Mass. CIO Resigns; Evelyn Follit Appointed to Winn-Dixie Board

Within months of taking his job, the CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has thrown in the towel, according to the Associated Press and Computerworld. Louis Gutierrez announced his resignation yesterday. The AP reports he was fed up with legislators who didn’t approve funding for technology initiatives that included the expansion of web-based services for citizens. Gutierrez started his new job with the state last February.  He replaced Peter Quinn who resigned from the CIO post in December 2005 amidst controversy over his support for open standards.  CIO covered the Quinn-Microsoft-Open Document Format controversy last spring.  It’s sure beginning to look to me like the Bay State doesn’t give its CIOs the support they need to do their jobs effectively. (For more on Gutierrez, check out the article CIO published about his turnaround effort at one of his previous employers, HMO Harvard-Pilgrim.)

Because of Winn-Dixie (the grocery store chain, not the book about the dog named Winn Dixie, or the movie based on the book about the dog), former Radio Shack CIO Evelyn Follit will very likely have a job on the company’s new board of directors.   According to an Associated Press article, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based grocer has proposed a new board of directors that will run the company after it emerges from bankruptcy protection provided that  U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Peter Funk approves their appointments. Follit retired from Radio Shack at the end of February 2005 after joining the company in 1997 as its vice president of human capital.  She was named CIO in 1999. After she left the company, Radio Shack had some trouble keeping a CIO. I wrote about the CIO turnover at Radio Shack last May.

Tilak Mandadi wrote to share the good news that he joined the senior leadership team of American Express Technologies just a few short weeks ago. (He also recently joined the University of Houston’s College of Technology’s advisory board.) As his new employer’s vice president of global interactive applications, Mandadi is responsible for all customer-facing interactive applications and the teams in the United States, United Kingdom and India developing them.  He joined American Express Technologies from FedEx Kinko’s where he was the VP of global shared services in charge of e-commerce, architecture, shared systems, infrastructure, operations and support.  He says he loved FedEx but did not want to relocate to Memphis, so he found this new opportunity with AmEx.  Prior to FedEx Kinko’s, he headed the technology organization for Premier.Dell.Com and was one of the technology leaders who founded Enron Online. 

If you’re in IT management and you’ve recently taken a new job, let me know, and I’ll help you get the word out.  Instead of sending lengthy e-mails to all your friends and family informing them of your move, just send them the permalink to my blog post about you!