Today, this role is becoming increasingly visible in large organizations that have struggled with balancing the functional (or business) side of the house with the technical (IT) group.

We are seeing not only more official roles around digital, but there is an increasing trend towards "agile digital" in which organizations are taking the web stack into the cloud (PaaS model), with CDOs announcing a renewed focus on digital, specifically the business (ecommerce), content, marketing and communications, and social media (including community building). User experience groups are increasingly getting tagged to look after metrics, and make recommendations (through a digital council) to the CDO, who is directly accountable for the digital strategy. 

While this industry shift has been great to witness, it is still not prevalent. But to those of us working in digital publications, these are signs of growing organizational maturity and the recognition that digital is not a fad but a real competitive advantage to those organization which can properly harness its value.