Another key executive in the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) has announced his departure.
Chief Deputy Director Neeraj Chauhan, a veteran of state service, is taking a position at the University of California, Davis. His last day with FI$Cal will be Nov. 5.
Chauhan’s impending departure creates a third key vacancy on FI$Cal Director Miriam Ingenito’s executive team. Subbarao Mupparaju, who had served as the award-winning chief information officer and deputy director since 2015, left that role in July and is now the CIO for the California Department of Housing and Community Development. And Ingenito is also recruiting for a chief information security officer.
“Over the course of more than six years, Neeraj has been the face of the FI$Cal project,” Ingenito told Techwire. “He has spent countless hours working on developing and implementing the right solutions for the FI$Cal system; his accomplishments and contributions are innumerable.”
In addition to his role as chief deputy director, Chauhan also served as project director for the department, which recently crossed a major milestone by bringing the vast majority of state departments’, agencies’ and commissions’ ledgers into FI$Cal, the state’s sprawling business and accounting system that handles trillions of dollars in transactions annually on behalf of state government.
“I am very proud of what we have achieved here at FI$Cal,” Chauhan told Techwire. “It has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to be part of this statewide transformational effort. As I leave to join another great organization with a great mission, I am leaving with many fond memories and a great sense of accomplishment. I am going to miss my FI$Cal family.”
Chauhan’s new role is associate CIO for UC Davis. The tech executive has worked in state government technology since 2005, “managing several complex mission-critical services and implementing large projects,” according to his department biography.
“He was the project director for the CalCloud Project at the California Department of Technology,” his bio says. “He has also served as the network chief with the California Department of Technology, responsible for providing mission-critical services to over 200 state and local government entities and as the assistant data center chief at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, leading several projects to improve data center services.
Before joining the state in 2005, Chauhan worked in the private sector, where he implemented large system integrations. He has a Bachelor of Science in engineering as well as extensive training in software development and project management.
Chauhan has written several commentaries for FI$Cal’s newsletters, several of which also appeared inTechwire. In addition, he has been a regular speaker and presenter at technology conferences and tech briefings.
Ingenito spoke about leadership, among other topics, during a Techwire Virtual Member Briefing earlier this month, and she also detailed future vendor opportunities in aTechwireOne-on-One interview last week.
