Should companies have Chief <Hot Topic of the Day> Officers?

I recently learned that President Biden has mandated every federal agency to appoint a Chief AI Officer. Without going into that specific recommendation, or the Chief AI Officer role in particular, this yet again raises the issue of the appointment of Chief <XXX> Officers.  This got raised a lot when 'Digital' re-emerged about a decade ago. Lots of people, including me, discussed whether there was a need for a Chief Digital Officer. (For how long, what they would do, relationship to the CIO etc.) The currently most well-defined Chief <XXX> Officer roles are probably  <Executive>, <Financial>, <Operating>, <Marketing>,  <Information>, <Technology>, <People/HR> and <Risk>. There are some slightly different cuts on the standards like <Commercial>, <Revenue>, <Growth>, <Customer>, <Administrative>. Industry specifics like <Clinical Information>. And hot-topic ones like <Digital>, <Sustainability>, <Data>, <Diversity, Equity and Inclusion>. I recently co-authored Gartner’s CIO Leadership Forum keynote, where we talked about a Chief Simplification Officer. We emphasized that we were not advocating a new role, more a continual responsibility that had to be championed by a person or governance body. I suggest that it is unhelpful to have a proliferation of such titles. The Chief Officer moniker should be focused on a smallish number of (maybe 8) executive committee members who have legal responsibility for, a good ability to explain and represent the company’s overall strategy, operations, current condition, future plans to internal and external shareholders (inc. Wall Street). That would naturally include the CEO, CFO, COO. Others would vary. It might be better that most who run a separable function should not be called C<XXX>O, since they probably aren’t officially officers of the company, and even if they are awesome in their domain, may not be credibly able to represent broader aspects of the company to all stakeholders at the highest of levels. And maybe champions of transversal topics like sustainability, simplification, or AI, should be called something more like Enterprise <XXX> Leader/ Champion to distinguish them from Chief Officers of their companies. Their role may last for the short or long-term. It may later go away or turn into a traditional function. It is important to have them as a champion, to drive momentum and focus and ensure coordination around the topic. But that does not qualify them to represent the whole company at the most senior level. Nor do they need to, to fulfil their mission. This blogpost was brought to you by a Chief Officer of Unthinking and Challenging Hierachies (COUCH) whilst sitting on one. #Unask #Unthink #Unlearn #CxO #CAIO #Leadership #Titles