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FI$Cal Names 3 IT Execs to Key Leadership Positions

The Financial Information System for California has named a new chief information officer, a new chief information security officer and a new chief deputy director, filling key vacancies on Director Miriam Barcellona Ingenito’s management team.

The Financial Information System for California, the state’s business office, has filled three top IT leadership roles.

Toquyen Collier.jpg
Toquyen Collier
FI$Cal has a new chief information officer (CIO), a new chief information security officer (CISO) and a new chief deputy director. The appointments conclude a months-long recruitment process, and filling these key roles has been a top priority for Director Miriam Barcellona Ingenito, as she explained in a Techwire Member Briefing in October.

The department cleared a “milestone” this year, with the inclusion of virtually all 150 state agencies into FI$Cal’s centralized accounting, budgeting, cash management and procurement system. FI$Cal, the nation’s largest state financial management system, encompasses three divisions: Administrative Services, Business Operations and Solutions, and Information Technology.

The new executives are:
  • Toquyen Collier, who will be the new CIO effective Jan. 3. Collier most recently served as chief technology officer for the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), a role she held for a little over three years. Collier has 22 years’ experience in state government, holding various IT positions with the California Victim Compensation Board, the California State Board of Equalization, the California Highway Patrol, the California Department of Motor Vehicles and what’s now the Mental Health Services Division of DHCS.
    Collier has a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from California State University at Sacramento, and she is a certified Project Manager Professional. In her free time, she likes to play piano and go to the ocean with her family.
  • Ken Ketsdever, who started on Dec. 1 as chief information security officer, overseeing FI$Cal’s Information Security Office. Ketsdever has more than 25 years of IT experience, 15 of which have been in various roles in state government. He most recently served as CIO and information security officer for the California Department of Aging. “His first priorities include supporting our dedicated team in the Enterprise Security Services Office and the important work they do,” FI$Cal told Techwire in a statement, “along with aligning the department’s security initiatives and goals with California’s recently announced Cybersecurity Roadmap.”
    Ketsdever is a Marine Corps veteran, and he has a degree in international relations from San Francisco State University. He enjoys working on classic cars, and he speaks Japanese. Ken has bungee-jumped, skydived, scuba-dived, rock-climbed, raced bicycles, run in dozens of races including the Los Angeles Marathon, and participated in triathlons in the USA, Guam, Saipan and Japan.
    “I am excited to include Toquyen and Ken on my incredible FI$Cal team,” Barcellona Ingenito told Techwire. “They bring with them, combined, over 35 years of state information technology experience, and I am looking forward to the new ideas and perspectives that they will bring to our department and the FI$Cal system.”
  • Jennifer Maguire, who is being promoted to FI$Cal chief deputy director after serving for nine years as deputy director over the Administrative Services Division. “She led the administrative transition of FI$Cal from a project to a department, which included the development of all of FI$Cal’s policies and procedures,” the statement says. “She also created the department’s accounting shop from whole cloth and most recently implemented the department’s telework program.”
    Maguire has more than 25 years of service with the state, holding positions of increasing responsibility and complexity across multiple state departments including the Department of General Services and the Department of Justice.
    “Jennifer has frequently been recognized for her ability to lead with inquiry as well as advocacy,” Barcellona Ingenito said. “She is a truly engaged leader at all levels of the organization.”

Collier succeeds FI$Cal’s first CIO, the award-winning Subbarao Mupparaju, who led the IT Division for six years before moving over the summer to the CIO role at the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

Ketsdever, the new CISO, succeeds Gerard Laygui, who was named Cyber Operations Branch chief for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) in September.

And Maguire, the new chief deputy director, succeeds Neeraj Chauhan, who held that role from June 2015 until October, who moved last month to be the associate chief information officer for the University of California, Davis.
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.