Fort Lauderdale CIO Departs, City Names Marinas as Acting CIO

The city of Fort Lauderdale has appointed Angela Marinas as its newest acting director and chief information officer, officially replacing Tamecka McKay.

Marinas joined the city as director of enterprise resource planning in 2020. In 2023, she was appointed chief digital officer and assistant IT director, overseeing application services citywide and using artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things to support and enhance municipal solutions.

Before that, she held various public- and private-sector roles, including serving as a senior practice director for iBiP Corporation, a senior director of application software development for NTT Data Services, a global program director for Brink’s Inc., director of the center of excellence for the city of Miami and a senior principal consultant for Oracle.

Marinas “has a proven track record of implementing innovative solutions, including Infor CloudSuite, retiring legacy systems such as FAMIS and Cyborg, and leading IT modernizations, most notably” a homeless outreach application, a press release from the city states.

Now, she is picking up where McKay left off after officially taking over the role on April 18.

McKay started working for the city in 2021 as director of infrastructure and operations. In July 2022, she was appointed interim CIO, and was formally named CIO a month later.

During her tenure, she and her team helped replace the city’s 50-year-old enterprise resource planning system and its 20-year-old technology infrastructure. She also oversaw the consolidation of five outdated data centers and improved the city’s cybersecurity posture by 200 percent, the city’s press release states.

McKay further discussed these efforts during an Industry Insider — Florida one-on-one interview, stating that none of these achievements would have been possible without the support of her team and city leadership.

“We have made enormous strides in modernizing the city’s aging technology infrastructure and business systems, including replacing a 50-year-old financial system. The modernization of the city’s ERP system was critical to business continuity after the 1-in-1,000-year flood, during which we lost our main data center located in the former city hall. Despite the enormous loss, we were able to continue paying our vendors and employees,” McKay said.

She also discussed some of the city’s tech modernization and AI plans.

“One of the most exciting projects the IT department is working on is implementing our new service management tool, which will revolutionize how we deliver IT services to the organization. Leveraging automation, chatbots, self-service and business intelligence — providing real-time environmental visibility — we will improve our internal operations, service delivery and end-user experience,” McKay said. “Additionally, with the use of AI and machine learning, we will have opportunities to proactively diagnose and self-heal systems, predict trends for resource planning and vendor accountability and accelerate innovation.”

As for McKay’s next move, she “is transitioning to another organization,” a press release from the city states.