Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)

What is Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)?
A Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) is a corporate title for a specialist within an organization who oversees its knowledge management. Not all companies have CKO roles, but many larger companies have expanded this position to benefit from more proactive use of data and other knowledge resources that can be used to gain a competitive advantage and improve overall organizational performance.

A CKO is not another name for a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO). If a CIO / CTO is responsible for information or technology systems, a CKO is responsible for the knowledge management of the organizations. There are different definitions for the term knowledge management, but at its core KM is about improving performance at the individual, team and organizational level through an improved ability to capture, adapt, transfer and understand what you know about your work reuse. (This definition of KM is attributed to Bill Kaplan, a noted industry expert and author of Losing Your Minds: How to Organize, Maintain, and Use Organizational Knowledge).