New official to role comes with long term background in private sector
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that Charles Forte, a long term private sector IT specialist, is to step into the role of chief information officer.
He will take over from the interim CIO, Lieutenant General Ivan Hooper, in late January, taking charge of MoD strategy and policy for all its ICT, including cyber security.
The appointment follows an open competition for internal and external candidates.
Forte comes to the job with a background entirely in the private sector, most recently in an interim CIO role for Thames Water, before which he was with the Prudential insurance company and prior to that spent several years with BP.
His role will be different to that of Mike Stone, who was chief digital and information officer before he left the MoD in March of last year. The CIO role which Forte is take up is complemented by another role of chief executive officer of information systems and services (ISS), currently held by Ivan Hooper.
IT industry association techUK welcomed the appointment, saying that the separation with the ISS division could encourage the integration of digital elements around the MoD.
“There is a real impetus within UK defence to adopt information technologies and utilise data as a force multiplier; the appointment of Charles Forte is a big step towards delivering the digital vision for defence,” it said.
Image from MoD under Open Government Licence v1.0
