Zee Entertainment's new Chief AI and Transformation Officer reports to the company's Deputy CEO and CFO, so its AI program answers directly to the company's finance chief. Zee still talks about the role in terms of innovation and growth. Roughly half of chief transformation officers report to the CEO instead.
Arthur D. Little's transformation study puts 53% of CTrOs under the CEO, and this year's appointments show other ways to set up the role. Tata Communications filled its CTrO seat with a former CIO. General Mills didn't appoint a separate CTrO and instead gave its Transformation Office to Jaime Montemayor, the executive already running IT. Boards that leave the reporting line open risk ending up with a CTrO who can diagnose a business unit's problems and has no way to make that unit act on them.
The Quick Read
- Only 53% of chief transformation officers report directly to the CEO, and 41% have no stated reporting line, according to Arthur D. Little.
- Zee Entertainment's Chief AI and Transformation Officer, appointed in November 2026, reports to the company's Deputy CEO and CFO.
- Tata Communications hired its CTrO from a CIO role, while General Mills put its Transformation Office under its chief digital and technology officer.
- A CFO reporting line can tie transformation to savings, which suits a margin program and can shortchange revenue-side AI work.
- Companies with a single, defined transformation program may need a VP or Director of Transformation before a C-level CTrO.
What Zee Entertainment Changed in November
In early November, Zee named Tushar Vohra Chief AI and Transformation Officer. He works from Mumbai and reports to Mukund Galgali, who is both Deputy CEO and CFO. A handful of transformation leads were announced with him, Tony Thomas as Head of AI and Transformation among them, with Vivek Pandey covering advertising operations and ad sales.
This is a return for Vohra, who first came to Zee in 2018 to lead development on ZEE5. He then spent close to five years at Jio in product, engineering and operations roles, including COO of JioCDN.
In June 2024, Zee's President, HR and Transformation, Animesh Kumar, left after leading the ZEE 4.0 program. More than two years on, the company's transformation title sits with an AI executive who answers to finance, a structure that puts technology and the P&L closer to the center of the work.
How Many Chief Transformation Officers Report to the CEO?
Just over half do, according to Arthur D. Little’s 2025 Global Transformation Study, based on responses from 400 senior managers who run transformation programs. It found 32% of organizations have a CTrO. More than half of the European companies surveyed have one, compared with 5% in Asia-Pacific. Among those CTrOs, 53% report straight to the CEO and another 41% have no stated reporting line, while 6% sit two levels below the CEO.
ADL reads its 41% as CTrOs lacking the direct link to the CEO they need to drive change, though the data itself only shows that no line was specified. Either way, a board should spell out the CTrO’s reporting line before the search starts. ADL’s contributors name unclear mandates and weak authority as reasons CTrOs struggle to deliver.
Deloitte's 2025 survey of 622 US technology leaders makes for an uncomfortable comparison, with 65% of CIOs reporting directly to the CEO, up from 41% ten years earlier. The two studies use different samples, so the numbers aren't a clean match. Still, they suggest the person running a company's technology now sits closer to the CEO than the person hired to change the company.
[Table 1]
How 2026 Appointments Define Transformation Authority
Zee and General Mills set their transformation leader’s authority through the reporting line, while Tata did it mainly through the remit, and each setup shapes what the leader will be measured on.
Zee Entertainment and the CFO Line
Under a finance boss, the work tends to get measured in captured value. Zee’s announcement ties Vohra’s role to technology adoption and business performance across its platforms, and Galgali described the goal as using technology for innovation and growth. Reporting to the finance chief should mean less friction when Vohra’s programs need funding. I get to the downside later in this piece.
Tata Communications and the Management Committee Seat
Tata Communications appointed Narottam Sharma Executive Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer from September 21, 2026, and gave him a seat on its Global Management Committee. The board signed off on the recommendation of its Nomination and Remuneration Committee. Sharma comes from the CIO job at Jubilant FoodWorks and earlier led technology transformation at Sterlite.
