Dear International Strategic Management?Executive

What we’ve been doing isn’t in line with

the company’s strategy – and we need

to fi x that. Someone in your organization

has the mandate to walk into any offi ce,

speak those words, and spark some sort

of transformation. Maybe it’s the CEO and

‘‘ t S

A ar

o n

G o

o d

m an

THE CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER

by R. Timothy S. Breene, Paul F. Nunes, and Walter E. Shill

‘‘ W

84 Harvard Business Review | October 2007 | hbr.org

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hbr.org | October 2007 | Harvard Business Review 85

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The Chief Strategy Offi cer

86 Harvard Business Review | October 2007 | hbr.org

the CEO only. That’s the traditional model, after all – vision,

planning, and directives fl ow from the very top, and people

at all levels of the organization act.

But it may be that a different C-level executive bears the

burden of strategy execution in your company – a senior

leader like AIG’s Brian Schreiber. He’s been the strategy

chief under two CEOs at the insurance giant. As senior

vice president of strategic planning during Maurice “Hank”

Greenberg’s tenure, Schreiber’s focus was on implementing

investment decisions and acquiring companies selected by

the management team. Under the new CEO, Martin Sul-

livan, Schreiber’s role has expanded to include formalizing

the company’s strategic-planning processes, forging new

working relationships and synergies across the organization,

and establishing greater transparency and accountability for

those people carrying out the company’s strategy. Nowadays,

Schreiber says, the successful creation and execution of strat-

egy requires not only good processes but also the ability to

make quick decisions. So he also considers himself the point

person for assessing whether strategic initiatives, at all levels

of the organization, are in line with the company’s standards

and objectives.

Schreiber’s experience, while impressive, is not unique.

Our research and many years of experience working with

leaders in large organizations confi rm that CEOs are for-

mally handing the reins of strategy execution to individuals

known by a variety of titles but with increasing frequency as

“chief strategy offi cers.” In the past few years, the number of

CSO appointments has surged. Interviews with executive re-

cruiters point to the growing prevalence of this role in many

industries, and CSOs are already serving large multinational

companies around the world.

Companies are adding CSOs to their management teams

(or at least considering doing so) for several reasons. Start

with changes to the business landscape – complex organiza-

tional structures, rapid globalization, new regulations, the

struggle to innovate – that make it ever more diffi cult for

CEOs to be on top of everything, even an area as important

as strategy execution. Then consider the nature of strategy

itself. By nearly all accounts, strategy development has be-

come a continuous, not periodic, process. Successful execu-

tion, therefore, depends more than ever on rapid and effec-

tive decision making. Further, as Harvard Business School

professor Joseph L. Bower has noted in these pages, iron-

fi sted control of execution often eludes the top team’s grasp,

as line executives seek to defi ne strategy on their own terms.

(See Bower and Clark G. Gilbert’s “How Managers’ Everyday

Decisions Create – or Destroy – Your Company’s Strategy,”

February 2007.)

In circumstances such as these, a CEO needs an executive

near at hand to share the load and maintain – or regain –

control of a process that constantly threatens to become cha-

otic. The COO or the CFO may seem like obvious resources

to tap, but there are risks in delegating the oversight of

strategy to either. Nearly three decades ago, one executive

arguing for the creation of a new top strategy role explained

why it should not be folded into the COO’s duties. As he put

it, “a fundamental confl ict between what is easy to execute

and what is right to execute often leads the chief operating

offi cer away from the tougher decision.” (See William W.

Wommack’s “The Board’s Most Important Function,” HBR

September–October 1979.) One could easily envision similar

confl icts of interest for the CFO.

To help existing and aspiring CSOs be more effective,

and to aid CEOs who think they might need to hire or ap-

point a strategy chief, we’ve been studying these executives

as a class: Who are they? What is their mandate? What

makes them successful? Our research was complicated by

the existence of a great diversity of titles that fi t the role

of chief strategy offi cer – more than 90, in fact. We didn’t

want to get bogged down by this abundance of titles, so

we surveyed a sample of large global companies to fi nd

R. Timothy S. Breene is the chief strategy and corporate development offi cer at Accenture. Paul F. Nunes is an executive research fel-

low at Accenture’s Institute for High Performance Business. Breene and Nunes, both based in Boston, are coauthors of “Selling to the

Moneyed Masses” (HBR July–August 2004). Walter E. Shill is the global managing director of the strategy practice at Accenture. He is

based in Washington, DC.

