VIDEO | Le Groupe La Poste's CDO, Consumer and Digital Branch: CDOs Can Write Their Own Job Descriptions

(Europe) Pascale Assémat, Chief Data Officer of the Consumer and Digital Branch at Le Groupe La Poste, speaks with Kensu CEO Eleanor Treharne Jones in a video interview about the different chief data officer roles, how to become a CDOm and the role’s analytics extension.

Defining the role of a CDO, Assémat says that it depends a lot on the company’s data maturity or data strategy itself. CDOs can be:

• More on the IT teams, with very technical jobs.
• More on the data governance side.
• More involved with the business teams to establish the appropriate data strategy.

She explains that a CDO’s involvement as a business partner means the company is more mature in its data usage. Assémat notes that she comes from a technical background and has gradually moved to the business side.

Offering advice to professionals interested in becoming CDOs, she emphasizes that they can start outside IT and must be passionate about extracting value from data. Assémat maintains that companies often don't know how to describe CDOs. Because of this, CDOs can write their job descriptions. As a CDO, Assémat relies on two critical partners — the CTO or CIO and the business owners.

Regarding the CDO role analytics extension, Assémat says that it depends on the role itself and the company. Some organizations have decentralized analytics with multiple teams conducting analyses. Other companies have a centralized approach, with one team or different teams under one management responsible for everything related to analytics and BI. She adds that a CDO responsible for the data and the analytics is ideal for the latter.

In conclusion, Assémat states that arriving at the decentralized analytics level is a long journey. It depends on the company’s culture, maturity, and governance — in other words, it requires solid foundations.

CDO Magazine thanks Pascale Assémat for sharing her insights and data success stories with our global community.