CDO Matters Ep. 19 | Finding and Retaining Data Talent with Kyle Winterbottom

There’s a well-known saying: “Teamwork makes the dream work.” Despite there being some truth behind that, the dream can’t become a reality without the right team. This is especially true when recruiting and staffing skilled professionals for your enterprise’s data organization. In this episode, Malcolm interviews Kyle Winterbottom, the CEO of Orbition, a niche talent consultancy helping organizations staff data and analytics roles across the globe. Running a company solely focused on helping companies build, grow and optimize their data organizations by recruiting top-tier talent gives Kyle a unique perspective on the market for data-centric roles. As such, this episode of CDO Matters is a great resource for data leaders working to build out a data and analytics function, or perhaps even become a chief data officer (CDO) themselves.   When discussing the current state of the market specifically for CDO talent, Kyle notes that there’s a massive gap between the number of companies hiring CDO-level roles and the total number of possible applicants — a reverse of the supply and demand in the job market for data engineers.    So, not only is there a scarcity of CDO roles, but Kyle also notes that many companies actually struggle to define exactly what the CDO role should entail — where many still focus on Python skills and other technical proficiencies typically not required by senior executives. This is leading to a number of suboptimal hires, where the scarcity of roles is often filled by people poorly suited to meet the expectations of a senior business leader.    Establishing a track record of the delivery of tangible business outcomes is how Kyle recommends data leaders highlight their resumes should they seek these scarce CDO positions since ultimately, it’s those business results that companies expect from their head of data.      In stark contrast to leadership roles, he notes an abundance of unfilled technical roles in data organizations — particularly data engineers. Kyle notes that if you want to earn the same amount of money that data scientists were pulling in five years ago, now is the time to become a data engineer. This demand for technical skills is also being seen in data governance-related roles — where years of companies focused on “shiny objects” in the data space has led to a degree of talent debt in the areas of data management fundamentals — including governance.     When discussing what it takes to retain and develop data-related talent, Kyle notes that fundamental shifts have occurred since the global pandemic — where in the past, data practitioners were primarily asking themselves three things:   - How much will you pay me? - Will the brand name look good on my resume? - What kind of tech will I get to play with?   However, in recent years, these needs have shifted. Increasing amounts of data talent are looking for their work to be valuable, visible and impactful.    When providing his insights on landing a CDO position, Kyle stresses to “not chase a title,” but instead chase positions with roles and responsibilities that tightly align to the typical responsibilities of a CDO — even if a company may not call it that. Kyle correctly notes, “If you want to sit at the top table, then [the delivery of value] is the job…despite that most organizations still advertise for python skills in a CDO.”      When discussing the issue of short CDO tenures, Kyles likens the current environment for CDOs to that of professional sports coaches and general managers of highly elite teams — where if you are a new hire, but you aren’t able to show some quick wins in a relatively short period of time, your position as CDO will likely be on the chopping block.