Paul E.Rummell – CIO at large

Paul E. Rummell
CIO at large
Self-employed

Career Highlights

• The Government of Canada’s first CIO, 1997-1998. “It was one of those things I didn’t seek. They came to me. There had been a blueprint established to move much more into the electronic age, into e-government. We really took that to the ground level from the 60,000-foot level. I got the Secure Channel work started. It’s been a long road to get that running, but I believe that’s mandated for this year.

“We set up a program management office so we could begin to get a handle on managing the portfolios across government. We broke them down into investments and infrastructure. We were putting in new financial systems, and then we had a huge investment call for Y2K. That was just something we had to do. I think the original budget I was given was $100 million for remediation, and eventually the budget came out to over $1 billion. That’s one of the things I had to do within the first few months of arriving – getting the money put aside.”

• Senior Client Executive, EDS, 2004-2006. “EDS is a great company. It has good roots, back to Ross Perot. I think the larger companies are facing some big challenges. They have realigned a lot of their resources around offshoring. It’s been a real competitive race for all these companies to get the right mix between offering services to the different countries.”
• Consulting work with KPMG, Canada Health Infoway and others. “I’ve really been a consultant to consultants. I’m also doing work for the U.S. government. I’m on the advisory board for the Controller-General. They write a lot of really good guidance that’s used across the United States for the Accountability Office. I’ve also been doing some teaching, including a privacy and security course through Federated Press.”

Education

• A Master’s in Economic theory from the University of Vienna and a BA in economics and business from Westmont College.

“I was taking a course in statistics. Nobody had ever gotten an ‘A’ on the lab exam because everyone was using the old-fashioned 10 x 10-key machines they used to use for multiplication. Nobody had finished in three hours. Across the hall I had taken a course in using the HP computers, and I used it to take the exam. I put the equations onto punch cards and I put the numbers in, and I was out of there in 30 minutes.”

Special Skills

• Early Internet adopter.

“I remember the first time I got on the Internet, when there were 643 sites in Canada. I was able to get the IP addresses set up to log in from my Compuserve account. When I was at Ernst & Young I was the first partner to have an Internet address printed on my business card.”

Career Objective

• “I like to see that there’s some social benefit to technology. I like where I’m working if there’s a lot of interaction with people, where there’s an impact on improving the quality of life for people. I’ve had the chance to meet with a couple of U.S. presidents, some of the Canadian prime ministers. It’s been a fantastic experience.”