CIO Announcements from the Public Sector and More

Earlier this week, two outsourcing advisory firms, TPI  and Equaterra, hired public sector CIOs into their organizations. Michael Moore, the former CIO of San Diego County, and Larry Olson, the former CTO for the state of Texas (and Pennsylvania’s first CIO), joined TPI as advisors. Karl Kaiser, the former CIO of the City of Minneapolis, signed on with Equaterra’s public sector advisory group. Those three IT executives are versed in outsourcing and the IT services industry. Kaiser outsourced all of the city’s IT infrastructure to Unisys, where he worked prior to joining city government. Moore worked for SAIC before arriving in San Diego.

My colleague Stephanie Overby writes about this flight of public sector CIOs to outsourcing consulting companies in, “Public Sector CIOs Cash In, Become Outsourcing Consultants.” She analyzes why these public sector CIOs are moving to outsourcing advisory firms (it’s not just the money) and why the consultancies so desperately want to hire the CIOs

they’re working for (to cement long-term relationships and make big bucks.) Overby’s analysis is definitely worth reading, and the piece is beginning to generate an insightful thread of comments. Join the discussion.

Tom Trainer, the former CIO of Pepsico (and Citigroup and Eli Lilly and Reebok), has joined a new venture, E-Factor, an international online community, information and advisory service for entrepreneurs that launched on July 1.

American Financial Realty Trust (AFR) hired Amy Doherty as its new VP and CIO. She reports to co-president and CFO Dave Nettina. Doherty most recently worked for Merck as a consultant directing a clinical technology application integration project. Previously, she held a variety of positions with GMAC Commercial Mortgage, including vice president and process information officer, assistant vice president of global ERP solutions and technology relationship manager. Doherty currently serves as president of the Philadelphia PeopleSoft/JDEdwards and Regional Users Group and speaks frequently at PeopleSoft and Oracle conferences. She earned her MBA and bachelor of science degrees from Pennsylvania State University. She also holds a certificate in business process engineering from Babson College. As a national officer of the Sigma Kappa Sorority, Doherty offers leadership training and mentoring to women in college.

El Camino Hospital

of Mountain View, Calif. appointed an MD to oversee quality and IT. target=”_blank”>Eric Pifer joins the hospital on September 4, 2007 as its chief medical information officer. He will be a member of the medical staff and will report administratively to CEO Ken Graham. El Camino Hospital recruited Pifer from the University of Pennsylvania Health System, where he currently serves as assistant professor of medicine and chief medical information officer. Pifer joined the University of Pennsylvania Health System in 1998. His first project there involved directing the clinical aspects of implementing an electronic medical records system and evaluation methods to characterize its impact on ambulatory practices. In 2001, he became medical director of information systems at Penn and led strategic initiatives involving a wide array of clinical information systems. In 2005 he became the chief medical informatics officer at the system. For more information on Pifer’s credentials, check out the press release announcing his appointment.