Last week I shared data on how the number of companies appointing chief trust officers (CTrO) is on the rise. Also ascendant: the number of veteran CTrOs, as Atlassian’s recent appointment of Vikram Rao testifies.
Rao was previously CTrO at Salesforce, the American software giant’s second such executive, and is now at Atlassian, replacing the Australian software giant's inaugural CTrO, Adrian Ludwig. But the leading tech companies can’t just trade existing CTrOs. There needs to be more talent joining the pool.
“I feel like growing more chief trust officers is an objective for me,” Rao says. “It's a very small community and we ought to grow it. The industry needs it.” Rao says he’s been involved in education work, helping develop potential future trust officers by upskilling workers in cybersecurity to make sure the area is “demystified” and “available to the masses.”
Like many other CTrOs I’ve spoken with, Rao comes from a background in data security. Prior to his role as CTrO at Salesforce, Rao spent five years as a security engineer with the company, joining off of an 18-year stint as an engineer at Microsoft.
But, also like other CTrOs, Rao doesn’t believe there’s a one-size-fits all approach to managing trust in a business. The role of CTrO should grow, Rao believes, but the form it takes will be fluid as more sectors of the economy—industries, government, and NGOs—introduce the position.
For his own time as CTrO, Rao is not forthcoming about what he achieved at Salesforce or what that role looked like, besides saying he established a “trust first culture.” Looking to his new gig and what performing as CTrO might mean for Atlassian, Rao says he will ensure the company is “very transparent with our customers” and that its employees are “well equipped” with a knowledge about data security and privacy, so that they can conduct business with trust in mind.
The most interesting challenge, as with all CTrOs, is how to measure that performance. Rao says his key metrics are customer retention, growth, and overall risk management—the proactive measures companies put in place to protect customers from harm, rather than only responding to crises after they occur. As a measurable metric, risk management might involve documenting the number of security threats that occur over the year.
But “growth” seems to be the theme surrounding trust officers at the moment. Another vital metric for us all to watch over the next year will be how many more companies, organizations, and even political bodies start formalizing trust as an institutional objective.
Eamon Barrett
eamon.barrett@fortune.com
