Ministry of Defence replaces CIO within five months

The Ministry of Defence has had to replace its CIO within five months of the appointment, it has been revealed. Yvonne Ferguson, formerly a CIO with the Royal Mail, began her career with the Whitehall department in January and has already left the organisation.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced Mike Stone as CIO, a former Army officer and former Serco employee as a government contractor.

At the appointment of Ferguson in November 2013 the MoD said she would be responsible for reducing the 1500 line of business applications in use at the MoD as part of the decommissioning of Microsoft Windows XP at the Ministry.

“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,” the MoD said at the time of her appointment. This begs the question why the CIO has already left the organisation within five months and the MoD has had to go to the market for yet another CIO?

The MoD said that the appointment of Yvonne Ferguson was “always intended to be an interim arrangement, while we sourced a permanent candidate”, yet this was not made clear by the MoD at her appointment. At a CIO networking event in early December 2013, a number of MoD technology leaders spoke to this title of Ferguson’s appointment and were not under the impression that her appointment was a temporary measure.

New CIO Mike Stone has been CEO of Defence Business Services since 2012. Defence Business Services is an organisation that provides corporate services, HR for example, to the armed forces. In April 2012 Defence Business Services was outsourced by the MoD to Serco.

Stone has been a CIO with BT Global Services and is a former serving British Army officer. Stone joined the Army in September 1976 and remained in the force until 2002, when he left the armed forces to join BT. In his Army career, according to his LinkedIn profile, he rose to the rank of Brigadier and was IT Director in the Field HQ of the Army.