The CDO Club held its 4th annual NYC CDO Summit, presented by Centric Digital, on April 27, 2016, at Thomson Reuters in New York City.
The CDO Summit addressed the challenges and opportunities arising from Big Data, the cloud, digital disruption, and social and mobile media, with an in-depth discussion surrounding the rising voice of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) as a critical decision maker and board room influencer.
The event sold out for the 4th year in a row, with interest growing as the number of Chief Digital Officers has doubled every year, to over 2,000 in 2015, according to the CDO Club.
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Featured speaker Linda Boff, CMO at GE, was recognized as U.S. CDO of the Year 2016 after her fireside chat, “Unapologetically Digital: How GE Markets a Culture of Disruption.” She was interviewed by award-winning CNBC Reporter Mary Thompson.
She is not the first non-CDO to gain the recognition: The first-ever CDO of the Year award was given in February 2013 to Teddy Goff, who served as Digital Director at Obama for America in both 2008 and 2012, and now serves on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 U.S. Presidential election campaign.
“It’s no longer enough to redesign your website or build mobile apps. For brands and business to succeed in the digital age, you must understand how to transform your business strategy, customer experience and operations,” said Brian Manning, Co-founder, President & Chief Digital Officer at Centric Digital.
Manning keynoted at the event and also signed copies of his new book, written with Centric Digital co-founder Jason Albanese, REVIVE: How to Transform Traditional Businesses into Digital Leaders. Manning’s presentation featured a surprise guest appearance by Phil Bienert, CMO & EVP, Digital Commerce at GoDaddy.
Centric Digital was the Presenting Sponsor of the 4th annual NYC CDO Summit. David Palmieri, Chief Operating Officer at Centric Digital, moderated the “Success Principles for Digital Transformation” panel, and Brian Dearth, Chief Strategy Officer, moderated the “Driving and Measuring Digital Transformation” panel.
Additional sponsors for the NYC CDO Summit include Harvey Nash, Applause, Object Frontier Software (OFS), Chadick Ellig, MutualMind, and Mendix.
Anna Frazzetto, Chief Digital Technology Officer & SVP at Harvey Nash, caused quite a stir with her keynote “The Rise of the Chief Digital Officer, Our CEO of the Future.”
Notably, Frazzetto engaged our audience of c-level digital and data leaders with live online polls, finding that 62% of respondents want to become CEO one day.
Another highly anticipated keynote was provided by Kevin Bandy, Chief Digital Officer at Cisco Systems, on “The Cisco Digitization Journey: Creating and Delivering Value to Customers in a Digital World.”
The event also had a number of fireside chats and conversations, including one with Larry Kramer, who was interviewed by Robertson Barrett, President at Hearst Newspaper Digital.
Kramer shared insights from his vast portfolio of experience both as digital innovator, journalist, and business leader. Kramer is Chairman of the Board and interim CEO at TheStreet.com, and a board member at Gannett Co. Inc.; Harvard Business School Publishing; and MDC Partners; and a trustee of Syracuse University.
Applause’s Ben Gray delivered a hit presentation on user POV and digital experiences, revealing fascinating statistics on user behavior and mobile apps (did you know that Tinder is one of the lower-rated dating apps, for example?)
The day began with an intro conversation with Graham Waller: Research VP at Gartner, and David Mathison, Founder and CEO of the CDO Club, with an extensive view of the chief digital officer trend.
This was also the first summit to feature TED-style talks with Magnus Gylje, Chief Digital Officer at Nobel Media AB, and Michael Li, Founder at The Data Incubator.
Li officially announced an upcoming webinar on big data management with the CDO Club’s education initiative, CDO Academy.
There were also two special international guests in attendance from the CDO Club’s first global affiliates. Ali Malaz is Founder at CDO Club Turkey and organizer of the “Leaders of Digital Transformation” event that occurred on November 9, 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey.
Amit Kama is Founder at CDO Club Israel and organizer of the upcoming Israel CDO Summit in Tel-Aviv, on May 17, 2016.
The event featured a nonprofit and municipal CDO panel moderated by Eric Hellweg, Managing Director of Product Management & Digital Strategy at Harvard Business Review / HBR.org.
A widely shared panel on social media was the media panel moderated by Michael Krigsman, Founder of CXOTalk, who recently published Twenty Influential Chief Digital Officers.
Attendees also received the latest updates on CDO Club’s newest initiatives, CDO Community and CDO Academy. Several CDO Community contributors were speaking, including Michael Krigsman; Jonathan Becher, Chief Digital Officer at SAP; and Mayur Gupta, SVP, Head of Digital at Healthgrades.
DMA also participated in the event to help inform attendees about their new partnership with CDO Academy to provide 4 on-demand marketing courses to members.
Alex Clyne, Co-founder of Jump Digital Ltd, flew in from Scotland to announce the upcoming CDO Academy partnership with the University of Aberdeen, to provide members with access to an online Master’s Degree in Digital Marketing Leadership from the 500-year old university.
Social media engagement was tracked, analyzed, and presented on a social monitoring platform provided by MutualMind and powered by IBM Watson.
Displaying the technical savvy of the attendees, the intimate gathering garnered over 10 million impressions on Twitter alone.
Not everything was strictly business: music was provided by Jann Klose and Gary Lucas, with every attendee receiving a digital download card with their hit song.