CSOs consider themselves doers fi rst, with the mandate, credentials, and desire to act as well as advise.

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hbr.org | October 2007 | Harvard Business Review 87

executives who were considered –

and who considered themselves –

the chief strategy executives at

their organizations. This study

yielded a database of more than

200 senior managers who fi t the

bill. We also took a closer look at

the increasingly popular “chief

strategy offi cer” title, analyzing

the press releases and media cov-

erage of more than 100 CSO ap-

pointments to determine how

the role is evolving. We rounded

out the research with in-depth

interviews of chief strategy offi –

cers from various industries and

backgrounds.

Our initial observation was that

CSOs are, in many ways, as di-

verse as the titles they hold. They

do not emerge from predictable

backgrounds with easy-to-map

career paths or aspirations, and

their skills, experiences, best prac-

tices, and preferences run the

gamut. Yet, deeper exploration

revealed many common traits in

these individuals – characteristics

that, taken together, help defi ne

a consistent, although often un-

familiar or misunderstood, role.

Fundamentally, these are people

who wield the authority, and

have the complex range of skills,

to make strategy happen. To borrow a term from French

cinema, they act as réalisateurs.

Don’t Call Them Strategists It’s easy to misjudge the role of the chief strategy offi cer, in

part because the title itself is misleading. These executives

are not, for example, pure strategists, conducting long-range

planning in relative isolation. And they are not specialists

who have breathed in only the rarifi ed air of strategy over

long careers of thinking rather than doing. Rather, they are

seasoned executives with a strong strategy orientation who

have typically led major initiatives or businesses and worn

many operating hats before taking on the role.

Most of the chief strategy executives we spoke with and

studied had signifi cant experience in formulating strat-

egy, often gained at top management consulting fi rms or

through years of strategy-related work in companies – but

this was rarely the dominant portion of their careers. Indeed,

we found only one who was directly hired from a consul-

tancy. Most entered their companies in planning, functional,

or line-management capacities and were not tapped until

years later for the top strategy post. “I’m not a career strate-

gist,” says Bob Black, Kimberly-Clark’s senior vice president

and CSO. “My years in consulting taught me how to develop

and critique strategy, but the value-added probably comes

more from my business leadership experience. As a result,

I’m bringing more of a running-the-company kind of ap-

proach to the role.”

Black’s attitude and approach to his job map closely to

another of our research fi ndings: Most top strategy execu-

tives are star players more so than professional coaches. They

instruct others and serve as mentors, certainly. But most

CSOs consider themselves doers fi rst, with the mandate, cre-

dentials, and desire to act as well as advise. Most important,

they understand how to focus the organization on executing

today, not just on planning for tomorrow.

Consider the backgrounds of a few chief strategy offi cers.

Immediately before becoming Campbell Soup Company’s

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88 Harvard Business Review | October 2007 | hbr.org

CSO, M. Carl Johnson was the execu-

tive vice president of Kraft Foods, where

he led the former New Meals division

through a three-year transformation

that helped the unit restore its sales and

earnings momentum and signifi cantly

grow its operating income. WellPoint’s

CSO, Marjorie Dorr, was plucked from

her position as president and CEO of the

company’s northeast region, where she

had increased membership in the health

care company’s plans from 800,000 to

2.6 million. And AMD’s William T. “Billy”

Edwards had a rich set of experiences

before being named CSO in 2004, in-

cluding time as CEO of Hesson Labs, line

management roles at Motorola, posi-

tions with medical equipment start-ups,

and nearly a decade with a top strategy

consulting fi rm. (In 2005, he was named

AMD’s chief innovation offi cer.)

The CSO at times functions as a sort

of “mini CEO,” someone who must see

the issues confronting the company

from as broad a perspective as the chief

executive does, says Kimberly-Clark’s

Black, who previously served as COO of

Sammons Enterprises, a conglomerate

with $27 billion in assets, and as presi-

dent of Steelcase’s international opera-

tions. “Over the course of a week, I’m

spending time on consumer innovation,

business process outsourcing, financial

structure, international expansion, com-

munications, acquisitions – most people

in today’s functionally oriented career

paths don’t have the experience to ad-

dress so many diverse challenges at once.

They haven’t run a whole company

before.”

Some companies look outside for a

CSO, as Kimberly-Clark and Campbell’s

did, but that’s not the norm. Eighty-four

percent of the top strategy executives

who responded to our survey were in-

ternal hires; most of the rest came from

competing companies in their industries.

