Ministry of Defence appoints former Royal Mail and Tfl CIO Yvonne Ferguson

Yvonne Ferguson will take over as Ministry of Defence CIO in January 2014.

The former Transport for London CIO, who was also in the senior IT seat at the Royal Mail for a brief period in 2010, will become the MoD’s new ‘three-star CIO’, which the department said in a recent ICT strategy document would involve “reviewing our corporate governance arrangements and ensuring that they are fit for purpose in the provision of agile, innovative and fact-paced ICT services”.

In her new role, Ferguson will also have the task of trimming down the around 1500 line of business applications which the MoD currently uses as they move on to a new operating system as Windows XP goes out of support.

A ministry spokesperson said: “Yvonne has a proven track record of delivering large and complex transformational programmes and of strong leadership, having been CIO at Royal Mail and Transport for London.

“Yvonne has the energy and drive necessary to move the MoD towards its vision for information systems that are agile, secure and robust, and meet our operational and corporate needs.”