Robert Whittington recently joined Wendy’s International as senior vice president and CIO. He succeeds John Deane in the CIO role; Deane was promoted in May 2005 from EVP and CIO to EVP of Wendy’s North American Operations (more on Deane below.)  Whittington comes to the Dublin, Ohio-based company from Sun Microsystems where his title was retail vertical technology officer. Prior to Sun, he worked for EDS as its vice president of business process innovation consulting. He also previously worked for Ernst & Young/Cap Gemini, consulting with such companies as The Fleming Companies, McDonald’s, Albertsons, Walgreens, Sears, Dayton Hudson, and the United Kingdom government. Whittington holds a bachelor of arts degree from Wheaton College and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

During his tenure at Wendy’s, Deane (pictured at left) made the company’s information technology group more strategic and mobile, and oversaw key initiatives such as e-pay, store budgeting and store automation. He also championed change-management processes throughout the company to help meet changing consumer needs. Prior to Wendy’s Deane held senior management positions at MedPartners (now CareMark Rx), Whirlpool, Price Waterhouse, and he also founded his own technology services company, Clipper Management. Deane earned a bachelor of science degree in business from the Universidad Catolica Argentina in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an MBA from Marquette University.  Deane is also featured in this cover story I wrote about business intelligence in the restaurant industry.

Harvard Medical School’s CIO John D. Halamka (pictured at left)  was elected to the board of directors of Epocrates, a provider of clinical software based in San Mateo, Calif.  In addition to currently serving as Harvard Medical School’s CIO, Halamka is currently associate dean for educational technology at Harvard Medical School; CIO of the Harvard Clinical Research Institute; CIO at CareGroup Health System; and chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network. In addition, Halamka is a practicing emergency physician, an alum of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, an avid ice and rock climber, and perhaps most importantly, a dad.

Timothy J. Wright (pictured at right, with the hip eyewear) was appointed to the board of directors of online search firm LookSmart.  Wright currently serves as chief executive of Geac’s Asia-Pacific, Europe and Middle East operations and as its CTO.  He has held those positions since 2004.  He joined the enterprise software provider in 2003 as its senior vice president, CTO and CIO.  Prior to Geac, Wright worked for internet service provider Terra Lycos as senior vice president, CTO and CIO.  Previously, he worked for The Learning Co. for seven years, until it was acquired by Mattel in 1999.  Wright earned a bachelor of science degree in computer science from City University in London.