A memo obtained by WIRED confirms Denise Dresser's departure from Slack. She is now headed to OpenAI. Slack CEO Denise Dresser is leaving the company and joining OpenAI as the company's chief revenue officer, multiple sources tell WIRED. Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, which owns Slack, shared news of Dresser's departure in a message to staff on Monday evening. At OpenAI, Dresser will manage the company's enterprise unit, which has been growing rapidly this year.

Consider this--only about 50 companies, or roughly 10%, have remained on the Fortune 500 list since 1955. As we start moving into the early 2020s, we're on the cusp of another major change, one that will be guided by artificial intelligence (AI). As revenues rise and fall, and companies adjust to new economic, political and social landscapes, the internal workings of companies change as well--specifically, executive roles, processes and technology. For the first article in my three-part series, I'll walk you through how, guided by AI, executive roles within companies will change in the 2020s. Companies have long assigned new responsibilities to some executive roles, and have carved out new executive roles, too.

Every year in December and January, NewVantage Partners (NVP) conducts a survey of data and technology executives in large companies primarily located in the U.S. Every year, we (the authors) collaborate in analyzing and interpreting the results. And every year, we wonder why the survey results suggest that certain aspects of the data environment aren't getting better faster, or why they sometimes even become worse. The executives are usually pretty bullish about technology but quite bearish regarding whether their organizations are becoming more data-driven. They also express concerns about the executive roles -- most frequently, the role of chief data officer (CDO) -- that are charged with making their company's data environment better. Get monthly email updates on how artificial intelligence and big data are affecting the development and execution of strategy in organizations.