are the same thing, which means the women looking behind the digital or the business, they need to be connected more and more, and they need to work together. So that's also what be an anticipating spoiling what? And this is one other point. Also with Brandon, we were discussing how, how CEO need to be more and more connected with the rest of the C suite and the other kind of CXO person?

One other area to think about, just in terms of what's different here. And you know, for Bethany and myself, we're CEOs in scale up companies, and that's the ecosystem which we live. And I guess what I'm curious about, coming from your background, or the both of you, is you talk to a lot of CEOs that are much larger corporate companies. And I always get the sense of, somehow, maybe we're missing a trick in the tech scale up world, that somehow these bigger CEOs and in a broader sense of learnings for us that we should be understanding. I suppose I'm just curious what you make of the difference.

I think Brandon, I think in in principle at this what we have seen is that the kind of priorities and also mission trajectory is very similar across the two. So it's more, you know, a kind of a scale of the of the impact that is very different, very similar in kind of priorities and and needs from CEOs. Yeah.

I also think to add to that, the COO and a scale up is the right hand of the CEO and also the first to onboard the next leaders that are important to running the business right. So the CFO, maybe before that, you have a VP or a director of finance, but becomes the mentor and the onboarder of the other critical personas to run the company. As you grow and scale up,

I spend a lot of time thinking about coos, as you might imagine, and there's so many different flavours. And it's, are you actually CFO? Are you actually a CRO if you're only doing the ops part. Are you really a COO? Are you a chief of staff? And for me, it ultimately comes down to whether or not you're the right hand person to the CEO, regardless of what other elements of the organisation that you have, is that you're a capable partner for the CEO. And that's almost, for me, the best definition of what a COO is. I don't know if either of you agree, or have found that in the conversations that you've been having, I

wanted also maybe to read you one of the quotes that we tracked from one of the CEO interviews. So Michelle describe, so it's coming from BMC. Also, technology company was really saying, No, I am being a CEO in a technology company, like a connective tissue or the entire organisation, really accelerating growth and driving innovation and customer success. So I think it was a nice recap that really touches the key point that are connecting element across the organisation, and then the growth and also the customer focus, that, as you said, is part also other kind of CXO persona and function. But for sure, for CEO, is one of the top priority. And

also, I can understand from your point earlier, Tony about partnering with CIOs, I feel like all the COO does is partner with everybody. Do you think you still need a CIO and a COO as so much of organisations become digital, I don't even know if Digital's the right word, like digital transformation is always the top priority and net now with generative AI, it's like the top top priority.

I do think there needs to be both roles, especially in larger, more complex organisations. The CIO has so much on their plate. Technology is changing so fast that increasingly their span in pressure. The need to ensure governance, manage cybersecurity with a chief security officer, that role, I don't think, is going to go away. It's funny though 2025 years ago, there was a controversial piece written saying that, you know, the CIO was going to go away, and there was, like an existential crisis in that role or function, and CIOs were looking at each other saying, is this true? We need to justify our jobs. And today, it's absolutely fundamental. But we are also seeing the fact that in our CEO survey that we just finished in February, we asked for the first time, what path did you take to become the leader of the organisation? 85% came from inside. 15% came from outside. The number one role from inside was the COO path to CEOs. It was 40% that percentage was actually quite high and much higher than any other role, including CFO or CIO. My

follow on question is, have they been successful CEOs? Or, you know, how long have they been in tenure? Did you look at that?

We did not look at that. So it's not. Thing we should dig into. But, you know, I've seen it anecdotally, or even IDCs president. His prior role was COO for a short period of time, so it was like a stepping stone. And we've seen that in other organisations. Andrea, I don't know if you've looked at the success rate,

I think we try, at least to really draw a kind of Horizon evolution of the future CEO like we had in the title of our report. Traditionally, we come from a scenario where CEOs are really like, consider like the kind of operation, as you said, kind of protector. So the focus really on granting like all the procurement a seamless flow, and even even all the kind of supplier ecosystem resiliency, that's the kind of standard kind of CO, in that case, no key KPIs for such a key such as CO, if we about value chain readability, value chain cycle time. But then as we evolve in this CO maturity in the future and the kind of next arise, really, first of all to become an enabler, an enabler award, enabler of different unity in the organisation, exchange and connection. So that's kind of infrastructure we were referring to, really, also an enabler of workforce skills, talent, congregate, evolution. So that's the kind of second horizon. But then the ultimate, I think, horizon for SEO is what we call these kind of digital business disruptor, which is really, you know, a show that fully master these, you know, disruptor and neighbour role. But on top of that, is also able to work more and more on digital business models, digital revenue generation. Also linking to all the ESG topic that we see more and more, top of CEO of the future agenda. And finally, also, you know, that kind of a constraint or element that we were referring to internally, also externally. So me more, also more and more a kind of partner connector. When we say partner is on the supply chain side, but also on the also on the delivery, on the on the selling approach, while also, you know, connecting more and more with the customer kind of ecosystem, which is another key element, so different stages. But I think no, the CEO that is able to master all of these elements, I think, is a very good candidate to become a CEO in

