Big Data business opportunities, data security, privacy, and others are too big not to be discussed at the C-level. A CDO or chief data officer is a leader role within the organization responsible for organization-wide governance and utilization of data and information, via data capturing, processing, analysis, data mining, information trading and other.
A CDO is tasked with having the big picture vision on data and information within and around the organization. This entails both governance, security and privacy of data but also includes identifying new business opportunities related to present (or not yet captured) data. A Chief Data Officer is often part of the CIO-team and often has both a technical and business background.