Why Every Investment Management Firm Needs a Chief Data Officer in 2025
There are some hot new c-suite job titles gaining favor in investment management. IT positions once relegated to dark basements jammed with hard drives and T1 cables are now occupying sunny offices on the top floor. But now they go by monikers like chief data officer (CDO), chief AI officer, or chief data and analytics officer (CDAO). A 2025 survey of senior AI & data leaders of Fortune 1000 and leading global organizations revealed that 84% of companies have appointed CDOs or CDAOs, yet almost half indicated that the role of the CDO is a bit nascent, a work in progress.i
So then, does your firm need a chief data officer if it has a chief information officer (CIO) or chief technology officer (CTO)? Will the CDO become more important or less important to financial services firms as AI infiltrates every business function? What do CDOs do, and should they have a seat at the executive leadership team table? Are they glorified IT leaders in charge of data infrastructure or are they alpha-driving strategists?
Evolving role of the CDO in finance
To find out how investment management firms perceive the scope of CDOs, let’s take a look at a live job description, from State Street. It doesn’t take more than a glance to see that CDOs have become elemental c-suite leaders and are tasked with a monumental job: digital transformation, to change an entire financial organization’s data posture to keep up with capital markets’ remodeling that is happening swiftly:
“As the asset servicing industry undergoes digital transformation, the ability to harness data and artificial intelligence (AI) has become a strategic imperative. From custody and fund administration to securities lending and regulatory reporting, data is the foundation of operational excellence, client service, and innovation. To lead this transformation, we are elevating the Chief Data and AI Officer (CDAO) role — to a single executive level leader responsible for unlocking the full value of data and AI across the enterprise.” - LinkedIn
The notion of a dedicated chief data officer at buy-side investment firms generally did not exist two or three years ago. And it’s no coincidence that, two years ago, OpenAI and ChatGPT burst onto the scene. The AI revolution has proven a clinching catalyst that pushed many financial institutions to think bigger about their data transformations. Oliver Wyman posited in a blog post that data science officers have evolved over the past 10 years from risk managers and data infrastructure project managers to this current posture in which they are delivering business value.ii The fact is, however, some firms are still rectifying second-generation data management issues.
Investment management firms want to make all their data useable and accessible to approved people across the organization. That sounds simple enough, but we’re talking about an operating environment where their data comes from dozens of sources, in raw and proprietary storage formats, fragmented infrastructures with their own lifecycle of ingestions. This makes it difficult to ensure data is readily available.
Many asset managers and institutional investors are still trying to pry the bonds of their on-premises, legacy infrastructure systems. For them, accessing that data is incredibly difficult, requiring an entire operations team. They have difficulties sharing that information securely with other systems. At these firms, a business user must still reach out to their internal IT teams to access certain data, and it could take weeks to deliver a simple report to them. There's no customization, no straightforward filtering, and no report editing capabilities, leaving them shipping out canned, static reports. Further, the process of resolving data inaccuracies is a time-consuming, bureaucratic process of submitting a ticket to the internal IT or vendor IT teams and then enduring the back-and-forth communications.
CDOs: digital transformation agents
Organizational transformation in data management is often triggered when a tech-forward CEO hires an executive such as a CDO, CTO, or similar role to lead the transformation mandate. Some firms have been executing data science initiatives in a la carte fashion, aiming to solve the problems of certain teams within the organization trying to get their data into a consumable format. In some ways, this can be a sensible change management approach to win buy-in and demonstrate proof of concept. However, this also produces political wranglings within firms as they decide whose departments to prioritize. We have reached the point in the industry’s digital transformation journey that calls for a more holistic approach.
Firms see data increasingly as the valuable resource, and data governance and strategy are becoming more prominent. The premium on good quality data is at an all-time high, especially considering current market volatility. These data and analytics leaders are just beginning to secure seats at the executive leadership team table. Cetera, Oaktree, and HSBC hired or appointed chief data officers in 2025. In 2024, JPMorgan established a firmwide chief data and analytics office to put all data initiatives under one umbrella, led by a CDAO.iii Its chief data and analytics officer oversees an exabyte of data (10 to the 18th power of bytes) and moves up to $15 trillion of cash each day, and has naturally been championing data quality.iv
CDO or CDAO to get data over the final mile
This concept of data as a strategic asset has become reality. Everyone now understands that their data is incredibly valuable. They have realized the impact of predictive and prescriptive analytics in forecasting for superior risk management. They're struggling to get the right information over that final mile: from a centralized location of data to the end user or operator. Managers may launch digital transformations efforts, only to find themselves hung up by the lack of a knowledgeable data science leader who can execute change management. Appointing a leader to oversee this transformation and ongoing management of the information has become vital to staying competitive.