the future, out of that spectrum that you just described there, in terms of those functional responsibilities for a CEO, which one is the hottest one this year, in terms of it really has come forward as like a clear new function responsibility for the CEO in 2024 and I guess the tail end of that same question is really How they've been held to account on that particular few areas that were sometimes,

you know, when we talk about this persona kind of story, we are very focused on the fact, okay, this is CFO, this is CO we need to realise that many topics, like ESG, for example, like customer success, they actually, they really the final result of the connection, different kind of units and role working together, and all top

of mind issues that is facing CEOs that I think coos can help with this year is the notion of responsible AI, especially in a tech company. And so the vast majority of CEOs told us in the survey that it's either a top priority for themselves or the organisation as a whole. Not a big surprise, and

we're going back to the CIO coo debate again, not debate, but clarification of roles and responsibilities. Do you know what the purchasing committees are looking like?

Who owns the budget? So I give you two maybe first of all, starting point here. So first of all, we live in a world now where actually, if you look, we have our IDC line of business spending guy, where actually we look at the overall digital IT spending, and we look, who are the person behind that who put the money on the table? No. So I can tell you now we are really living a scenario where is a 5050, scenario? I think last year has been the first year where business persona. So when I say business person, I say all those kind of person outside the IT department. So not CIO, not CISO, not CTO, Chief Digital, all the other all the business person. Last year was the first year where this persona altogether overcome the IT department person in terms of digital spending, budget control, the other aspect, again, it's changed a lot. We are getting back again to the point on the industry element, even within, for example, the technology industry. So you need to consider this industry

variation, going back to the industry lens, the COO is going to be an important part of the buying committee, or buying Centre for if we go back to manufacturing, some of the supply chain and operational technology, I think mainline enterprises, there will be orchestration function that the. CIO and the IT team plays increasingly to help guide some of the other lines of business and C suite personas in terms of ensuring that, you know, they're thinking about compliance, or thinking about privacy security, all of that as they're making their own domain specific decisions about, you know what marketing tech apps we need to bring on board? Is it going to work within their cloud architecture? There's a lot of decisions that are technical that the CIO needs to be involved in, but the COO should have that responsibility, especially for operational technology or shop floor technology in manufacturers,

because Gen AI is going to be so much of that technology, yeah,

absolutely. And other types of AI. Computer Vision has been used for years in manufacturing for quality control. People are coming back to to IDC saying is, is traditional or old? Ai dead? It's like, No, it's not going away. In fact, what we're going to see are use cases where you bring predictive AI together with generative AI for better outcomes.

The two key differences, where we saw CEO prioritising specific technology with respect to other C suite are two main kind of technologies. So the first one, it was about these direct to consumer platform. And this is very linked to the also the engagement of CO with the direct kind of customer at the end. So platform that enable the customer interaction and the contact with the customer on one side. So very in particular, you know, like much more than the rest of the C suite. And then the other kind of technology area that CEO are prioritising. Read about all those kind of ESG sustainability related solution and digital tools. And again, we see that in particular in the CEO area, not only but we expect the C suite in Ico is really pushing on those kind of variant technologies. So

we've talked a lot about Gen a Gen AI landing on the plate of the CEO for change transformation for organisations right now, is sustainability kind of the same thing? So sustainability is an actual thing to be done within an organisation. Is it pretty clearly landing on the plate of the CEO to pick up to do something with as a change initiative?

I think it is really important. It shows up as one of the top priorities for coos, and a lot of it will have to do with compliance, regulatory reporting requirements, some of those already in place in Europe since 2023 the SEC now is mandating new reporting requirements as of March 2023 that's when it was announced. So there is going to be that internal audit process, if you will, and and understanding not only just climate but other ESG concerns, and thinking about even how employees or how the infrastructure that you using is going to impact the environment. And it's becoming even more important. Again, not to make everything about Gen AI, but the power consumption and resource requirements of Gen AI is an order of magnitude higher than for, say, a traditional search. So that needs to be considered as well. And the COO should have a viewpoint on that and be able to contribute to that reporting. And

so that's very much just around the environment, but I also hear you talk a little bit around the social as you mentioned that. And so what types of tools are they looking internal socially, or supply chain social? And if internally social, what are the people tools that you're seeing coming up, or new technologies being used