Our research shows that top strategy ex-

ecutives work for their companies nearly

eight years, on average, before being ap-

pointed to the role. For some, that ten-

ure is much longer: In early 2007, Wal-

greens promoted John Gleeson, a 37-year

Help Wanted: Finding a Qualifi ed CSO

Finding someone with the skills and experience needed to develop strategy, translate it for people across functions and business units, and drive organizational change is not easy. To help companies evaluate candi- dates, we’ve developed a checklist of some of the personal and behavioral traits necessary for the job, listed here in order of relative importance.

A good CSO candidate should be:

Deeply trusted by the CEO. CSOs are often given carte blanche to

tackle companywide challenges and seize new business opportunities,

so there must be a strong bond of trust between the strategy chief and

the CEO. A long professional and personal history between them isn’t

absolutely necessary – but it helps.

A master of multitasking. Our survey revealed that CSOs are respon- sible for upward of ten major business functions and activities, as diverse and demanding as M&A, competitive analysis and market research, and long-range planning. CSOs therefore must be capable of switching between environments and activities without losing speed.

A jack of all trades. Less than one-fi fth of our survey respondents spent the bulk of their careers (pre-CSO) on strategic planning. Most reported signifi cant line-management and functional experience in disparate areas, including technology management, marketing, and operations.

A star player. Most CSOs can point to impressive business results earlier in their careers. They usually view the strategy role as a launching pad, not a landing pad.

A doer, not just a thinker. CSOs split their time almost evenly between strategy development and execution, but their bias is toward the latter. “Every company already has a strategy,” says Krishnan Rajagopalan, of Heidrick & Struggles. “CEOs are looking for a leader who can help imple- ment it, not just refi ne it.”

The guardian of horizon two. Senior teams generally have a good handle on short- and long-term issues. The medium term, that period from one to four years out, can fall through the cracks, however. CSOs must be able to refocus the organization’s attention on horizon two, the critical period for strategy execution.

An infl uencer, not a dictator. Strategy chiefs don’t usually accomplish their goals by pulling rank. They sway others with their deep industry knowledge, their connections throughout the organization, and their ability to communicate effectively at all levels of the company.

Comfortable with ambiguity. All executives today must exhibit this trait, but it’s especially true for CSOs, whose actions typically won’t pay off for years. The role tends to evolve rapidly, as circumstances dictate, requiring an extraordinary ability to embrace an uncertain future.

Objective. Given their wide remit, CSOs have to be perceived as objec- tive. An openly partisan CSO, or one who lets emotions or the strength of others’ personalities cloud his or her vision, is sure to fail.

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The Chief Strategy Offi cer

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hbr.org | October 2007 | Harvard Business Review 89

veteran of the company, to the company’s newly created

CSO post.

Whether they are groomed or recruited, chief strategy

executives must be able to work with and infl uence people

across entire organizations and beyond; that’s the heart of

the job. The broad mix of skills and experience required

of a CSO is rare, which makes those who possess this com-

bination highly valued. These individuals are rarely aban-

doned by top executives who recognize their worth. Many

CSOs therefore have long-standing relationships with their

CEOs. The strategy chiefs we surveyed said they had known

the CEO at their companies for fi ve years, on average, be-

fore becoming the CSO. One strategy chief we spoke with

said he and the CEO of his company had worked together

at three different businesses over a seven-year period be-

fore they both ended up at a health care management fi rm.

After the CEO’s six-month search for a strategy chief proved

fruitless, he turned to his longtime colleague. “It’s a huge

job,” the CEO told the manager, “but you’ll have more im-

pact doing this than you would leading a division – and

you’re the person I’d feel most comfortable with.” His col-

league accepted.

When a Plan Comes Together The chief strategy executive position, then, is “a huge job”

that should be fi lled only by highly accomplished business

veterans. But one shouldn’t take the capaciousness of the

role to mean anything goes – just slot someone in and let her

fi gure it out. Our investigation revealed that strategy execu-

tives are charged with three critical tasks that together form

the very defi nition of strategy execution.

CSOs must engender commitment to clear strategic plans. The CEO and the leadership team create the company’s strategic vision and set its course. But in large companies,

that vision may be opaque to many, which can create resis-

tance or confusion among senior managers and frontline

employees and can thwart execution and change. “No strat-

egy can just be handed down to an organization,” says Kirk

Klasson, former vice president of strategy for Novell. “With-

out achieving real understanding and agreement, there will

be lots of grinning and backslapping over the strategy but

zero change when people get back to their offi ces.”

