IT Confidential: CIO Special: Not So Moribund After All

What's cooking at Kraft? Steve Finnerty, senior VP and CIO since 2000, left the packaged-foods retailer more than a week ago, according to sources. He's been replaced by Mark Froseth, who had been Kraft's VP of sales and customer-service systems. Finnerty, who's the current president of the Society for Information Management, took over the top IT spot at Kraft when longtime CIO James Kinney retired. Finnerty joined Kraft in 1998 as VP and chief technology officer. A spokeswoman for Kraft confirms Finnerty left but declined further comment.

What's the formula at Pfizer? Rumor has it the pharmaceutical firm, wrestling with a $60 billion merger with Pharmacia, will have a new CIO next week. Pfizer won't comment, but it may not be a coincidence that Georgia-Pacific has a new CIO. Georgia-Pacific last week promoted James Dallas to VP and CIO. Dallas was previously president of Georgia-Pacific's lumber division, and before that head of IT for the company's building-products division. Meanwhile, no word on Georgia-Pacific's former CIO, Chuck Williams, but don't be surprised if he shows up for work at a certain drug company in New York City.

What's the word at Standard Register? The Dayton, Ohio, document-management company is searching for a new CIO. Standard Register's former CIO, Doug Patterson, is now VP of strategic alliances at PathForward, a consulting business unit Standard Register launched in July that focuses on management, workflow, and output of documents throughout their life cycle, regardless of whether the documents are paper or digitized, and regardless of whether their output or input goes to or comes from faxes, printers, photocopiers, or scanners, Patterson says. The creation of PathForward is the result of Standard Register's combining some previous consulting services with consulting services of PlanetPrint, a company that Standard Register acquired in July.

What's the ruling at the CIO Council? The group of senior federal CIOs charged with developing governmentwide IT programs recently elected Energy Department CIO Karen Evans as its vice chairwoman. Evans, a 20-year government IT employee, replaces former Treasury CIO Jim Flyzik, a special adviser for IT at Homeland Security, who's retiring next month. Flyzik served as vice chairman for seven years. The CIO Council is chaired by the Office of Management and Budget's associate director for IT and E-government Mark Forman, the highest-ranking government IT executive.

There seems to be some movement in a supposedly moribund career area. Maybe I want to be a CIO when I grow up, after all-naw, too hard. I'd rather just sit back and let the industry tips roll in to [email protected] or phone 516-562-5326. If you want to talk about the CIO shuffle, meet me at InformationWeek.com's Listening Post: informationweek.com/forum/johnsoat.

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