Most of us have encountered tech layoff news or updates within our personal and professional circles in the past month. Reportedly, 321 tech companies laid off nearly 98,000 workers in the first 39 days of 2023. These companies include Amazon, Coinbase, Hubspot, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce, Slack, Tableau, and Zoom.

CDOs are unique, with actual superpowers (plural, yes). While these gifts often present themselves during working hours, the reality is these superpowers can be used in many situations – say, the layoff crisis.

On Jan. 1, 2023, when Salesforce announced a 10% cut in their workforce, I used my CDO superpowers to make a difference. A “Salesforce Layoff Community and Support Hub” was born by the end of the day, and we now have more than 5,000 members tactically working together to crowdsource support and provide networking, job lists, open houses, and a training forum.

By Jan. 16, we not only arranged but extended community access to those affected by the layoffs. Since then, we’ve referred thousands of individuals, advertised job postings, held several job fairs, and provided various resources like resume writing tips, branding guidance, and negotiation strategies.

More importantly, in a moment of despair, we provided an outlet where those impacted did not have to feel alone, and those who wanted to help could tactically engage in doing so. We now have a community of some of the best tech talent who are helping each other to define their next chapter and are working to create new startup opportunities — together.

Getting back to the CDO superpowers, they are:

• Leadership: CDOs are the masters of influence without authority. We often do not “own” data or a business strategy but are responsible for ensuring the availability of quality and trusted data. This often means stepping into functional leadership gaps, breaking down silos, and performing as breakaway leaders.
• Organization: In order to influence without that authority or to deliver on the defense and offense of the CDO role, we act as organization experts, often bringing structure and simplicity to chaos to ensure success.
• Community and Culture: CDOs are culture and community builders. We use our abilities to influence, organize, and create collaborative communities that can amplify impact.
• Data and Knowledge Synthesizers: Data leaders are big-picture thinkers, looking at constant concentric circles as well as cause and effect.
• Professionalism and Networks: CDOs are major networkers, often playing glue between the various business functions to realize operational, monetization, or even automation opportunities.

So, what can you do to help? How can you use your superpowers for good? Are you hiring, or do you have peers who are? If you want to help, please join our community, encourage your peers and recruiters to do so, and let us help each other through this challenging time.

About the Author

Wendy Turner-Williams, former Tableau Chief Data Officer, is an adjunct professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s CdataO Program and a University of Washington Informatics School Advisory Board member. She is a proven business, data, and engineering leader who uses communication, data, organization, and technical prowess to shepherd enterprise strategic alignment and tactical delivery of digital transformation objectives. With an eye for process improvement, workflow automation, and service-oriented solutions, Turner-Williams is a change agent known for tangible impact, operational improvement, monetization realization, and risk mitigation, amplified by her ability to build collaborative data culture to ensure repeated success.

She is a known author, data thought leader, and speaker with more than 20 years of experience in data, services, and software. Wendy has led data architecture, strategy, platforms and services, governance & data management maturity, risk, literacy, and AI and analytics organizations at Accenture, Microsoft (Bing/MSN, Advertising, and Azure), Salesforce, and Tableau.