The next day, previous two-time CDO Summit speaker and Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) Chief Digital Officer Sree Sreenivasan gave some speakers and VIPs a tour of the Met’s new location, The Met Breuer.
The next event is the 3rd annual UK CDO Summit in London, on September 28, 2016. It’s followed by the Washington D.C. CDO Summit on November 16, 2016.
Speakers and organizations at the NYC CDO Summit included:
• Alex Clyne: Co-Founder of Jump Digital Ltd
• Ali Malaz: Founder at CDO Club Turkey
• Amit Kama: Founder at CDO Club Israel
• Anna Frazzetto: Chief Digital Technology Officer & SVP at Harvey Nash
• Anne Myong: Chief Financial Officer at Walmart eCommerce
• Anurag Harsh: SVP, Founding Executive at Ziff Davis, LLC
• Ben Gray: Digital Experience Analyst at Applause
• Brian Dearth: Chief Strategy Officer at Centric Digital
• Brian Manning: President & Chief Digital Officer at Centric Digital
• Catherine Devine: Chief Digital Officer at the American Museum of Natural History
• Dan Colarusso: Executive Editor, Digital and Head of Global Programming at Reuters
• Dana Berchman: Chief Digital Officer of Gilbert, Arizona
• David Link: Chief Digital Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
• David Palmieri: Chief Operating Officer at Centric Digital
• Eric Hellweg: Managing Director, Product Management & Digital Strategy at Harvard Business Review / HBR.org
• Graham Waller: Research Vice President at Gartner
• Jeff Dennes: SEVP – Business Development and Digital Transformation at BBVA Compass
• Jeff Reid: EVP Digital Center of Excellence at Humana
• Jonathan Becher: Chief Digital Officer at SAP
• Kevin Bandy: SVP, Chief Digital Officer at Cisco
• Kevin Eagan: General Manager, IBM Digital at IBM
• Larry Kramer: Director at Harvard Business School Publishing; Interim CEO and Chairman of the Board at TheStreet.com; Director at Gannett Corp.
• Lauren Lockwood: Chief Digital Officer at City of Boston
• Linda Boff: Chief Marketing Officer at GE
• Magnus Gylje: Chief Digital Officer, Editor-in-Chief at Nobel Media AB
• Mary Thompson: Reporter at CNBC
• Mayur Gupta: Senior Vice President, Head of Digital at Healthgrades
• Michael Krigsman: Founder of CXOTalk
• Múirne Laffan: Chief Digital Officer at RTÉ
• Phil Bienert: CMO and EVP, Digital Commerce at GoDaddy
• Rich Napoli: CEO of ObjectFrontier Inc.
• Robertson Barrett: President, Hearst Newspapers Digital at Hearst
• Sharon Feder: Chief Digital Officer at Rachael Ray/ Watch Entertainment
• Susan Poulton: Chief Digital Officer at The Franklin Institute
• Tianhui Michael Li: Founder of The Data Incubator
• Todd Unger: Chief Digital Officer at Daily Racing Form
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See Select NYC Speakers:
See All NYC Speakers Here >
If you are tasked with understanding what digital leaders must do in order to succeed in almost any industry, the best place to learn more is at the CDO Summit.
Register today to get the Early Bird Registration rate for the U.K. CDO Summit on September 28, 2016 and the inaugural Washington D.C. CDO Summit on November 16, 2016.
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The CDO Summit is the “must-attend” digital event of the year. The 2013, 2014 and 2015 CDO Summits received stellar endorsements from dozens of speakers and attendees alike:
“Sometimes a conference comes along that hits the trifecta – hot topic, high-caliber attendees, and stellar location. The first Chief Digital Officer Summit reached that mark with ease, and I look forward to attending the next one.”
Eric Hellweg
Managing Director, Digital Strategy/Editorial DirectorHarvard Business Review
“Congratulations and thanks to David Mathison for spotting the need for community and collaboration in the growing Chief Digital Officer space, and for having the wherewithal, network, and organizational talent to put together such a top-notch event in its inaugural year. Next year’s summit should be even more of a must-do for anyone working digital at senior levels in all kinds of businesses.”
Teddy Goff
Digital DirectorPresident Barack Obama 2008 and 2012
“David, here’s a handy C^3 test for conference value: Did I learn at least three new perspectives? Check. Did I meet at least three interesting people? Check. Did I take back at least three relevant pieces of news I can use? Check. Flying colors for the Chief Digital Officer Summit 2013! Thank you so much, and yes, I’d be very pleased to participate next year!”
Perry Hewitt
Chief Digital OfficerHarvard University
“Congratulations to David Mathison and his team on the simply amazing job they did on the inaugural Chief Digital Officer Summit. Probably the most informative, insightful, on target, entertaining, collaborative, thought provoking, and inspiring conferences I have ever attended. I learned more about my business and what I do in the past 12 hours than I have from any research white paper, articles or blogs over the past 12 months. The range of topics and speakers assembled were incredibly diverse, informative, collaborative, and most of all, inspiring. It has invigorated me to be the best possible professional CDO I can be. David Mathison’s skills as a moderator were impeccable, bringing out the best of the speakers and keeping the conversation flowing. His intimate and insightful knowledge of this space is only out-shined by his humility and graciousness. Kudos to David and his organizing team.”
Mark Keys
Vice President, Client SolutionsMoving Interactive