Barack Obama’s CTO Leaves Presidential Campaign for CIO Post with Private Equity Firm GTCR Golder Rauner

Plus: Applebee’s Mike Czeniga takes new job; New CIOs at Volvo, Juniper Networks, The Knot and Abraxis BioScience; SellingSource’s CIO takes on COO role; and CIO of Mirixa tapped to co-lead company.

GTCR Golder Rauner, a private equity firm based in Chicago, hired Kevin Malover as its CIO, according to Investment Dealers Digest. The investment industry magazine reports that Malovermost recently served as CTO of Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign. Prior to joining Obama’s bid for the presidency, Malover co-founded an online real estate company in 2005. Previously, he served as Orbitz‘s first CIO and worked for Ameritech.

Mike Czinege, who lost his job as CIO of Applebee’s when his company acquired International House of Pancakes (IHOP), took a new job with AMC Entertainment as its SVP and CIO. AMC operates 359 movie theaters in six countries. Czeniga has 30 years of IT and business consulting experience. Prior to Applebee’s, the MBA grad was a partner with Ernst & Young.

Dawn Lepore was nominated for a position on The New York Times Company’s board of directors. She will be elected on April 22, 2008. Lepore currently serves as

chairman and CEO of drugstore.com. Prior to joining the online retailer, she served as CIO and vice chairman at Charles Schwab.

Volvo appointed Magnus Carlander to succeed Ulf Nilsson as president of Volvo Information Technology. Carlander, 52, will move into his new role in April when Nilsson retires. Carlander was also named CIO of the Volvo Group. He has worked for Volvo IT since 1998.

Juniper Networks hired Michele Goins as its new CIO. She replaces Alan Boehme, who was seriously injured in a car accident in February 2007. The new CIO reports to CFO Robyn Denholm. Goins joins the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based networking products provider after a 25 year tenure with Hewlett-Packard. She most recently served as VP and CIO of HP’s imaging and printing group. More information about her tenure with HP is available in the press release Juniper issued. Goins holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Santa Clara University and an MBA from Northeastern University.

Nic Di Iorio tied the knot with wedding website The Knot on February 5. Di Iorio serves as the NYC-based media company’s EVP and managing director of its technology group. He has held IT management roles in the advertising and media industry for 15 years, having most recently worked for the Interpublic Group of Companies as its CTO. Prior to the Interpublic Group, Di Iorio served as EVP and CIO of the McCann Worldgroup (a subsidiary of Interpublic Group) and as CEO of Marketing Communications Technologies (a subsidiary of McCann). He also spent four years with Young and Rubicam in the early 1990s. Earlier in his career, he worked in R&D for GTE and AT&T Bell Labs.

SellingSource‘s CIO Mike Lane assumed the COO role at the Las Vegas-based provider of technology and marketing solutions for the specialty finance industry. In his new, dual role, Lane is responsible for the company’s daily operations, IT and its HR infrastructure. He joined SellingSource in 2005 from Ztradingindustries.com where he was the eBay power-seller’s director of operations,

IT and customer service. Previously, he held senior leadership positions with Lowestfare.com, The Palms Casino, Harrah’s Entertainment and Mikohn Gaming Corp.

E-commerce provider MarketLive hired Marty Boos as its CIO. Boos is a Motorola evacuee. He served as CIO of Motorola’s Good Technology Group. Boos previously served as CIO and CTO of Digital River, where he designed and managed a hosted infrastructure that served 40,000 e-commerce websites. He has 25 years of managed services experience.

Mirixa appointed its CIO and its general manager to co-lead the pharmacy software provider. Mark Carberry, Mirixa’s COO and CIO, and Eric Zimmerman, the chief innovation officer and general manager, are taking over from CEO Donald Hackett, who abruptly left the company on February 4, until the board finds a new CEO.

Abraxis BioScience hired Rick Click as its CIO. Click heads IT globally for the biotechnology company. No stranger to IT leadership positions, he most recently served as CIO at Molina Healthcare. Previously, he worked for PayPal, American Outsourcing Group, Goodman Global Holdings, Honeywell International and Zenith Electronics. He graduated from California Coast University and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Speaking of Harvard, Harvard Medical School CIO John Halamka was appointed to SafeMed’s board of directors. SafeMed provides analytical software that identifies personalized treatment options for patients.