I'm a CDO and occasionally feel the sting from it being such a new term. When the press covered Referly's big new features last week (an API, shopping experienc

I'm a CDO and occasionally feel the sting from it being such a new term. When the press covered Referly's big new features last week (an API, shopping experience and design overhaul) the ones that mentioned me put my title in dick quotes - "Chief Design Officer" instead of Chief Design Officer. And it sounds too similar to CTO to just say CDO when you first meet people, so I just say I'm a cofounder. It's ok though and stuff like that's rare. Overall I feel a growing responsibility to represent design founders and it's what most accurately represents my role anyway. CDO is more fad-proof and less limiting than other titles like Chief UX Officer (too much focus on function, plus UX is industry jargon) or Chief Creative Officer (too much focus on visuals and marketing, plus it makes you sound like a Don Draper wannabe).