Chief Digital Officer Programme

The Chief Digital Officer Programme is a 10-day senior leadership programme delivered by Mars Training Centre UK in London, Dubai, Paris, Amsterdam, and New York, designed for current Chief Digital Officers, senior executives preparing to take the role, and CIOs and CTOs transitioning into a broader digital remit.

The Chief Digital Officer is one of the most demanding roles in the modern executive team. The CDO is asked to set strategy, run delivery, govern AI and data, sponsor cultural change, manage a complex vendor ecosystem, and explain it all to a board that often has limited technical fluency. This programme is built for the executive in that seat — or about to be in it.

Across ten days delivered as two consecutive working weeks, you will cover the breadth of the CDO remit through frameworks, real case work, and structured executive reflection. You will sharpen your strategy and your delivery instincts, your governance posture and your boardroom credibility, and leave with a 12-month operating plan for your role.

The first week covers the CDO mandate, digital strategy at executive level, AI and data governance, cloud, cyber and resilience, and customer, product and channel. The second week covers the CDO operating model, delivery, portfolio and funding, vendors, platforms and ecosystem, leading, influencing and the board, and closes with synthesis and a personal operating plan.

What You Will Learn

• Define and articulate the CDO mandate inside your organisation.
• Build a multi-year digital strategy aligned to business strategy.
• Govern AI, data, cyber, and cloud as an integrated portfolio.
• Apply structured frameworks to digital investment prioritisation.
• Design and run the operating model of a modern digital function.
• Lead the cultural and workforce dimensions of digital change.
• Manage the vendor and platform ecosystem at executive level.
• Communicate the digital agenda credibly to boards, regulators, and the workforce.
• Diagnose and develop your own leadership profile as a CDO.
• Build a 12-month personal operating plan for your role.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a coherent operating model for your CDO role, sharper executive judgement across the breadth of the remit, and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a digital leader who can hold strategy, delivery, and governance together — and who can credibly lead the digital agenda across an entire executive team.

Who This Programme Is For

The programme is designed for Chief Digital Officers in post, chief information officers and chief technology officers transitioning to CDO remits, chief data officers and chief AI officers with broader digital agendas, senior digital, transformation and innovation directors preparing for the CDO role, general managers leading digital business units, senior public-sector digital executives, senior digital practice leaders in advisory firms, and family-business principals overseeing digital generational change. The seniority floor is director level and above.

Delivery is facilitator-led and interactive, mixing teaching with discussion, validated diagnostic tools, applied exercises, and continuous personal feedback from your lead faculty. Successful delegates receive a Mars Certificate of Completion.