New CIOs at Align Technology and Haworth, and more

Align Technology found a replacement for Cecilia Claudio, who left her post as CIO of the teeth straightening devices maker in September to join Mercury Interactive.  The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company announced yesterday that it had hired Michael Henry as its vice president of IT and CIO.  Henry reports to Thomas Prescott, Align’s president and CEO. He most recently worked for information services provider IHS as its vice president of global IT and information security. 

Furniture maker Haworth hired Ann Harten to succeed its Vice President of Global Information Services, Michael Moon, who is retiring.  Harten joined the Holland, Mich.-based company from relocation services provider Sirva, where she served as SVP and CIO.  The fact that Harten was hired as a VP rather than a CIO at Haworth even though she previously held the CIO title reminds me of a conversation I had with a recruiter a few months ago.  The recruiter told me that a lot of companies are hiring IT executives into VP-level rather than CIO-level positions in order to give their new executives a promotion to shoot for. I don’t know that that’s the case at Haworth, but it is an interesting observation.  Have any of you interviewed for jobs where the prospective employer wouldn’t hire you into a CIO position?  Use the feedback form to share your experiences.

Finally, Javier Monzon (there should be an accent over the second “o” in his last name, but I don’t know how to do that) e-mailed me from Argentina to let me know that he was made Transalud S.A.’s new IT manager.  Transalud acquires, processes and validates transactions in real time for the healthcare industry.  Thanks to Javier, I learned how to write IT manager in Spanish (“gerente de sistemas.”)

One more thing: Last week I wrote about celebrity CIOs.  I was surprised that not one reader commented on that posting.  So I’m drawing your attention to itagain because I’m interested in finding out whether you think the celebrity CIO phenomenon exists the same way the celebrity CEO phenomenon exists.  Read the posting and use the feedback form to share your thoughts.  Please!