many times when we talk about ESG is all about the environmental aspect. And just a few persons remember about the s so and why? Also, maybe the reason why not many people talk about that, because the S is a very different, difficult, you know, kind of topic, the social impact, to define, but then also to measure is very complicated when, normally, when we talk about the social impact organisation, even before, you know, talking about tool is really about the overall kind of organisational culture and link and how you know, organisation work to really have A full social impact, which mean, you know, pushing on, volunteering, give back activity, for example, is also about, you know, how an organisation, how much, for example, jobs you generate, and how much overall economy, kind of GDP growth you create. So it's quite vast as a topic, I think, in terms of tool, is a very new kind of market, the kind of digital tool for social impact there is, but you might know first of all that there is all this kind of, what we call digital for good kind of market that are all those solution done really focus on enabling organisation to have a good. A social impact. You might have seen that, for example, if you look at, you know, retailer that they say, now you know, if you buy these, 1% of what you buy will be donated to this organisation. It's very interesting, because behind that kind of donation as part of your purchase, there is a full digital market that is is growing, which is having platform that enable that 1% donation, and not only enable also check the donation, make sure that where it goes, how it goes, is trusted. It's a very interesting topic, but there are actually no many tools that really make it possible somehow.

So we talked about the CEO classically being groomed for the CEO position, having the right skills to make that jump. And we also have kind of talked about the CEO being kind of a linchpin for change transformation across organisations, partnering, ad nauseam, with other senior executives to to make that happen. So when you think about the skills of the CEO and how that's evolving, how that has evolved, I guess, over the past several years, what's your take on that?

I like the work that Andrea, you and the team did around the future tech, COO, and that pyramid growing from the protector to the enabler to the disruptor. Coo, and I thought that was a really good model to think about. And within that, you can also see the progression of what they're focused on the different KPIs, and within that, there will have to be skills development. And you know, one of the things Brandon you talked about, and when you were discussing the the skills of the COO is not everyone has the same skill set or background or experience. So having what you term that's that spike, so the core differentiator as you as a leader, you need to bring that forward to drive success. And I think it's going to be different depending on the individual, but it's also going to be different depending on where the company is in its journey. So Andrea, if you want to explore or talk a little bit more about that model and the protector, enabler and disruptor, I think that might be useful. We're

in a protector really focus more on the resiliency of the organisation, avoiding supply chain shocks somehow, and then move into that enabler that is really focusing on, you know, exchange across unit also work for evolution. And finally, the kind of disruptor, where really, again, the key word for us, disruptor serio, is really that kind of digital business disruption, which means creating new revenue model, new revenue streaming, but also linking that to ESG kind of impact. So these are the three kind of stages and maturity layers, I guess, just for everything

that you've been talking about and the skills that are required, it doesn't sound very different than it ever has. Was there anything that you were surprised about? Is there any new news? Because really, everything that we've been talking about is like, Yeah, we all need these skills.

I think one skill set that is increasingly important, and Bethany and Brandon, maybe you would argue that this has always been there, but I think it's that communication skills and ability to motivate through difficult change. I think it's even more important now with just the pace of change and the introduction of generative AI and other new technologies into the business, where you need to be able to make sure that employees feel comfortable and the direction that they're going, but also open their eyes to the fact that change is going to happen and that there are other skills that you need to bring to your own career, and we'll help you with that, but you also have to be motivated for that change from

everything that we've spoken about today. If our audience could only remember and do one thing, what would it be

as a CEO, you need to be ready for the unexpected. You know, dedicate 70% of your time to all your expected traditional tasks, but then make sure you block 30% so it was very scientific and mathematical, 30% of your time for all the unexpected and more difficult kind of events that can be on your table. But I think that the mentality and the G to be ready for, you know, thing that you cannot always control or do maybe RMB can expect is something that I think CEO in particular, but also we all can leverage and benefit from interesting,

that learning, researching, getting better at the craft, is there's no space for that. Or is that? Wonder if that's

Yeah, I think that should be part of the 70% Yeah,

I agree. Just like Bau plus firefighting, it just kind

of remind me of the Google thing. So instead of spending 30% of your time innovating, you're spending your time firefighting. So it sounds very operations focused, which makes sense.

And Tony, what would you like to share?

I think the one thing that every CEO, especially in the tech industry, needs to think about is being able to paint the picture of the future state of the organisation. And be able to communicate that clearly to the employees, but also to the customers. To end Andrea's point, to expect that there will be an unexpected event, right? So you'll always have to adjust and course correct, but being able to communicate that clearly, this is where we plan to go, and this is what it means to you. I think that's so important, and it will be a powerful driver of change within the organisation.

Lovely. So thank you Tony and Andrea for joining us on the operations room. If you like what you hear, please leave a comment or subscribe, and we will see you next week. My