Jon Crosier
CTO
Kilroy Realty
Jon Crosier is the Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer at Kilroy Realty and a Governing Body Member of the Southern California CDAO Community.
Learn more about the Southern California CDAO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I started my career at the intersection of technology and business operations, always focused on driving measurable outcomes through data-informed decision making. Over the years, I’ve led cross-functional teams through large-scale transformations, built enterprise data platforms, and championed data governance frameworks. These experiences, combined with a passion for turning complexity into clarity, led me to my current role as CTO at a publicly traded REIT, where I’m responsible for technology strategy, data architecture, and innovation enablement across the organization.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
One of my core leadership principles is: know your numbers. Whether you're running a team, a project, or a portfolio, financial and operational fluency builds trust, earns respect, and drives accountability. I encourage my teams to use data as a universal language – to ask better questions, surface blind spots, and tell compelling stories that lead to better business decisions.
With disruption being a key theme over the years, where do you see your role as a CDAO going in the next 1-2 years?
The CDAO role is evolving from stewarding data to actively shaping business strategy. Over the next 1–2 years, I see the focus shifting from foundational data governance to delivering real-time, AI-augmented insights that improve speed to action. CDAOs will increasingly be expected to own outcomes—not just platforms—and to drive cross-functional alignment on data investments, operating models, and monetization opportunities.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the role as a CDAO?
Prioritize building a scalable data architecture that aligns with business objectives. Start with a current-state assessment of your data assets, pipelines, governance maturity, and analytical capabilities. From there, define a target-state architecture with clear priorities – whether that’s implementing a modern data stack, centralizing fragmented data sources, or introducing a unified semantic layer.
Invest early in metadata management, data quality monitoring, and lineage tooling—these are foundational for trust and compliance at scale. Partner closely with security and compliance teams to align your governance framework with evolving regulatory requirements.
At the same time, don't lose sight of enablement. Make self-service analytics and well-documented APIs a core part of your strategy. Empower teams with trusted, accessible data products, and build mechanisms for measuring adoption and impact.
Most importantly, maintain a tight feedback loop with the business. Your roadmap should be outcome-driven, continuously evolving based on changing priorities, new use cases, and emerging technologies like AI/ML and real-time analytics.
Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself:
- I’m an avid reader and always have a few books going at once – usually a mix of leadership, behavioral science, and American history. I love drawing lessons from the past to inform decisions today.
- Since I grew up in NYC, I never had to learn how to drive until I was in my later twenties.
- I enjoy kayaking with my kids.
What is the value of joining Gartner C-level Communities?
It creates a trusted space for senior leaders to share real-world insights, pressure-test ideas, and learn from peers facing similar challenges. It’s not just networking – it’s high-value dialogue that leads to practical, actionable takeaways you can apply immediately.
Gartner C-level Communities Governing Body members share their insights and leadership perspectives to shape the agendas and topics that address the top priorities impacting business leaders today.
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