Obama to tap VMware's Tony Scott as federal CIO
President Barack Obama announced plans to appoint VMware's Tony Scott as the federal chief information officer.
If the appointment goes through, Scott would be the third CIO and would take the place of Steven VanRoekel, who left the job to work as the chief innovation officer at U.S. Agency for International Development, helping coordinate efforts to fight the Ebola outbreak. Scott would not need to be approved by Congress. Currently, Lisa Schlosser serves as the acting federal CIO since VanRoekel departed last Septmeber.
An executive who knows Scott and worked with him closely called him "extremely personable" and focused on customers. The executive spoke to FedScoop on background because they were not authorized to comment publicly. "He was always able to relate to customers with use case examples, not simply in some esoteric manner," the executive said. Still, the executive, who worked with Scott during his tenure at Microsoft, said it was a surprise that he would accept the CIO position so late in the Obama administration.
