Citi CIO Was an XP Early Adopter

When Microsoft launched Office XP in 2001, Bill Gates, then still Microsoft’s chairman and chief software architect, was joined on a stage in New York by two executives who had been early adopters of the new technology: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Marv Adams, then CIO of the Ford Motor Company. This spring Adams accepted the role of CIO of Citigroup.

Back then, as XP was just making its official debut, Ford had already designed a supply chain integration solution using Office XP to handle XML at the supplier node. Ford electronically notified component suppliers of demand variation using the XML support Office XP provides in Excel 2002 and BizTalk™ Server. And using Office XP, suppliers were able to quickly provide feedback on their ability to respond to change. 

“Office XP is a potential enabler to improve our supply chain,” Adams said at the time. “We can improve the quality of our manufacturing scheduling process because suppliers of any size can participate, analyzing our data using the familiar Excel interface.”

Incidentally, this brief may look like déjà vu. That’s because the last issue of Windows in Financial Services noted the Microsoft connections of another new Citi CIO: Steve Randich, Citi’s CIO of corporate and investment banking had been the CIO of the Chicago Stock Exchange back when it had become the first exchange to standardize its trading system on Windows NT 4.0 back in 1997.

	Dale Christian - CIO, Avanade
	Richard Stern - General Manager for the U.S. East Region

Avanade CIO and General Manager for the East are Microsoft Vets

If there was any doubt that Avanade would be on the cutting edge of adopting new Microsoft enterprise technologies, this should clear it up: the company’s new chief information officer is a 14-year Microsoft veteran.

As CIO, Dale Christian will direct the continued development and management of the global technical and applications architectures for Avanade, which was founded as a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture and specializes in technology integration for the Microsoft platform. The architecture Christian will oversee serves more than 5,000 professionals at 39 locations in 20 countries.

At Microsoft, Christian led a cross-IT organization of more than 250 people managing 130 applications, and led the development of critical applications used by Microsoft employees in IT infrastructure, operations, procurement and finance. He also spent seven years with Andersen Consulting specializing in distributed computing systems.

Along with Christian, Richard Stern is also new to the firm, coming on board as general manager for the U.S. East Region. He will direct Avanade operations in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, stretching from Maine through Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia.  Stern had spent six years at Microsoft, as general manager of services for the U.S. Industry Solutions Group, where he managed a team of more than 500 people responsible for collaborating with customers and partners to bring Microsoft-based solutions to market in commercial industries. Most recently, Stern was president and chief operating officer of Resolute, a business and technology consulting company specializing in .NET solutions, whose CEO, incidentally, is an Avanade veteran. Stern also served as managing principal and director of HP’s East Sub-Region.

Artale is Resolute

Meanwhile, back at Resolute, Microsoft veteran Frank Artale, who is also an experienced advisor to emerging software companies, has joined the consulting company’s board of directors. He spent nine years with Microsoft, followed by leadership and director roles at several large vendors, and was sought by Resolute for his in-depth market knowledge, leadership and business acumen.