Andrea Di MaioAs anticipated in a previous post, the appointment of Vivek Kundra, former CTO of the District of Columbia, to US Federal Chief Information Officer has been confirmed by the White House.
According to the announcement his responsibilities will be to ensure system interoperability, and information sharing, security and privacy. Just looking at these four terms, one perceives how big his challenges are going to be.
I’ve have had the pleasure to work with Vivek for a panel we did at our Orlando Symposium last year. He is a very smart person, who combines counter-intuitive visions with the ability to execute and maintain support from his political and business leaders. In such challenging times, with budget issues, a daunting task to monitor and measure the outcome of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a recent call by the President to review relationships with federal contractors, the desire to socialize information and engage all stakeholders on line, Vivek will be immediately confronted with a tough prioritization task. Where can he make the greatest difference in the shortest period of time? Whole of government IT positions are traditionally quite difficult, unless supported by adequate decision power and support. All the stars seem aligned for him to have both, but – as usual – the proof is in the pudding.
I wish him good luck. I do not think the President could have made a better choice.
Category: e-government Tags: Federal CIO, Obama
4 responses so far ↓
1 FT.com | Tech Blog | America’s first CIO heading for a clash of technology cultures March 5, 2009 at 2:21 pm
[...] the Obama White House, he clearly has a strong backer. The main issue, as Andrea Di Maio at Gartner says, will be to make an early and careful calculation of which battles he has a chance of winning, and [...]
2 The New US Federal CIO Sets The Bar High March 6, 2009 at 7:46 am
[...] ← It Is Official: Vivek Kundra Is The New Federal CIO [...]
3 TheTechnologySources.com » Blog Archive » America’s first CIO heading for a clash of technology cultures March 7, 2009 at 1:29 am
[...] the Obama White House, he clearly has a strong backer. The main issue, as Andrea Di Maio at Gartner says, will be to make an early and careful calculation of which battles he has a chance of winning, and [...]
4 Obama finally names US Chief Technology Officer April 20, 2009 at 5:53 am
[...] Virginia, as the new US CTO. This announcement for the new CTO was overdue after the appointment of Vivek Kundraas the Chief Information Officer. This happened in conjunction with the appointment of Jeffrey [...]