Chief Information and Technology Officer - 48000901

State of Florida•Tallahassee, FL

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The Florida Department of Education seeks a transformation-minded Chief Information and Technology Officer to serve as the agency’s senior technology executive and statutory agency CIO under section 282.3055, Florida Statutes. The role sets the Department’s technology vision, architecture, and investment agenda; leads the Division of Technology and Innovation, including the Education Data Center and related application, infrastructure, data, security, and service functions; and represents FDOE with the Florida Digital Service or successor enterprise IT body, the Legislature, education institutions, and vendors. The CIO will lead a multi-year enterprise modernization program to exit the mainframe and retire COBOL-dependent applications, build durable cloud and data platforms, and scale artificial intelligence responsibly. The mainframe feasibility study outlines three phases over six years and an estimated total cost of approximately $151 million. Initial work includes establishing a program management office, inventorying COBOL and DB2 systems and extracting business rules, transferring knowledge from specialists, and building a cloud foundation consistent with state policy and cybersecurity rules. The CIO owns the program end to end while maintaining continuity of essential statewide education operations. The position is accountable for responsible AI adoption; trusted, interoperable education data; cybersecurity, privacy, and resilience; enterprise architecture and reliable day-to-day technology operations; investment planning and vendor performance; and building an organization with the talent and culture to deliver modern technology services. The Department’s mission is to improve Florida’s education system and student success through a seamless Early Learning-20 system. This role requires working on-site in Tallahassee from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday; telework is not available.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in information systems, computer science, engineering, business, public administration, or a closely related field; alternatively, ten or more years of progressive executive or senior IT leadership may substitute year for year for the degree.
Ten or more years of progressive information technology leadership.
At least five years leading a multifunction IT organization covering applications, infrastructure or cloud, security, and data in government, education, or a comparably regulated enterprise.
Demonstrated delivery of at least one large-scale modernization, such as a mainframe or COBOL exit, core system replacement, or cloud migration of mission systems, with published outcomes.
Experience owning an IT budget, vendor portfolio, and legislative- or board-level investment case.
Working knowledge of cybersecurity and privacy obligations in a public or education setting.
Ability to obtain and maintain any access required for State of Florida systems and to work in Tallahassee on a regular cadence.
Ability to work on-site from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday; telework is not available.
Strategic clarity to translate a six-year, nine-figure program into an executable and fundable sequence.
Technical judgment across mainframe, cloud, data, identity, and AI.
Political and legislative fluency, including comfort with public scrutiny.
Operational discipline to maintain time-critical services during transformation.
Ability to attract and retain technology talent, and to report risk candidly and early.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree (MBA, MPA, or technical MS) or executive credential such as CGCIO.
Direct experience modernizing IBM mainframe, COBOL, CICS, or DB2 estates, including business-rule extraction and coexistence architectures.
Experience establishing or scaling an enterprise AI, machine learning, or intelligent-automation program with governance.
K-12, higher education, or state education agency experience, including student information, education finance, assessment, or longitudinal data systems.
Florida state government experience, including Chapter 282/60GG, Florida Digital Service engagement, legislative budget requests, and SMS/SES organizations.
CISSP, CISM, PMP, cloud architect, or equivalent professional certification.
A record of rebuilding an IT workforce through legacy-skills succession planning and recruitment for cloud, data, and product roles.

Responsibilities

Own the mainframe modernization program, including its scope, sequence, budget, vendors, risks, and legislative reporting.
Inventory COBOL, CICS, DB2, batch, and interface assets; extract business rules; map dependencies; and document decisions to retire, rewrite, replace, or encapsulate systems.
Establish a Program Management Office with independent verification and validation, stage-gate funding, and monthly executive dashboards.
Move remaining workloads from the mainframe to cloud-native or commercially supported platforms while protecting continuity of education funding calculations, data collections, transcripts, assessments, and related systems.
Capture institutional knowledge from retiring mainframe specialists and convert it into documented product and data contracts.
Publish and execute an agency AI strategy addressing use-case intake, model risk, human oversight, procurement, evaluation, and tool retirement.
Establish an AI review board with legal, privacy, program, security, and data representation and authority to pause or end deployments.
Require appropriate data-residency, training-data, audit, and no-retention terms for AI vendors; build internal capability and measure AI adoption and outcomes.
Treat education data as a documented, quality-measured, reusable product; strengthen the K-20 Education Data Warehouse, survey collections, and longitudinal reporting.
Reduce duplicative data collections and publish APIs and data contracts where feasible; align with statewide data and identity standards and partner with FDOE program areas.
Lead the Department’s information security posture with the designated Information Security Manager/agency CISO and State CISO/Cybersecurity Operations Center.
Drive identity, least privilege, logging, vulnerability management, incident response, and exercises that account for mainframe-to-cloud transition risks.
Protect student education records and other regulated data, and maintain tested disaster recovery and continuity of operations.
Set target enterprise architecture for cloud, integration, identity, data, observability, and DevSecOps; rationalize application systems and make investment or sunset decisions.
Run reliable day-to-day technology operations, including networks, endpoints, collaboration, service desk, and application support, while improving service levels to Department staff, districts, and colleges.
Build and defend IT legislative budget requests, advise the Commissioner and cabinet on technology risk and costs, run competitive procurements, and hold vendors to outcome-based acceptance criteria.
Coordinate with Florida Digital Service project oversight, NWRDC, and other enterprise providers.
Lead the Division of Technology and Innovation; develop and restructure the organization as needed, retain legacy expertise, recruit modern technology talent, and establish written standards and candid status reporting.
Perform statutory agency CIO duties, represent FDOE in enterprise CIO, architecture, cybersecurity, and cloud-first forums, and ensure accessibility of public-facing systems and compliance with applicable rules.

Benefits

State Group Insurance coverage options
Nine paid holidays and a Personal Holiday each year
Student Loan Forgiveness Program (eligibility required)
Tuition Fee Waivers accepted by major Florida colleges and universities
Retirement plan options, including employer contributions
Annual and sick leave benefits
Flexible Spending Accounts
Ongoing comprehensive training
Career growth
Maternity and parental leave benefits
SES annual leave: 176 hours credited upon appointment, with subsequent annual allotments credited on the appointment anniversary
SES sick leave: 104 hours credited upon appointment, with subsequent annual allotments credited on the appointment anniversary
Highly skilled, professional environment