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CIO Farland Leaving CalPERS, Taking Client Executive Role With HiPER Solutions

Christian Farland, the longtime executive with the state public pension fund, will be a client executive with the San Francisco-based company, which specializes in helping executive sponsors in the public and private sectors mesh their people with their mission.

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Christian Farland, the chief information officer for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), is leaving that role and joining HiPER Solutions of San Francisco, the company announced Wednesday.

Christian Farland.
Christian Farland
Farland has been CalPERS’ CIO since February 2018, capping a rise through increasingly responsible positions with the pension entity since starting there in 2002 as a systems analyst and team lead. His subsequent roles with CalPERS included leadership positions over Business Infrastructure Services and Business Solutions Services and then, successively, chief of IT Performance and Accountability, chief of Technology and Strategic Services and chief technology business officer before being named CIO.

With HiPER Solutions, Farland’s role will be client executive. The company said in a news release that Farland’s mission is to “help the firm’s clients unlock the full potential of leaders in their organizations by de-risking the people component of high-potential, technology transformation projects.”

“It has always been my passion to modernize and transform the way government serves and supports its citizens,” Farland said in the news release. “For me, joining HiPER is the logical step to expand and impact the broader public sector. I’ve seen, and experienced, HiPER’s approach to developing high-performing teams that deliver on high-risk, high-value projects.”

CalPERS’ Chief Executive Officer Marcie Frost said Farland has helped the organization in many ways.

“Christian has improved our customer service applications and advanced our technology to better serve our members and employer partners,” Frost said. “His work to move our operations remotely during the pandemic in a matter of days proved successful, and it allowed CalPERS to serve its members without interruption. He has been a reliable, trusted and engaged leader for us, and we wish him the very best.”

Farland began his career in the private sector, having worked as a project manager for The Money Store and then as senior consultant for Syncata.

HiPER Chairman David M. Morris said Farland brings a blend of skills and attributes that fit well with the company’s mission “to inspire and enable high-performance leaders to deliver positive change.”

“Whenever talent joins HiPER, roles are sculpted to their unique strengths and passions,” Morris said. “Christian comes to us with the credibility, respect and experience as a trusted adviser. His wide range of expertise in leading cross-functional and transformative technology projects will help our clients strengthen alignment with team members, stakeholders and vendors and propel their teams to deliver highly successful technology transformations.”

HiPER Solutions serves the private, public and nonprofit sectors, often with those organizations’ executive sponsors. HiPER has worked with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, among others. The firm’s Digital Transformation product line “helps executive sponsors reduce the risk of project delays and cost overruns by surfacing blind spots and solutions to help ensure strong alignment among stakeholders.”

The company’s data-driven subscription offering gives executives the tools to clearly define measurable goals, uncover team members’ strengths, identify and target blind spots, and facilitate decision-making among team members and key stakeholders. Membership includes access to the HiPER-to-HiPER network, a global network of high-impact leaders. The company also offers a podcast series, HiPERleadership, featuring the successes and struggles of high-impact leaders such as Stephen M.R. Covey, Leigh Steinberg and Sylvia Acevedo.
Dennis Noone is Executive Editor of Industry Insider. He is a career journalist, having worked at small-town newspapers and major metropolitan dailies including USA Today in Washington, D.C.