Tata hasn't published who Sharma reports to, and his remit reaches well into technology. The company's leadership page lists him as leading Enterprise IT and Information Security, Business Excellence and the AI Centre of Excellence, among other areas. Rupesh Chokshi holds the Chief Product and Technology Officer title and leads Network Services along with its product and technology direction.
General Mills and the Combined Technology Seat
General Mills hired Jaime Montemayor in 2020 as its first chief digital and technology officer, reporting to CEO Jeff Harmening, and moved the CIO under him. He's now chief digital, technology and transformation officer, running the Transformation Office and Global Shared Services on top of IT, data, digital and cybersecurity.
Giving one person the systems and the change program removes a likely source of handoff disputes between IT and a separate transformation office. The risk is that transformation gets defined as the set of problems technology can solve.
[Table 2]
Why Former CIOs Are Landing Transformation Jobs
When AI drives the change program, the person who already owns the systems needs the least time to get going. Sharma went from CIO to Tata's CTrO. In May 2026, ServiceNow brought in Srikanth Akkiraju as Chief Transformation Officer after CIO and chief digital roles at Philips, although his job faces ServiceNow's clients. Montemayor held CIO roles at PepsiCo for years before joining General Mills.
ADL's count of FTSE 100 transformation leaders points to a different bench. It covers 26 executives, 21 holding the formal CTrO title and five C-suite leaders with a clear transformation brief. Strategy jobs produced seven of them and former CEOs another six. Operations accounted for six more, and dedicated transformation roles for most of the rest. ADL didn't list any as coming mainly from technology, and 14 of the 26 were promoted from inside.
Hiring from IT makes sense when the change runs through data and AI agents. Deloitte found 36% of CIOs now run a P&L. Gartner's 2027 CIO Agenda has AI spending climbing while average IT budget growth holds at 3.7%, and CIOs have had years of practice paying for change from budgets that barely grow.
I'd split the decision by type of mandate. A former CIO suits an AI-led redesign of how work gets done. A turnaround that has to break up and rebuild business units calls for someone who has changed how a P&L runs, which is a separate skill from running the systems behind it. When Rolls-Royce named Nicola Grady-Smith CTrO in 2023, in the middle of its turnaround, that was the second kind of brief.
What Each Structure Means for Succession
I’d look at these structures through succession as well as authority, because a transformation seat can double as a proving ground for a future COO or CEO. Deloitte's survey found 67% of CIOs would like to become CEO someday. A CTrO role with a management committee seat, like Sharma's at Tata, gives a technology executive the kind of cross-functional record boards look for on a CEO slate.
General Mills' combined seat is where I'd worry most about key-person risk. IT, data, cybersecurity, the Transformation Office and Global Shared Services all sit with Montemayor. If he left, the board would have to replace two jobs at once or split them under time pressure. A board that picks this structure should name who would cover the transformation half well before it needs to.
Zee’s setup runs the other way, with Vohra arriving alongside a Head of AI and Transformation and several transformation leads. Those leads give Zee internal candidates to develop for the chief role, though their readiness for it is still unproven. Internal successors are a real option, since 14 of the 26 FTSE 100 transformation leaders in ADL’s count were promoted from inside and 12 came from outside.
Tata raises a different question. Sharma came from outside and his remit includes enterprise IT, so the company now has two executives with large technology portfolios in Sharma and Chokshi. How clearly the board keeps those mandates apart will shape who is in line for the top technology job a few years from now.
Where Directors and VPs of Transformation Fit
Most organizations in ADL’s study don’t have a dedicated Chief Transformation Officer. ADL found 65% of major businesses in serious organization-wide transformation, with nearly 60% running more than one program. Only 32% have a CTrO. The work may fall to a VP of Transformation, a Director of Transformation, a VP of AI Transformation or a Head of AI Transformation. ADL’s 2025 report allows for either setup, saying a transformation program should be headed by a high-profile leader, whether a CTrO or a director of transformation.
A VP is enough when the program has a fixed end state and a sponsor who already controls the business units involved. The C-level seat is worth paying for once change runs continuously across several programs and someone has to be able to overrule a division head. Zee hired at both levels together, placing a Head of AI and Transformation and other transformation leads under Vohra.
