Roomba-Maker Hires Jay Leader to Lead IT as CIO

Plus: CIO announcements from JM Eagle, IE Discovery and Corning

Roomba’s manufacturer, iRobot, hired Jay Leader as its vice president of IT and CIO on Wednesday. Leader reports to Colin Angle, CEO of the Burlington, Mass.-based company. Most recently, Leader served as CIO of Nypro, a $1.2 billion manufacturer, where he was in charge of overseeing IT operations across 18 countries. He got the job at Nypro while working for Project Consulting Group in Medway, Mass. as a principal. Leader first served as Nypro’s director of application development and was named CIO in 2005. Prior to Project Consulting Group, he was a managing associate at Coopers and Lybrand where he worked on data warehousing projects for clients in the insurance and financial services industries. Leader holds a bachelor’s degree in government and international relations and an MBA from Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

F5 Networks appointed Scott Thompson to its board of directors today. Thompson currently serves as president of PayPal, which he joined in 2005 as SVP and CTO. Prior to PayPaly, he served as EVP and global CIO of Inovant/Visa International. From August 1997 to April 2000, Thompson was Visa USA’s CTO and EVP of its systems group. Thompson has a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.

Plastic pipe manufacturer JM Eagle hired Kevin Tackaberry to serve as vice president of human resources and chief information officer, a newly created position at the company. Tackaberry, 42, reports to COO Dennis Campbell. As VP of HR and CIO, he will help JM Eagle relocate its corporate headquarters from Livingston, NJ to Los Angeles later this year. Tackaberry is also expected to provide employees with better support and information systems for serving customers. He most recently served as SVP of HR and chief administrative officer at Triad Financial Corp. Prior to Triad Financial, he was director of HR at Gateway Computers and worked for 3M. Tackaberry holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering arts and an MBA in personnel and human relations from Michigan State University.

Chris Knox was promoted to CIO at IE Discovery. He’s worked for the Austin, Texas-based provider of discovery management software for seven years, most recently as director of commercial programs. In his new position, he’s responsible for implementing strategic initiatives, developing company-wide operating procedures, and overseeing enterprise architecture and process design development. Chris May, CEO of IE Discovery, noted in the press release announcing Knox’s apppointment that Knox’s work has led to “lower costs and more effective solutions” for customers. Knox has 12 years of project management experience at technology companies. He previously designed and implemented data collection networks for software developers as well as geographic information systems for large municipalities.

Dick Fishburn is planning to retire from Corning in the next few months. He currently serves as the specialty glass and ceramics maker’s SVP and CIO. He was appointed to that position in 1999. Corning has not yet named a successor.