White House Taps VMware Exec as Next Federal CIO
On Thursday, President Barack Obama named VMware's Tony Scott the next federal CIO.
Scott, who served as VMware's senior vice president and CIO, led the company's global information technology group since 2013. His previous roles include CIO at Microsoft and The Walt Disney Co., and chief technology officer of information systems and services at General Motors Corp., according to the White House.
"Tony will bring over 35 years of global leadership and management experience to build upon our progress and drive continued success," according to a joint blog post by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shaun Donovan and Beth Cobert, OMB's deputy director for management. "Tony is the right person to drive the administration’s Smarter IT Delivery Agenda and the core objectives across the federal IT portfolio – (1) driving value in federal IT investments, (2) delivering world-class digital services, and (3) protecting federal IT assets and information."
The White House will provide additional details about Scott's role in the coming weeks. As federal CIO, Scott would also hold the title of administrator of OMB’s Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology.
The government has been without a permanent federal CIO since Steven VanRoekel left the post in September to serve as chief innovation officer at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and help with the Ebola crisis. Lisa Schlosser, the deputy CIO, has been serving as acting federal CIO. Vivek Kundra, executive vice president at salesforce.com, served as the nation's first federal CIO from 2009 to 2011.
