The Chief Transformation Officer moves into the C-suite

The number of companies hiring a Chief Transformation Officer rose by more than 140 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to a 2024 BCG study of 350 people in the role. Hiring was led by the consumer, industrial goods and financial institutions sectors. In BCG's usage, CTO means Chief Transformation Officer, not Chief Technology Officer, a frequent confusion when the figure is repeated.

The role has also moved up. In Monitor Deloitte's 2025 Chief Transformation Officer Study, the share of transformation officers at executive or senior management level rose to 95 percent in 2024, from 81 percent in 2022. That band is wider than the C-suite, but the direction is clear.

The budgets they run still favor technology. Deloitte's 2025 respondents gave change management and communications an average of 9 percent of transformation budgets, the smallest of six spending areas, against 26 percent for technology, and 33 percent said they would raise the change share in hindsight.

The rest of the C-suite is changing too. IBM's 2026 CEO Study describes chief executives reshaping senior roles for AI: 76 percent of organizations reported a Chief AI Officer, up from 26 percent a year earlier. In the same 2026 study, 83 percent of CEOs said AI success depends more on people's adoption than on technology, yet they estimated that only 25 percent of their workforce uses AI regularly.

A seat in the C-suite does not settle who owns adoption.

The figures

What the numbers do not show

BCG's 2024 article gives no absolute counts or sampling frame. Its growth figure starts from a low base and stops in 2021, so it shows the role spreading quickly, not how common it is now. BCG also links Chief Transformation Officer hires to improved shareholder returns, but that link is correlational.

Deloitte's 2025 sample of 200 transformation executives skews toward experienced and successful leaders: more than 90 percent had overseen three or more transformations, and more than 80 percent led programs that met all targets. Its budget shares are self-reported averages for 2024, and the 2025 report puts technology at 26 percent in one chart and 28 percent in another.

IBM surveyed 2,000 CEOs and equivalent senior leaders in 33 geographies and 21 industries between February and April 2026. IBM's 2026 figure of 25 percent is the CEOs' own estimate for their total workforce, not measured usage. All three firms sell services in the areas they study: transformation work at BCG and Deloitte, AI software and consulting at IBM.

What to check

A seat in the C-suite does not settle who owns adoption. For an organization with a Chief Transformation Officer, or one weighing the role, the figures suggest four checks.

• Name the owner of adoption. Where a transformation office and a Chief AI Officer both exist, write down which of them, or which business leaders, own adoption targets and how adoption will be measured.
• Compare the change share. Set the share of your transformation budget going to change management and communications against Deloitte's 2025 average of 9 percent, remembering that the figure comes from mostly successful programs.
• Ask the hindsight question now. A third of Deloitte's 2025 respondents would raise the change share in hindsight. Ask your transformation officer which line they would raise today, while the money can still move.
• Count usage instead of estimating it. IBM's 2026 figure of 25 percent is a CEO estimate. System data on regular AI use, by team, gives a transformation leader a number to manage.