Back to the future with the chief innovation officer

I’m often asked about what’s next in executive roles, as part of my future leader series. Enter the chief innovation officer – part visionary, super persuader, and coach.

The chief innovation officer (CINO) was first conceived in 1998 as an R&D role moving into a dedicated leadership role to bridge strategy, technology, and customer insight in the tech, telco and healthcare sectors. The concept of the CINO has gradually gained traction in industries facing intense disruption and digital transformation.

A genuinely innovative organisation will stretch the chief innovation officer (CINO) role beyond tech, products and digital to span the entire enterprise. The CINO will look over the horizon, consider future impacts, and build the culture, systems and tools to ensure innovation happens.

In highly regulated industries, such as superannuation, compliance requirements largely limit broad, “fail-fast” experimentation. Hence, incremental innovation is crucial, offering regular gains in risk, cost and returns. Regulated sectors will inevitably face disruption from new tech, such as Uber on the taxi industry, or even from the regulator when incumbents fail to innovate to satisfy ever-increasing customer demands. Just as we get the government we deserve, perhaps the same goes for regulation.

When we add AI into the mix it’s clear that the CINO is not only essential but also existential for organisations. We all know what happened to Kodak when photographic film was superseded first by the digital camera and later the smartphone. Comprehensive personal advice assisted by AI and delivered digitally has arrived. What next? Well-trained AI voice agents and chatbots dealing with all our enquiries? That’s not far away.

Society
We are now in the era of CX squared – that is, the customer experience (CX1) multiplied by community engagement (CX2). The CINO, together with their CEO, will foster strong relationships with the broader community they serve, collaborating and addressing their concerns. This “community-first” approach helps build the organisation’s social capital buffer for the inevitable future missteps. Superannuation funds are learning some hard lessons right now from their recent service failures.

Sustainability
The smartest folks have already moved to a total-enterprise approach, beyond tick-the-box reporting and simplistic ESG marketing, by making sustainability a bottom-line issue. The CINO will embed sustainability in everyday operations delivering benefits to all stakeholders. This approach can deliver a reputation dividend and reduce greenwashing risks.

Safety
The “over-the-horizon” visionary CINO considers future enterprise-wide risks. While the chief risk officer handles today’s risks, the CINO will anticipate new and emerging risks. Employing industry intelligence, advanced data analytics, and scenario planning they can better safeguard the firm against potential disruptions. The organisation will look to anticipate future regulation, and leverage their regular community engagement to influence governments. Super funds can only benefit from being ahead of the curve versus continually playing catch-up with regulators and their political masters.

Stretch and sprint
Innovation means building processes for idea generation and evaluation, data collection and analysis, then planning the regular the adoption of new processes and capabilities. Sprint change is better than enduring change marathons. We know that constant change is exhausting and damages moral. Best practice includes pausing after a sprint and reviewing progress; our stretch time. The CINO will need to be a superb persuader, helping others in the organisation deliver new innovations smoothly into the enterprise.

Strategy
The key challenge is integrating these diverse elements into a cohesive program aligned with the company’s mission and strategy. Additionally, as with any central staff role, the CINO needs to build cohesion across functions. They will be a master collaborator and coach, building networks within and outside the organisation. Otherwise, these centralised, cross-functional roles could end up being like a minister without portfolio resources. The military does this well, with its General HQ staff collecting and analysing intelligence, developing strategy, and coordinating support to the field units.

Future shape-shifter

This integrated approach ensures the organisation meets current expectations while being well-positioned to anticipate and even shape future trends. We see how Apple shaped the smartphone trend. The CINO ensures the organisation stays ahead of competitors and exceeds community expectations.

Our major superannuation funds are now competing globally for investment opportunities against major overseas pension funds to serve future members’ best interests. They need to build capabilities across all functions to deliver the services expected by members while remaining true to their purpose and values.

The superannuation sector knows it needs to strengthen its innovation capabilities to vastly improve development cycles.

The CINO will be able to leverage their vision, persuasion and coaching skills to ensure their organisation remains essential to its customers. The forward-thinking leadership embodied in the role will be critical in the long game of superannuation and the transformation required to best serve the wave of retirees hitting Australian shores.

source : https://www.investmentmagazine.com.au/2025/08/back-to-the-future-with-the-chief-innovation-officer/