CSOs must therefore resolve the strategy – that is, clarify

it for themselves and for every business unit and function,

ensuring that all employees understand the details of the

strategic plan and how their work connects to corporate

goals. It’s often easier for an insider to resolve this vision for

colleagues. Indeed, a CSO’s long experience within a single

company – specifi cally, his or her deep knowledge of the

chief architects of the existing strategy and its history – can

be crucial for building the federation necessary to enact

change.

Yet there are times when an outsider is called for, particu-

larly when a fresh strategic perspective is required. Because

he was coming from outside the organization, Kimberly-

Clark’s Black told CEO Thomas Falk he wanted to take 60

days to get to know the company better before he signed

off on strategic objectives that had been developed before

he arrived. By the time the two months were up, Black and

Falk had together created an updated list of goals, informed

by Black’s newly acquired understanding of the company’s

operations and aspirations plus his rich store of leadership

and strategy experience.

It’s true that CSOs can’t effectively resolve a strategy with-

out having had a hand in its creation, but these executives

quickly get beyond creation to action. “All our divisions have

strategic plans, and I’m part of making them happen,” says

Janet Matricciani, the head of strategic planning and chief

strategy offi cer at Countrywide Bank. “When we’re start-

ing a new business, I’ll help create the business plan, fi nd

the right people, do whatever it takes to make the business

happen.”

CSOs must drive immediate change. Clarifying the cor- porate vision for others can sound like a relatively leisurely

activity, involving meandering chats in offi ces and confer-

ence rooms across the enterprise. The reality is far more

urgent, however: One-third of our survey respondents went

so far as to describe their companies as “under siege.” Most

characterized their industries as highly volatile. These are

the circumstances that prompt companies to seek out CSOs

in the fi rst place, and they are partly why CSOs are drawn to

the role. As a result, the primary focus of the job almost al-

ways quickly evolves from creating shared alignment around

a vision to riding herd on the ensuing change effort.

Clarifying the corporate vision can sound like a leisurely activity, but the reality is far more urgent. One-third of CSOs surveyed described their companies as “under siege.”

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The Chief Strategy Offi cer

90 Harvard Business Review | October 2007 | hbr.org

Of course, different companies have different strategic

imperatives that infl uence the nature of the CSO role and

the type of executive best suited to the task. One health care

company we studied was rebounding from bankruptcy in

2005, so its strategic emphasis was on fast growth. Recogniz-

ing a need for high-level help, the CEO initially sought a

“chief growth offi cer.” The person chosen for the role, an in-

ternal business leader with whom the CEO had a long work-

ing relationship, realized that in order to grow, the company

needed to rebuild its sales pipeline, explore different product

lines, and reposition its brand. That meant the heads of Sales,

Marketing, M&A, and Strategy Development would have to

report to the CGO. Within months of taking on the role, the

CGO became the CSO and analyzed the underlying causes

of the company’s stalled growth, identifi ed attractive new

markets, and developed aggressive acquisition strategies. In

short order, the health care fi rm began to enter the new

markets, and people who had been hesitant to do business

with the fi nancially ailing organization gained confi dence in

it. By the end of 2006, the company had achieved dramatic

growth and acquired several critical new businesses.

At other companies, innovation is at the core of the

change effort. When Douglas Conant, the CEO of Campbell

Soup, hired CSO M. Carl Johnson in 2001, he cited Johnson’s

track record of revitalizing big brands, launching new ones,

and improving fi nancial results at Kraft Foods. Conant was

confi dent the new CSO would help do the same for the soup

company. By 2005, according to an article in Advertising Age,

the “low-key, thoughtful, and almost professorial” Johnson

had helped propel a turnaround at Campbell’s by pushing

for innovations in products, packaging, and shelving and by

supporting it all with investments in marketing. Johnson had

broadened Campbell’s competitive positioning in the mar-

ket – from “soup against soup” to “soup as a meal” – thereby

greatly expanding the range of the company’s offerings.

CSOs must drive decision making that sustains or- ganizational change. A strategy that is clear one day can become fuzzy the next as people and competitive environ-

ments change. Alignment can bend and then break if it is not

continually reinforced. Chief strategy executives, therefore,

must ensure that the members of the leadership team come

to agreement on strategy decisions. Just as important, the

CSO must make certain that those decisions aren’t watered

down or ignored as they are translated throughout the orga-

nization. He or she must be that person who, in the CEO’s

stead, can walk into anyone’s offi ce and test whether the

decisions being made are aligned with the strategy and are

creating the desired results.

