New CIOs at Johnson & Johnson, Select Comfort, Swift and more

Plus: Forbes.com and Sunrocket hire their first CIOs 

LaVerne Council begins her new job as VP and CIO of Johnson & Johnson on June 5. Council, 44, replaces JoAnn Heffernan Heisen who was recently named Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer and reports to Robert Darretta, J&J’s vice chairman and CFO. Council comes to the New Brunswick, N.J.-based healthcare products manufacturer from Dell where she most recently served as its global vice president for information technology, global business solutions and development services. Prior to Dell, she led Ernst & Young’s global supply chain strategy practice as a partner.

Ernie Park left his post as corporate senior vice president and CIO at Maytag to join bed manufacturer Select Comfort. He starts his new job with the bed manufacturer on May 30. Park replaces Mike Thyken in the CIO role at Select Comfort; Thyken was recently named vice president of process development at Minneapolis based company. At Maytag, Park led the transformation and realignment of the IT department and implemented a combination of lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. Prior to Maytag, Park was Honeywell’s vice president and CIO of global business services.

Swift (The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunicatoin) CIO Joe Eng (pictured at left) is leaving the financial services company as of July 1, 2006. Eng’s deputy, Michael Fish, will succeed him as CIO.  Eng, who is credited with the development of Swift’s advanced IP-based messaging platform which won a CIO 100 award in 2005, does not yet have another job lined up. His immediate plans, according to a press release announcing his resignation, are to play “Mister Mom” with his family and scope out his next challenge.

Government Technology reported yesterday that Computer Associates hired Gino Menchini, the former CIO of New York City, to serve as its North American public sector vice president in charge of increasing the company’s business in federal, state and local government. Menchini served as the Big Apple’s CIO during the September 11 recovery effort, the black out of 2003 and the 2005 transit strike.

Forbes.com hired Raymond Ouellette as its first CIO.  Ouellette is responsible for overseeing Forbes.com’s infrastructure and engineering systems.  He reports to Michael Smith, the content provider’s VP and general manager. Ouellette most recently worked for Thomson Media as its CTO. He joined Thomson Media in 2000 as its EVP of technology.

SunRocket also recently hired its first CIO.  Robert Kramer joined the internet phone service provider from America Online where as senior vice president of business technologies he managed the organization responsible for the design, development and certification of all server-based business applications that operated AOL’s consumer services.  Prior to AOL, Kramer was president of audible.com.

R. Thomas Burge joined Colonial BancGroup as its new EVP and CIO. Burge most recently worked for Regions Financial, which he joined after his previous company, Union Planters, was acquired by Regions in 2004. During the acquisition, he oversaw the integration of Union Planter’s systems with Regions’.