Yesterday, Dell officially named Susan Sheskey its CIO.  She had been serving as the computer-maker’s interim CIO since its previous CIO, Randy Mott (aka He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-In-A-Dell-Press-Release), moved over to HP last month.  Indeed, the news release announcing Sheskey’s appointment made no mention of Mott’s departure.  I guess that shouldn’t come as a big surprise.  I’d imagine there might be some hard feelings at the Round Rock office over Mott leaving for HP, though I’m sure Dell’s PR department would say that the company “wishes him well.”  As Reynold Lewke, an executive recruiter with the firm Egon Zender put it to me in a phone interview last week, “Getting someone like Randy is a coup in the sense that not only does he bring to HP the experience of Wal-Mart and Dell but he also pulls from Dell...a critical resource.”

Back to Sheskey.  She’s worked for Dell for 12 years.  Before being named interim CIO, Sheskey served as vice president of information technology for the Americas region in which capacity she was responsible for the development, deployment and support of Dell Global Sales, Services, Manufacturing and Fulfillment Systems.  She was one of the chief business sponsors of a call center system known as the Integrated Dell Desktop (IDD), which gives sales agents a single view of their customers.  (Dell won a CIO Enterprise Value Award in 2004 for the IDD, and Sheskey was quoted in our coverage.)  In her spare time, she serves on the Austin Food Bank’s board of directors.    

And snaps to Dell for appointing a woman to be CIO and to fill Mott’s loafers (or cowboy boots, as the case might have been. This is Texas, after all.)  Her promotion counters depressing research I received last week from The Committee of 200, a professional organization for female corporate leaders, indicating that women weren’t making much progress in the business world.  (For the results of this study, click here.