People on the Move Made Year’s Most-Read Articles

Techwire regularly covers the arrivals and departures of IT leaders in California state and local governments and private-sector IT companies — so it was no surprise that many of 2021’s top staff-written articles concerned exactly those types of moves.

Here are those top-read articles month by month, which run the gamut of coverage from staffing changes at the state technology department and at a worldwide leader in goods and reading material to a tech update at the state’s one-stop shop for motorists:

• January: California Department of Motor Vehicles Director Steve Gordon discussed with Techwire on Jan. 11 its work with IT vendors including ABBYY, IBM, Salesforce, SimpliGov and UiPath to “wrap” its legacy systems in modern technology, “enabling a modern interface to a legacy system.” This work continues — but the department is now in the early stages of replacing its large legacy systems.
• February: As Techwire reported Feb. 22, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced the appointments of Liana Bailey-Crimmins as state chief technology officer in the California Department of Technology (CDT); Richard “Rick” Klau as state chief technology innovation officer at CDT and deputy director of its Office of Enterprise Technology (OET); and Russell J. Nichols as chief deputy director and deputy state CIO at CDT.
• March: When veteran IT sales and management executive and fourth-generation San Franciscan Paul Maunder joined VMware as U.S. regional director for state, local and education (SLED) and health care — with a focus on the company’s Tanzu product portfolio — readers responded accordingly. Techwire had the news March 10.
• April: Similarly, when former deputy state CIO and CDT chief deputy director Chris Cruz, then San Joaquin County’s chief information officer and IT director, joined Tanium as its chief information officer for state and local government across the U.S., a record number of readers clicked through to read more. Techwire reported the news April 18.
• May: Bailey-Crimmins, the state’s newly arrived CTO, talked to Techwire on May 24 about her priorities, relationships with vendors and personal leadership style in a wide-ranging interview.
• June: The California Department of Toxic Substances Control named veteran state IT executive Don Foley as its new CIO and deputy director, replacing former CIO Jennifer Benson. Techwire had the news June 7.
• July: Subbarao Mupparaju, the award-winning longtime CIO and deputy director at the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal), wrapped six years at the entity, joining the California Department of Housing and Community Development as its CIO. Techwire delivered the news July 28.
• August: Private-sector news claimed this month’s most-read article on Aug. 13 as Fulcrum Technology Group, a global investor in IT infrastructure and cloud-based solutions, purchased Taborda Solutions and Enterprise Networking Solutions (ENS).
• September: State technology department news was this month’s most-read article as, on Sept. 15, CDT named private-sector technologist Phoebe Peronto the deputy state chief technology innovation officer — and OET’s second-in-command under Klau.
• October: A bulwark state entity made news this month when, on Oct. 4, the California Department of Social Services appointed Prerna Mahajan its branch chief of the Project Oversight and Strategic Technologies Branch, part of the Information Systems Division.
• November: A private-sector powerhouse made news on Nov. 15 when Amazon named Shital Dhakal, an IT professional with long experience in geographic information systems (GIS) management, business, strategy, governance and innovation, as senior program manager for geospatial data.
• December: FI$Cal filled three vital leadership roles, Techwire reported Dec. 3, naming a new chief information officer, a new chief information security officer and a new chief deputy director. This had long been a priority for Director Miriam Barcellona Ingenito.