Artificial intelligence chatbots. Criminal hacks. Digital fraud. With threats to personal data becoming more sophisticated and widespread, more companies are making the issue a leadership priority — with the appointment of a chief trust officer.

Salesforce, Airbnb and IT group Orange Business are among the organisations that have appointed CTrOs, the somewhat clunky acronym for the title. Recruiting company Harvey Nash says the number of companies adding the role to their senior leadership team is growing rapidly.

The specific responsibilities of these executives are data protection and digital safeguards. Their daily work can range from warding off hackers to setting protocols about what data is fed into AI. Brad Arkin, who joined Salesforce in the role last year, says: “Customers expect ethical innovation, responsible AI, real accountability and to know their data is protected. That means there needs to be someone in the C-suite whose focus is trust.”