Christian Farland, a 16-year department veteran who’s risen through the ranks, has assumed his new role after having most recently served for two years as chief technology business officer for the agency.
The position had been vacant for about seven months, said Deb Reyman, public information officer for the department.
Farland began with CalPERS in 2002 as an IT systems analyst, moved into a supervisory role and then became business infrastructure services manager, chief of business solutions services, project manager for enterprise transition management, chief of IT performance and accountability, interim chief of technology and business services and, most recently, chief technology business officer.
He was among the speakers at Public Sector Partners’ Emerging Technologies Conference in Sacramento in May 2016, where he talked about CalPERS’ strategic and business plans (Farland begins speaking at about 9:35).
Farland studied at the University of Leeds and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Occidental College.
CalPERS serves more than 1.8 million members — state, school and public agency members who use the agency’s services for retirement and benefits. It’s the largest defined-benefit public pension in the U.S., and CalPERS’ total fund market value was approximately $311 billion as of March 2017.
