Fortune 500 CIO Activity

We have some major CIO hiring activity among Fortune 500 companies with new appointments at American Airlines, Xerox and Caterpillar.  In each case, the new CIO will be stepping into the shoes of executives who have been with their companies for many years.  John Heller has been with Caterpillar for 38 years; John McDermott has been at Xerox for 10, and Monte Ford has been with American Airlines for 11.   Each new CIO will need to find a way to create change in an IT organization run by one leader for more than a decade. This, in a completely new era of computing.  Happily, challenge is fun. Best of luck to the new CIOs!

On the subject of challenge and change, I had a chance to catch up with Wayne Shurts, who is leading an IT transformation as CIO of SUPERVALU.  He talked through some of his challenges and approaches in a brief interview that I conducted with him.

On to the news!

American Airlines has a new CIO. Maya Leibmantook on the head IT position on January 1 and will oversee all aspects of the airline’s information technology strategy and operations. Previously, Leibman served as President of the AAdvantage Loyalty Program, and prior to that, she was Vice President – Information Technology Services (ITS).  Leibman joined American in 1994 in the Revenue Management department.  

Xerox Corporation just announced the appointment of Carol Zierhoffer as CIO.  Zierhoffer, will be responsible for the planning, alignment, governance and delivery of the IT infrastructure for the company.  She joins Xerox from ITT Corporation where she served as vice president and global information officer.  Previously, Zierhoffer spent 20 years in senior executive roles at Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Randy Krotowski has joined Caterpillar CIO with responsibility for the Global Information Services Division.  Krotowski joins Caterpillar from Chevron Corporation, where served as CIO for Chevron Global Upstream, a $1.2 billion information technology organization with a workforce of 2,500 people. Krotowski began his career at Chevron in 1982 and has held a number of engineering, business management and information technology (IT) positions with increasing responsibility. Prior to his current role, Krotowski’s IT career at Chevron included positions with responsibilities for Chevron subsidiaries in Canada, Latin America and global strategic planning for Chevron Corporation.

Jim Ferrato is the CIO of Accent Marketing Services.  Ferrato brings over 25 years of experience in information technology to Accent where he will lead the company’s global information organization, which supports Accent’s suite of customer engagement solutions as well as enterprise systems and applications for all corporate processes.

Jon Morris, M.D. has been named senior vice president and CIO of WellStar Health.  Morris had been serving in that role on an interim basis for the past eight months. Morris is board certified in emergency medicine. He began practicing in 1980 and joined the WellStar Kennestone Medical Staff in 1986. While still practicing as an emergency physician, he became a WellStar Medical Informatics Consultant in 2006 and in 2009 became WellStar’s Chief Medical Information Officer.

Nordson, the maker of automated spraying and dispensing equipment announced John Byers has been promoted to CIO.  Byers has served in a variety of leadership roles since joining Nordson in 1994, and has been president since 2006 of Nordson Asymtek, which produces precision automated fluid dispensing, conformal coating, and jetting technologies used in electronics and related assembly processes. Byers holds an MBA from Indiana University and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University.

Diebold has hired David H. Ramsey to fill the role of CIO.  Ramsey will be responsible for leading and overseeing the operations of Diebold’s global information technology (IT) organization. Ramsey most recently served as managing director, global IT and GBS transformation, at The Hackett Group, a global strategic business advisory, operations consulting and finance strategy firm.  Prior to that, he served in CIO roles with Kinetic Concepts Inc. and PSS World Medical Inc.

Mayor Dewey Bartlett announced the promotion of Tom Golliverto CIO for the City of Tulsa, effective Jan. 1, 2012.  Golliver will direct the City of Tulsa Information Technology Department and serve as a member of the city’s executive leadership team to influence strategic business decisions regarding the use of technology. Golliver recently has served as Director of Information Services and interim director of the Information Technology Department. He began his employment at the City of Tulsa in 2007 as Director of Information Technology Administration & Planning.

Shore Financial Services, the parent company of United Wholesale Mortgage, appointed Paul Orlandoas CIO.  Orlando comes to the Birmingham, MI -based Shore Financial Services from Flagstar Bank, based in nearby Troy, Mich., where he was a senior vice president. Prior to that, Orlando was an assistant vice president at Standard Federal Bank, another financial institution based in the greater Detroit area.

Paychex, a provider of payroll, human resource, and employee benefits solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, recently announced the appointment of Sanjay Hiranandanias the company’s new vice president of information technology operations.  The Paychex Board of Directors also appointed him an officer of the company.  Hiranandani joins Paychex with 20 years of technology leadership experience.  Most recently, he served as senior vice president and chief technology officer of the former PAETEC Holding Corp., a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company acquired earlier this month by Windstream Corp. (NASDAQ:WIN), a leading national provider of advanced network communications.

Thanks for listening, and as always, keep sending me news!