As a DevOps consultant, I think it can actually be both. Culture is central to DevOps but someone has to lead. Sometimes this can be the CTO but often it helps

As a DevOps consultant, I think it can actually be both. Culture is central to DevOps but someone has to lead. Sometimes this can be the CTO but often it helps to have a dedicated advocate, especially within larger orgs/teams. Essentially it boils down to semantics. Often DevOps engineers are one part evangelist and one part automation engineer. The software industry has just chosen to call those people "DevOps".