CIO Partners Recruits Portfolio President and CIO for AccelerEd

February 16, 2023 – CIO Partners recently placed Ashish Patel as portfolio president and chief information officer for UMGC Ventures’ AccelerEd. A seasoned technology executive, Mr. Patel brings more than 20 years of experience in IT services, consulting, and E-commerce operations to AccelerEd.

As portfolio president and CIO, Mr. Patel leads the IT strategy and oversees the teams that modernize global enterprise applications and provide IT managed services for the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) and other prominent partner institutions. Building on AccelerEd’s history of innovation, his current knowledge and future vision of information technology advances the company’s mission of improving the student experience around the globe. He will report to the CEO of UMGC Ventures.

Before joining AccelerEd, Mr. Patel served as a managing director of digital acceleration for MorganFranklin Consulting with a focus on the firm’s CIO and CFO advisory practices and developing solutions in IT strategy, business transformation, and technology modernization. Throughout his career, he has helped organizations worldwide improve their technology readiness and efficiency, with a focus on aligning business processes and IT capabilities to realize cost savings, accelerate performance, and sustain strategic flexibility. Prior to MorganFranklin, Mr. Patel was senior vice president of technology for Bank of America, leading mobile and online retail banking technology projects, as well as CIO of Creative Marketing Solutions, where he played a key role in IT operations, fulfillment technology reengineering, and data management to drive business value.

UMGC Ventures is a supporting organization to the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), and a portfolio company that includes AccelerEd as its prominent venture. AccelerEd is an academic enablement company that makes next-generation technology both available and viable for educational institutions.

Veteran Recruiters

Marietta, GA-based CIO Partners is focused on technology leadership searches across all industries and corporate sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 100 organizations. Founded in 2001, the firm specializes in and emphasizes that it understands the uniqueness of the top technology roles.

With over 25 years of experience in the technology sector, founder Mike Burgett brings a wealth of hands-on experience to his global clients and to his local community. Prior to founding CIO Partners, he was CIO for a $1 billion private Fortune 500 organization. There, he led technology services from an operational perspective and was able to customize and implement a process-based approach and customer service within a corporate IT organization. Mr. Burgett began his career as a systems engineer with the global technology consulting company Electronic Data Systems. As a technology consultant within the automotive engineering and manufacturing industry for General Motors, he honed his technical ability and developed his strong sense toward process and project management.

CIO Recruiting

Over the past year, a number of organizations have turned to executive search firms to help them find top flight CIOs. Here are a few of the top assignments tracked by Hunt Scanlon Media:

ON Partners has assisted in the recruitment of Orla Daly as chief information officer of Skillsoft Corp., a Nashua, NH-based provider of corporate digital learning services. Partners Andy Hickman and Bryan Buck led the assignment. Ms. Daly brings 25 years of experience delivering effective IT and building business partnerships with leading organizations such as National Grid, Dell, and ExxonMobil. She joins Skillsoft from National Grid where she served as vice president of IT and digital organizational change management.

BridgeStreet Partners recently recruited Janya Kieffer as the new chief information officer of Austin Industries. Ms. Kieffer was most recently the vice president of information technology at Acme Brick, a Berkshire Hathaway company headquartered in Fort Worth, TX. Earlier in her career, she was the CIO at PrimeSource Building Products, one of the largest distributors of building materials in North America. She is a board member for the Dallas chapter of the Society for Information Management. Austin Industries is one of the nation’s largest, most diversified U.S.-based construction companies. The business provides nearly every type of civil, commercial, and industrial construction service.

Chapel Hill Solutions recently assisted in the recruitment of Mark Lauteren as the new chief information officer of Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, AL. Previously, Mr. Lauteren served as CIO for El Centro Regional Medical Center, where he led all aspects of information services and telecom to help the organization achieve their mission. Before that, he was CIO for Astria Health, where he was responsible for the leadership and management of the information services, clinical engineering, IT security/cybersecurity, project management office, and telecommunications.

Related: CIO Partners Seeking Top IT Leader for Builders FirstSource

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media