Szygenda Helps Raise Record Amount of Money for AHA

Last Friday I wrote about GM CIO Ralph Szygenda‘s involvement in the American Heart Association’s annual Heart of the City gala in Detroit. The final numbers are in, and the Detroit Heart Ball, which Mr. Szygenda and his wife Shelby co-chaired, raised $2.1 million for cardiovascular disease research. The 2007 Detroit Heart Ball raised the most money in the 50-year history of AHA galas.

The Empire State has a new CIO. New York state governor and Wall Street watchdog Eliot Spitzer and his lieutentant governor, David Patterson, appointed Melodie Mayberry-Stewart to head up the state’s Office for Technology. She earns an annual salary of $153,000 in her new role. Mayberry-Stewart most recently served as the city of Cleveland‘s CIO, a position she had held since 2002. Prior to moving into the public sector in 2002, she worked with non-profits as founder, president and CEO of Black Diamond IT Consulting Group. From 1997 to 1999, Mayberry-Stewart worked for Amoco Oil Corp. as its vice president and general manager for global IT service delivery and for the company’s shared services business unit. Before she joined Amoco, she worked in health care for 10 years, serving as the CIO of Community Health Corp. in Riverside, Calif., St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., and Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC. Mayberry-Stewart graduated from NY’s Union College with a bachelor’s degree. She earned her MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. and her PhD from Claremont Graduate University.

Executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles hired a new CIO. Sanjay Gupta works from the company’s Chicago headquarters and reports to CEO L. Kevin Kelly. Gupta, 43, most recently worked for Gartner as managing partner. He had worked for the IT research and consulting firm since 1999. Gupta previously worked for Ford as a senior level business analyst, strategic planner and manager. He got into Ford through Computer Training and Support Corp. (CTSC) where he was a manager working on the company’s account with Ford. Prior to CTSC he worked for divisions of Caterpillar, HP and Yamaha

Motorcycle in India. He earned his MBA at the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in engineering from Wayne State University and his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Punjab Engineering College in India.

In other executive search news, head-hunting firm Christian & Timbers has changed

its name to CTPartners. For more information on the branding change, read the press release on the company’s web site.

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported on Charles Schwab CIO’s sale of 30,000 shares of common stock. Gideon Sasson sold the shares last Friday for between $19.34 and $19.39 a share and earned $580,789, according to the web site NetSteering.