Coca-Cola’s CIO Jean-Michel Ares (pictured at left) was made a senior vice president yesterday.  Ares has served as CIO of the Atlanta-based beverage company since he joined the company in 2002.  Prior to Coca-Cola, Ares was vice president and CIO of GE Power systems.  He began his career with GE in 1996 in its Corporate Initiatives Group.  Previously, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Co.  Ares holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering in addition to an MBA.

ZDNet Australia reported yesterday that Qantas Airlines’ CIO Fiona Balfour (pictured at right) will be resigning from the company in March 2006.  Balfour has led a monumental outsourcing effort at the Aussie Airline.  In 2004, Qantas outsourced its data center operations to IBM, and in 2000 it outsourced its reservation system to Amadeus Global Travel.  I interviewed Balfour for an article on hosted applications in the November 15, 2004 issue.

Federal Computer Week reported earlier this week that Transportation Department CIO Dan Matthews is resigning.  He plans to return to Lockheed Martin, according to the FCW story.   It seems like a lot of CIOs have been leaving federal government recently. Last month, Kim Nelson announced her resignation from the Environmental Protection Agency, as did the Energy Department’s Rosita Parkes.

Jim Crawford was appointed vice president and regional CIO of Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California region.  Jim has worked for Kaiser for 10 years in various executive technology positions, including as regional CIO for Georgia and Ohio.

American Healthways named Robert L. Chaput EVP and CIO.  Chaput worked for Johnson & Johnson for several years prior to starting his own technology consulting company, American Technology Group.  At Johnson & Johnson, he served as vice president of Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc., J&J’s IT consulting and services practice for the healthcare industry.  From 1993 to 1997, he was CIO and vice president of networking and computing services for the company. 

The New York Times Co. promoted its Vice President and CIO David A. Thurm (pictured at left) to SVP and CIO.  Thurm has held the CIO post since 2004.  He also serves as the publisher’s vice president of real estate development, a position he’s held since 2000. From 1999 to 2000, thrum was COO of NYTimes.com.  

The Universal Technical Institute announced several promotions: Becky Watson was named director of IT customer service. Sam Behap was named director of network services. Universal Technical Institute’s VP of IT, Jim Nicol, is in charge of overseeing program management as well as managing all major initiatives.  Watson, Behap and Nicol all report to SVP and CIO Larry Wolff.