A firm may be just concluding the build-out of a large data warehouse, maybe Snowflake or Databricks. They have managed to get their data into standard format in that centralized data storage, but have trouble marrying that data to, for example, an alternative market provider and dataset, to run different types of risk computations. They need to enable a controller or a CFO to extract it and organize it into the exact format that they need to lock down their monthly NAV, quarterly NAV, or daily NAV.
The role of data in finance has expanded dramatically, from supporting historical reporting to driving real-time decision-making. What was once a function rooted in hindsight is now deeply predictive and prescriptive... Today’s finance professionals work in a world where AI can detect anomalies faster than auditors, machine learning models can forecast market shifts in seconds and cloud platforms allow real-time access to global financial data streams. These advances have reshaped what’s expected of finance teams. It’s no longer enough to understand the numbers; you need to interpret, visualize and act on them with strategic intent. The modern finance leader is part analyst, part technologist and part storyteller, translating data into business value across the organization. - Data Strategy Trends in 2025: From Silos to Unified Enterprise Value, by Michelle Knightv
But does my firm need a CDO?
In some cases, CTOs and lower ranked data science officers may suffice to drive data strategy for asset managers. The size of the firm is certainly a determining factor. If a firm is over $100 billion, it likely needs some form of CDO. There are so many moving parts and transactions occurring on a day-to-day basis, each of which carry security details, transaction details, and accounting details. But perhaps more relevant than sheer AUM is the degree of complexity of a firm’s strategies. Those executing multi-asset strategies or expanding into multiple business lines within the firm may be better off hiring a CDO to oversee everything. The public-private asset class convergence is a widespread puzzle that is driving the need to have real-time, precise viewability, both in full portfolio views at the asset manager level and in portfolio composition at the client level. Complexity is the most pertinent lever for deciding whether to hire a CDO.
AI is redefining the CDO’s mandate
In the context of implementing AI transformation in investment management, the tech and domain expertise of the data person such as a CDO is necessary to match the data agenda with AI/agentic use cases. That's another big reason why a chief data officer is coming into play. AI needs to sit on top of a curated dataset, so it's not just the raw data that's coming in. The data is cleaned up, normalized, and formatted so the AI engine or LLM can read it, and business users can query that data set in a simple way.
Crucially, AI models are not a "one and done" initiative but require continuous retraining and refining from data scientists. The CDO can be a logical choice to pilot the AI ship, which is why many chief data and AI officer positions are emerging. Prominent financial services firms like AIG, Raymond James, and UBS have recently tapped data science leaders to lead their AI charges.vi
Indeed, the roles of the CDO, CDAO, chief AI officers are evolving. In the same 2025 survey referenced above, nearly 48% of CDOs, chief AI officers, and people with similar jobs surveyed say the CDO role is successful and well established, another 48% believe the position is nascent, evolving, and often a revolving door. Meanwhile, 29% believe the CDO role is a transitional one that will eventually disappear.
The CDO role is here to stay, especially in finance. Financial structure and instrument innovations are coming rapidly and there is no finish line for digital transformation. The explosion of AI and digital transformation has made data a strategic asset; so naturally, the chief data officer has become a strategic asset in the room with the executive leadership team.
Authored By
Bernardo Cabada
As Vice President, Sales Operations & Enablement at Arcesium, Bernardo leads in showcasing the company's cutting-edge capabilities through executive-level engagements, delivering compelling presentations, technical demonstrations, and proof-of-concepts. His proficiency extends across crucial areas of middle- and back-office investment operations, with a particular emphasis on data governance and enterprise data management for investment managers and asset owners.
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[i] CIO, 29% of CDOs don’t see a future in the position, Jan 24, 2025. https://www.cio.com/article/3808704/29-of-cdos-dont-see-a-future-in-the-position.html
[ii] Oliver Wyman, 2023. https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2023/feb/it-is-time-for-a-third-generation-of-the-chief-data-officer.html
[iii] Markets Media, June 2025. https://www.marketsmedia.com/jpmorganchase-makes-data-ai-ready/
[iv] American Banker, 2025. https://www.americanbanker.com/news/2025-the-most-powerful-women-in-banking-no-8-teresa-heitsenrether-jpmorganchase
[v] Dataversity, December 4, 2024. https://www.dataversity.net/articles/data-strategy-trends-in-2025-from-silos-to-unified-enterprise-value/
[vi] Yahoo Finance, August 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aig-hires-chief-digital-officer-091112623.html
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