As Chief AI Officer appointments spread, a company hiring a CTrO needs to define where the two mandates meet. IBM's 2026 CEO study found 76% of surveyed organizations have a CAIO. Where both roles exist, the board should decide who owns AI adoption across workflows and who has authority to redesign the operating model, unless it merges the two as Zee did. Settle the CAIO mandate before the transformation brief goes out.
The Case Against a CFO Reporting Line
Finance measures what it can book, and savings are the easiest thing to book. ADL's contributors call financial metrics lagging indicators for transformation and recommend tracking adoption and behavior change first, leaving top-line KPIs for later. A CTrO reviewed every quarter on cost could starve the revenue side of AI, which at a media company covers personalization and new ways to make money from a content library.
Candidate fit makes it worse, since a systems-minded former CIO placed under a CFO can watch the job slide into an IT cost program regardless of the title.
The CFO line is the honest pick for a margin program that everyone already recognizes as one. By mid-2024 Zee had announced a phased restructuring that targeted a 15% workforce reduction, but its 2026 announcement also talks about growth, so its CFO line reads as financial accountability more than a pure cost mandate. A board running a true cost program should write that into the brief plainly instead of describing it as growth.
Matching the Reporting Line to the Mandate
The reporting line should follow from the mandate, so a board's first job is naming which kind of transformation it's paying for. The table below is a starting framework built around three common briefs, and none of the companies above fits a single row exactly.
[Table 3]
Two checks apply whichever row fits. Find out who settles it when a division head refuses a change, because that person is the working reporting line regardless of the org chart. Then listen for leading indicators in the candidate's answers, such as workflow adoption or decision speed. Someone who talks only about cost targets will be comfortable under a CFO and may struggle once the brief turns to growth.
The interview question changes by row: for a margin brief, ask which savings still held two years later, and for an operating model redesign, ask about a change the candidate pushed through a unit that didn't report to them.
A brief that doesn't fit any row cleanly may point to a smaller first step, a VP or Director of Transformation running one program, before the company commits to a C-level seat.
Frequently Asked Questions About Chief Transformation Officer Reporting Lines
Who Does a Chief Transformation Officer Usually Report To?
Usually the CEO, though that covers only about half of them. Arthur D. Little found 53% report directly to the CEO and 41% have no stated line. Zee Entertainment's 2026 appointment reports to its Deputy CEO and CFO.
What's the Difference Between a Chief Transformation Officer and a CIO?
The CIO runs the company’s technology systems and the teams behind them. The CTrO runs change across functions, including the operating model and organizational design. General Mills is one company that has put technology and transformation under a single executive.
Can a CIO Become a Chief Transformation Officer?
Yes, and 2026 has several examples. Tata Communications hired Narottam Sharma out of the CIO role at Jubilant FoodWorks, and ServiceNow's CTrO Srikanth Akkiraju held CIO roles at Philips. Current FTSE 100 CTrOs mostly came from strategy and operations, along with former CEOs, according to ADL.
When Should a Company Hire a VP of Transformation Instead of a CTrO?
Hire a VP or Director of Transformation for a single program with a defined end state and an executive sponsor already in place. A C-level CTrO makes sense when change is continuous across several programs and requires authority over division heads.
Should the Chief Transformation Officer Also Own AI?
That depends on how central AI is to the transformation. Zee put both in one Chief AI and Transformation Officer role. A company that already has a Chief AI Officer should write down who owns AI adoption and who owns the operating model before starting the search.
Hiring a Transformation or Technology Leader
Christian & Timbers is an executive search firm that recruits AI and technology leaders as well as the wider C-suite. Its searches include Chief Transformation Officer, CIO, VP of AI Transformation and Head of AI roles, along with CTO and CPTO leadership, and much of that work involves passive candidates who aren't looking for a move. For boards and CEOs still deciding where a transformation leader should report, the mandate is a good place to start the conversation.
