The Government CIO 50: Vision, Influence, And Results

The top IT execs in federal, state, and local government are using new technologies and hands-on project management to drive change in the public sector.


By John Foley,  InformationWeek 
March 3, 2011
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300142 

What makes for a top CIO in government? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but technology vision, clout among peers in other agencies, and an ability to show tangible, measurable results are qualities common to the Government CIO 50, InformationWeek’s second recognition of leading CIOs in federal, state, and local government.


The public-sector IT execs on our list often do those things with one hand tied behind their backs. Their budgets, especially at the state and local levels, tend to be flat or declining. Antiquated systems devour their limited resources. And entrenched processes and bureaucracies can stymie their best IT transformation ambitions.


The Government CIO 50 are finding ways to plow through such obstacles in their pursuit of higher returns. One of the CIOs on our list, Roger Baker of Veterans Affairs, uses metrics-driven reviews to assess IT initiatives at the agency, making adjustments where needed and pulling the plug on others. At the General Services Administration, CIO Casey Coleman introduced Gmail and Google Apps, saving the agency an estimated 50% on e-mail costs over the next four years.


Some of the Government CIO 50, such as Federal CIO Vivek Kundra and Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra, are known for their far-reaching policy influence. Others have lower public profiles, but are heavy hitters in their own right. Al Tarasiuk, the former CIO of the CIA, was recently named CIO of the U.S. Intelligence Community, where he’s developing standards and an IT architecture for information sharing across the 17 agencies and organizations that comprise the coalition.


Our list includes IT leaders who are driving change in local and state government, such as New York City IT commissioner Carole Post, who is managing the consolidation of the Big Apple’s data centers and IT infrastructure, while introducing new desktop tools and cloud services for city employees.


Government agencies have long been a step behind the private sector in technology adoption -- Kundra calls it as the “tech gap” in government. Many of the CIOs on our list are taking steps to change that by deploying a newer generation of tools, including smartphones, software as a service, VoIP, and the latest Web and collaboration software.


For years, government CIOs have taken on big, complex IT projects that all too often buckle under their own weight. The Gov 50 are shifting away from long-term, monolithic IT projects to faster, nimbler ones. FBI CIO Chad Fulgham, for example, is applying agile development to hustle the agency’s delayed Sentinel case-management system to the finish line.


In federal government, the expectations on agency CIOs keep piling up: the Open Government Directive, the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, cloud computing mandates, TechStat project reviews, the shift to continuous monitoring for cybersecurity. What more could possibly be required of them? In December, Kundra introduced a 25-point IT reform plan to be carried out over the next 18 months. The CIOs on our list aren’t just first-class leaders; they must be great managers, able to juggle priorities and meet deadlines.