IABC Branding & Marketing Commons

Business Week had an interesting article this week about a new breed of officers in the C-suite: The Chief Innovation Officer. The “I” in CIO is now “Innovation.” Companies as diverse as Citigroup and Coca-Cola have appointed such high-level innovation czars. The new CIO role brings strategy, marketing and R&D together. According to the article, candidates with marketing backgrounds frequently fill these positions. Their responsibilities are usually broader than new product development, including the development of new business models, fresh customer insights and more creative corporate cultures. There’s been a four-fold increase of this position in the last three years, with most of that growth coming in the past 18 months. It can always be argued that innovation is the responsibility of the C.E.O. I still think the idea of a Chief Innovation Officer makes perfect sense. It can never hurt to have an additional member of the leadership team in charge of an integrated long-term view of the customer and the brand.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 7:06 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.