One-on-One, IICA’s weekly interview spotlighting public-sector CIOs, CISOs, chief technology and innovation types, and IT executives whose titles may not have a “C,” is consistently among its most-read articles and series. But there’s always an order to things and, for whatever reason, some interviews garner more reader interest than others. With that in mind, we’ve taken a look back at One-on-One profiles this year to identify those that were most read. Here are IICA’s most-read One-on-One interviews of 2023 beginning with the fifth most read:
- From June 29, our fifth most-read One-on-One interview was with Rachel White, chief information officer at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) since December 2021. CARB is one of six entities under the California Environmental Protection Agency umbrella and, under White’s leadership as CIO, executives are modernizing legacy, creating new or modified regulatory systems to comply with state legislation, and building out services on the board’s new Salesforce platform. “Not too long ago, digital transformation was all about online forms and being cloud-based,” White said earlier this year. “Now we have AI entering the picture, and the challenge of embracing and incorporating it into our organization.”
- From Jan. 20, our fourth most-read One-on-One was with Scott Gregory, the inaugural deputy director of technology at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), a role he has had since July 2020. Gregory was previously state chief innovation officer at the California Department of Technology. During the last three years, he said, the department has restructured how it approaches technology, building out a modern, secure, resilient software-defined wide area network and working with vendor Technosylva to generate 24/7 fire behavior predictions and risk metrics statewide.
- From May 19, our third most-read One-on-One was with Dan Falzarano, information security officer at the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), a role he took on in October 2022 after more than six years as ISO at the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Falzarano, who said he considers his role that of a security consultant to the board, said its security-related work going forward would likely be “more along the lines of internal initiatives for the program that I want to get done.”
- From Sept. 1, our second most-read One-on-One was with Dave Krause, deputy chief information officer at Covered California, a role he has had since August 2022 — returning to the public-sector work after time in the private sector. His previous public-sector roles include serving as manager of web development and applications programming at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources division, in Davis. His organization, the deputy CIO said, is at work on a three-year strategic plan with several initiatives and is contemplating development of a comprehensive data strategy and implementation road map.
- From April 28, our most-read One-on-One was with longtime state technologist Prashant Mittal, chief information officer at the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), a role he has had since April 2022. Mittal was most recently project director for the pension solution project at the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS). The CIO said he’s proud to taking part in the Digital eXperience Platform (DxP) project, which aims to transform occupational licensing, vehicle registration, and driver’s license and ID cards. (In July, Ajay Gupta, DMV’s chief digital transformation officer, discussed the department’s mobile driver’s license initiative, which expanded in September to 1.5 million residents.)
