Rob Lloyd, a frequent speaker at industry conferences and forums, assumed his new role Monday as a senior leader in the Silicon Valley city of more than 1 million residents.
“The pandemic has taught us that we must approach difficult challenges with new frameworks that include the use of technology and strong partnerships within the organization as well as the community,” City Manager Jennifer Maguire said in a news release. “Rob’s ability to implement technological solutions to better provide services, connect with our community and enable teams to produce crucial outcomes has earned him deep trust across our organization and with external partners. He will help us deliver on our goals of creating equity and opportunity as we progress through the pandemic recovery and emerge stronger together.”
Mayor Sam Liccardo also had high praise for Lloyd.
“The city of San Jose has an extraordinary team of leaders,” Liccardo said in the news release. “Rob Lloyd adds to that winning record as he joins the City Manager’s Office. For years, Rob has demonstrated dedication to serving this community and an ability to help the city deliver major goals as our chief information officer. The City Council and I have worked with him as he’s created partnerships between departments, nonprofits and our business community to improve services in creative and impactful ways.”
Lloyd’s portfolio as deputy manager will include the city’s Transportation and Aviation City Service Area, as well as the Airport, Transportation and IT departments.
“The city is a remarkable organization, filled with colleagues who are second to none in their fields,” Lloyd said in the news release. “I’m grateful to work with our departments and partners to take on the compelling challenges our city manager and mayor and City Council have defined. No work is more meaningful than what San Jose is doing in areas of access to opportunity and partnering to reshape community services.”
Monday’s news follows the recent departure of Jerry Driessen, who had been assistant chief information officer since March 2019. Driessen has joined Info-Tech Research Group as an executive counselor. In August, the city hired two veterans of the public and private IT sectors, Eddie Kim and Ying Chan, as deputy chief information officers – Kim over the IT Infrastructure + Operations Division, and Chan over the city’s Business Solutions section.
Lloyd has been twice named by Techwire sister publication Government Technology as one of its Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers: first in 2015, when he was CIO at Avondale, Ariz., then in 2020 as part of Team San Jose. He joined San Jose in 2016 as its IT Department director and CIO after having overseen technology and utility functions for governments in Colorado, Oregon and Arizona.
Notable projects that Lloyd has helped lead for San Jose include the city’s Smart City Vision, the “reimagining” of 911 and 311 services, and the city’s COVID-19 pandemic response. During his tenure in San Jose, the teams Lloyd has led have earned more than 30 national awards in areas of customer engagement, operational excellence and innovative services. On his watch, San Jose this year won a first place in its population category (500,000 and up) in the Digital Cities Survey, presented by the Center for Digital Government.*
In addition to the many industry briefings Lloyd has conducted, he explained his philosophy about civic tech – and drew a sharp distinction between “big tech” and “bad tech” – in a commentary published earlier this year in Techwire and Government Technology. He wrote, in part: “We spoke with dozens of state, local and tribal governments about how a technology platform should work best to support pandemic response in a way that minimizes health and economic harm. There are brilliant and experienced people who know the answers. But too often, they were deferential to another agency they didn’t want to offend, and/or they felt blocked by lack of leadership from a higher level. Those issues must be solved for the nation to be successful in future pandemic response and recovery.”
Lloyd earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology/public administration from Beloit College and his master’s degree in business administration with an emphasis on information systems from the University of Colorado. The South San Jose resident has professional certificates in Advanced Project Management from Stanford University and Wildlife Management from Colorado State University. He is past president of MIX, a national association of local government technology leaders; he co-chairs the Center for Digital Government’s Digital Privacy Council; and he serves on the board of a national cybersecurity alliance.
*The Center for Digital Government, like Techwire and Government Technology, is part of e.Republic.
