Berry's appointment was confirmed by the Houston City Council on Oct. 7. He previously served as interim CIO before receiving the permanent appointment.Houston Mayor John Whitmire also announced the appointment on LinkedIn, outlining Berry's responsibilities and priorities in the position.
"His leadership is focused on advancing Houston’s technology vision, improving operational efficiency, enhancing the citizen experience and promoting greater transparency and innovation," Whitmire wrote.
Berry succeeds Lisa Kent, who retired June 19 after serving as Houston's CIO since 2016. Berry served as interim CIO before receiving the permanent appointment.
As CIO, Berry oversees Houston Information Technology Services, which provides enterprise IT services supporting nearly 22,000 city employees across 23 departments.
Berry joined the city in March 2024 as chief technology officer for Houston Public Works, where his responsibilities included information technology and operational technology.
Berry brings more than 20 years of experience in enterprise technology, cybersecurity, defense technology and solution engineering, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before joining Houston, he served as vice president of operations at Stor.ai from March 2022 to March 2024. He previously spent about a year and a half as vice president of technology at U.S. LawShield and served as senior director of technology at Higher Ground Education.
His earlier leadership positions include head of information security at Future Fibre Technologies in Melbourne, Australia, director of IT engineering and operations at Petco and chief technology officer at Dowley Security Systems in Houston.
Berry also has experience supporting government and defense technology operations. At Sprint Nextel, he worked in public-sector solutions engineering and held an engineering project management role covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Earlier in his career, Berry managed network engineering and operations teams across Europe in support of NATO peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. He also served four years in the U.S. Army in signal and telecommunications roles from 1993 to 1997.