“Someone at the center has to bring focus and discipline

to the decision process,” says Kimberly-Clark’s CFO, Mark

Buthman, or strategic discussions and initiatives will stall

and business opportunities may be lost. The strategy chief,

he explains, is often the one person in the room who is in the

best position to “put the moose on the table” – to challenge

thinking and discuss the subjects no one else wants to touch

so that these issues no longer serve as barriers to agreement

and action. Indeed, many of the CSOs we interviewed said

that both candor and tact were critical for doing their jobs

well. The strategy chief at a software company, for instance,

recalled having to help members of the senior management

team realize that their lack of international experience was

preventing the company from carrying out its plans to ex-

pand overseas quickly and decisively.

CSOs can also help steer the top team away from group-

think and from focusing too much on past practices and

accomplishments – problems that can affl ict executives who

have worked together for a long while. For instance, the top

management team of one company held a consensus view

that IT was an “overhead activity” until its CSO helped it

adopt a new perspective: technology as a partner in and en-

abler of strategy. The members of the senior team had been

looking at the issue, in the words of one executive, through

a “heritage lens.” Their shared history in the company was

clouding their perspective on the need for change.

To make sure decisions align with strategy through all

levels of the organization, top strategy executives must be

comfortable working at 50,000 feet, 500 feet, 50 feet, and on

down. They must be able “to tell [the strategy story] in a way

people can understand and buy in to,” says Countrywide’s

Janet Matricciani. The senior team might need a big-picture

view of the strategy, whereas those people actually executing

the plan on the ground might need a more pragmatic view.

Half the job involves learning why decisions aren’t being made in accordance with strategy and quickly determining whether to stay the course.

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hbr.org | October 2007 | Harvard Business Review 91

Strategy chiefs must therefore be practical and

analytical as well as visionary, Matricciani notes.

This isn’t to say that CSOs just refl exively push

strategic initiatives downward. Half the job in-

volves learning why decisions below the execu-

tive suite aren’t being made in accordance with

strategy and quickly determining whether to stay

the course or change tack – so CSOs must be good

listeners as well as good translators. In fact, nearly

every CSO in our survey said strategy develop-

ment and execution in their companies is half

deliberate and half emergent. Direct interaction

with and feedback from the troops is essential

for CSOs to keep their companies agile and their

strategies fl exible.

What It Takes There’s no simple, step-by-step recipe for success

in the role of chief strategy offi cer – but there are

a few essential ingredients. To follow through on

their mandate, successful strategy executives em-

ploy a handful of high-level principles.

Mind the time horizons. All executives split their time to varying degrees across three strategy

horizons – usefully defi ned in Mehrdad Baghai,

Stephen Coley, and David White’s The Alchemy of

Growth to mean extending and defending the core

business in the short term (horizon one), building

emerging businesses in the medium term (hori-

zon two), and creating viable options for the long

term (horizon three). But CSOs particularly keep

their eyes trained on horizon two and work to

present a seamless picture of all the horizons. Ac-

cording to our research, they spend an estimated

39% of their time on horizon two, while 36% of

their time is devoted to horizon three, and 25%

is spent monitoring horizon one. Others in the

top team divide their time differently, spending

more time on both the short term and the long

term and less on the medium term. So the CSO’s

attention to this period underlines the unique

perspective this individual brings to the organi-

zation. “It’s crucial for me to ask, ‘What implicit

decisions have we made that need to be explicit?

Or what decisions have we not made that we need

to make, because we’re heading down a path and

it’s going to be hard to reverse course?’” explains

Kimberly-Clark’s Black. The CSO has to be, in ef-

fect, the guardian of that space one to three years

out, when the decisions made (or not made) today

will show consequences.

Balance strategy formulation and execution. Most of the top strategy executives we polled said

The CEO’s Burden

T he CEO is ultimately responsible for the vision and strategy of the corporation – so why hire a CSO? There are good reasons for CEOs to delegate strategy responsibilities to another in the C-suite.

CEOs are being weighed down by the ever-growing complex- ity of doing business in a global economy. The demands and intricacies of conducting business in multiple cultures, time zones, and political or regulatory environments are exacting a stiff toll on globe-trotting CEOs. (Even CEOs need to sleep.) And

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