Chief experience officer

A chief experience officer (CXO) is an executive responsible for the overall experience of an organization's products and services. As user experience (UX) is quickly becoming a key differentiator in the modern business landscape, the CXO is charged with bringing holistic experience design to the boardroom and making it an intrinsic part of the company's strategy and culture.

Responsibilities

A CXO's responsibilities include:

In a piece in UX Magazine, Lis Hubert said the goal of having a CXO is "to have someone responsible for curating and maintaining a holistic user-, business-, and technology-appropriate experience" at the C-level.[unreliable source?] Authors Claudia Fisher and Christine Vallaster state that a CXO or chief marketing officer is a good idea when "the brand is seen as a strategic driver of the organization."

In Healthcare

Howard Larkin wrote that in healthcare, the CXO is "responsible for making sure every aspect of a complex delivery system consistently meets basic patient and human needs" and what it calls "operationalizing the patient experience mission."

Perception of title

In 2006 the New York Times discussed the role of the chief experience officer in the context of a number of "unconventional" and "wacky" titles being created by Madison Avenue firms with the intent to "signal a realization by an advertiser or agency that in a rapidly changing marketing and media landscape, the time for the tried and true has come and gone".

Management academics of the Wharton Business School have called the proliferation of roles in the C-Suite "Title Inflation."

Corporate futurists Herman and Giola have warned about the "dangerous side effects" of "job title invention."

STLX, the 3,000 member Meetup group created for User Experience and Service Design professionals, holds an annual conference. In 2014 speaker Chris Feix, in his talk titled "Why UX #Fails", argued that any software company that doesn't demonstrate a C-Level investment in UX is doomed to fail.

In a 2012 publication, it was reported that "chief customer officer" (30%) and "chief client officer" (15%) were more commonly used for the role than "chief experience officer" (10%), with 45% utilizing other variations.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "CEO as Chief Experience Officer". GA Blog. Retrieved January 14, 2016.
  2. ↑ Hubert, Lis (October 28, 2011). "UX, It's Time to Define CXO". UX Magazine. ISSN 2168-5681. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  3. ↑ Fisher-Buttinger, Claudia; Vallaster, Christine (April 1, 2010). Connective Branding: Building Brand Equity in a Demanding World. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. p. 147. ISBN 9780470740873. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  4. ↑ Larkin, Howard (November 11, 2012). "Chief Experience Officer: Listener-in-chief". Hospitals & Health Networks. Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  5. ↑ Elliott, Stuart (September 13, 2006). "Wanted: Experience Officer. Some Necessary". The New York Times. p. C8. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 9, 2026.
  6. ↑ Coomber, Steve; Woods, Marc (June 10, 2008). Where Do All the Paperclips Go: ...and 127 other business and career conundrums. John Wiley & Sons. p. 99. ISBN 9781906465001. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  7. ↑ Day, George; Lodish, Leonard; Cappelli, Peter (May 30, 2007). "Chief Receptionist Officer? Title Inflation Hits the C-Suite". Knowledge at Wharton. Retrieved December 24, 2024.
  8. ↑ The Futurist. World Future Society. 2000.
  9. ↑ "Why UX #FAILS (with notes)". Slideshare. Retrieved 2025-11-30.
  10. ↑ Manning, Harley; Bodine, Kerry (2012). Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business. New Harvest (Amazon Publishing). p. 186. ISBN 9780547913988. Retrieved January 17, 2013.